#I actually really enjoyed being a framer

[crusherthedoctor]

Top 5 Underappreciated Sonic levels, in your opinion

I was holding off on this one because being the weirdo that I am, there's a lot that come to mind, which is what happens when a fandom seems to only care about three or four locations in the whole series. So since I can do what I want with my lists, I'll instead list one per game. :] Not every game, just whichever ones that I can think of an example for.

Marble: the level design is blocky, but I dig the lava ruins aesthetic

Crystal Egg: really unique final zone, I'd love to see another stab at this concept

Hill Top: seems to get more love nowadays, but used to be widely considered the weakest Sonic 2 zone for being Emerald Hill 2: This Time It's Blue, I like it for being another unique take on a lava zone, very proto-Red Mountain

Quartz Quadrant: favourite zone (sorry, round) in CD, and not just cause it reminds me of @greenyvertekins' OC Verte Sinople, though that helps :>

Gigalopolis: an eye-catching city zone, even in 8-bit

Marble Garden: memorable Eggman fight with Tails, also has my favourite music in the Sonic 3 half next to Launch Base

Sandopolis: Act 2 might be a little slow, but I really like the Act 1 aesthetic, so there >:[

Marina Madness: level design is certified Knuckles Chaotix, but at least it looks pretty

Spring Stadium: I could really say any zone in 3D Blast because it's 3D Blast (Rusty Ruin <3, Volcano Valley <3), but I've really grown fond of the funhouse aesthetic here, shame about all the spears and spikes though :P

Radiant Emerald: glad they brought it back in Super Circuit, Double Dash, DS, Wii, this is a funny joke, pls laugh

Final Egg: picking one for SA1 is difficult because I think all of them are liked well enough, but Final Egg tends to get mentioned less frequently than other final levels in the series, and I won't stand for that

Pyramid Cave: probably the least discussed Sonic stage in SA2... well I like it (ghosts touching you inappropriately aside)

Ice Mountain: one of my favourite ice zones and Act 1 tracks

Techno Base: just as great as Music Plant

Egg Fleet: tends to get overshadowed by Final Fortress, I love how with this airship level in particular, the lack of clouds in the upper half of the skybox make it feel as though you're REALLY high up

Twinkle Snow: another favourite ice zone and music, even if the level design is one of the more... yeah

Digital Circuit: better cyberspace than the one in Frontiers (I would like to say Lost Impact for the atmosphere, but the tedium of the actual gameplay overwrites it for me unfortunately)

Mirage Road: underrated banger

Dark Desert: I know I keep mentioning desert levels lol, but a desert town during an eclipse is very striking

Aquatic Base: level itself is certified '06, but the music is S-tier and it paves the way for the greatest Eggman defeated cutscene in all of fiction

Night Palace: see Crystal Egg

Pirates' Island: interesting final zone, also leads up to TE DAVY JOOONES WITH YE

Aquatic Capital: includes Tempest Waterway as well

Jungle Joyride: despite the framerate's spirited efforts to drag it down

Misty Lake: I don't care too much for most of the levels in Black Knight, but Not Kingdom Valley looks nice

Sylvania Castle: aesthetically at least, it's a cool take on an Aquatic Ruin-type area

Dolphin Resort: cool aquarium/shopping mall combo, just a shame it was trapped in Free Riders

Aquarium Park: this has always been my favourite zone in Colours... between this and Dolphin Resort, clearly I enjoy me some underwater tubes

Titanic Monarch: dark and colorful simultaneously, and I don't struggle with it as much as most fans seem to

Mortar Canyon: its biggest crime is how short it is, cause then I can't hear the music :(

Egg Fortress: it might start off as a standard Not Death Egg, but I love the reverse gimmick in Act 2, and I actually like the final boss' brutality because it's Eggman punishing fans for portraying him as a dad ack ack ack ack ack

[deusexlachina]

KOTOR: Fun enough, but severely overrated

Finished Knights Of The Old Republic. The RPG elements were quite solid, though things tend to fall into light side or dark side - as with a lot of early Bioware games, a lot of choices are just piss-evil for no discernible reason. They feel more like edgy gamer choices than actually succumbing to wrath/a lust for power/etc.

You also get dark side points for all kinds of things. Basically any smug or aggressive dialogue will corrupt you, as will saying you embrace the dark side unless it's explicitly tagged as a lie. One of the Macguffins is guarded by an AI that gives you a personality test, only letting you through if you give dark side answers. It asks what you'd do if your city was under attack, I say I'd let them die. My rogue expresses shock that I'd kill all those poor people! Apparently she just takes for granted that I'm being completely honest with the "Give All The Evil Answers" Machine, yet she just rolls with her belief that I really would kill lots of innocent people for no reason. She still hangs out with me and shoots people for me.

This wouldn't be annoying, except there's a buff for being 100% light side and not an ethical penny less. For instance, the party wonders how we can defeat the villain. Saying you can kick their ass, because you already have, gives you dark side points, partly because you're not supposed to want to fight in this combat-heavy RPG. Whammo! Strength buff gone just in time for the endgame! RELOAD. To preserve your good boy points, you have to insist that they'd never fall to the dark side, even though they already have and it took them all of one week. And then you get chided by your companions because the dark side of the force is a temptation for everyone, didn't you know? Please don't be mean, buddy, I promise I'm not naive, I'm just on Jedi Probation and I can't ever express any sentiment spicier than pumpkin pie or I'll lose my sweet, sweet passive bonus.

The gameplay uses the D20 system for some ungodly reason. 3rd edition was the one around when I was a kid, so I would be nostalgic for it if it didn't suck ass.

This game was made for Xbox, not computer, and it really shows. You routinely get stuck in the floor. Unless your framerate is synced to 60 FPS, your character becomes immobile after every other combat. Even aside from the outright bugs, movement with mouse and keyboard is incredibly finnicky and precise movement is very difficult. This is fine as long as you never have to move in just the right way, such as a floor tile puzzle that requires stepping on just the right tiles in the right order. Or the game's many, many landmines.

You can disable landmines, but doing so requires one skill to detect the mine and another skill to actually defuse it. Here comes the Boring Skill Tax! Even if you have both skills, the controls and UI are both so bad that I often tried to click on the disarm mine button and the character ran right on top of the mine. Mines are deadly, not so much because of their damage but because if there are any enemies near them, you have to aim very very carefully to avoid your entire party charging into mines, possibly including your controlled character.

The characters are...well, I didn't go crazy for any of them, and the bad ones are so bad they deserve their own post. I'm kind of fond of Juhani, the bald lesbian catgirl who has already fallen to evil when you encounter her but has a light side alignment and doesn't start with any dark side powers. She tried to kill me, but she's gay so I instantly forgave her, a choice which gave me light side points.

As frustrating as it was, I did overall enjoy it. I just, uh, wouldn't recommend it, unless you're really scraping the bottom of the Bioware barrel. It's more fun than Jade Empire, but so is Microsoft Word. It's about on the same level as Mass Effect 1 or Andromeda, but it's much weaker than ME2, ME3 or any of the Dragon Age games.

I'm interested in trying the sequel, which is supposed to be much better. That one's by Obsidian, who are perhaps most famous for Fallout: New Vegas. That one's overrated too, but it is quite fun.

[jorrmungandr]

(. ❛ ᴗ ❛.)

Ahhhhhhhh, havin' another relaxing day.

Been playing more Lies of P lately, it's really good. I had trouble with it at the start, but since I came back to it the other day it's been smooth sailing. Not sure if that's just a brain rest thing, or if I was just right at the breaking point where I got enough stats to play the way I like to. That way being sort of a strength-focused block-based bruiser, as my traditional favorite style in this kind of game.

I've just been flying through bosses, beat the city streets and the factory. The weapon combination system is very cool, though I haven't really been able to find any especially interesting combos yet. I keep just going back to the starting greatsword, it's nice and solid. Can't wait to be able to buy some boss weapons, the one you get for the King's Flame looks really cool.

I never did get very far in Bloodborne, even though I was finally able to get it with my PS5. I dunno, I think it was overhyped over the years, and the framerate really does feel bad. I've heard that it has like... subtly messed up frame pacing, that actually makes it feel way worse than the 30fps it consistently has, and I believe it. Probably would've loved if I had played it when it came out, but alas! Well, I am also a noted Parry Disliker, so maybe not.

I've been taking a break from podcasts this afternoon, doing some personal writing and listening to the Misericorde soundtrack. It's been going for two hours and I'm not even halfway through, this is a truly absurd amount of music. Xeecee really spoiled us.

Feeling very tempted to get back into FFXIV... the next expansion is coming out over the summer, so now would be a good time to go and start getting caught up. I stopped playing after the first Endwalker patch, I felt kinda burned out on the game. I'd been playing pretty intensely single like patch 5.3, so a good two years.

Also like... I really enjoyed the plot of Endwalker, but I do think it tied things up a bit too neatly. It was too final, y'know what I mean? Like, it felt like there wasn't really anywhere left for the plot to really explore that would be interesting. The stuff I've heard about the patch plots is cool, but not enough to draw me back in. Plus I wasn't super interested in the raids or alliance raids, either for plot or for aesthetics.

Part of the problem, I suppose, is that Shadowbringers was just so good that anything would be a letdown afterwards. And, indeed, it was. I am way more interested in the next expansion, though, where we're just goin' to a brand new place and exploring again. It'll be great to have something geographically and thematically coherent.

[kocurek1921]

Syberia 3 (2017)

Game main theme is how indigenous ways aren't dying but are being actively prosecuted and killed by the advancing behemoth of industrialization. It does feel like it occasionally dabbles in white saviourism and a tad of orientalism (written by a Belgian after all) but I will leave that discussion to actual indigenous voices. I overall enjoyed it, especially that the Inon Zur soundtrack was PHENOMENAL.

What I did not enjoy is the quality of the Switch port. Widely inconsistent framerate, extremely muddy textures and comically long loading times really made it difficult to appreciate the game. I think it's the worst Switch port I've experienced thus far. If you ever plan on playing the game get it on Playstation, Steam or GoG.

Not showing the usual screenshots because Switch port isn't representative of the amount of effort the art department put into the project.

[hullbreachgame]

First Update!

Hello! I'm Duncan, and this is where I'm going to be posting updates for my personal, hopefully-to-be-completed-one-day game project!

The quick sales pitch: Heat Signature with a dash of Hardspace: Shipbreaker.

The less-quick sales pitch: A game where you play a highly disposable (and incredibly indebted) fixer who solves a big problem that a lot of individuals and companies have in the time of FTL travel; sometimes you would very much like something, but unfortunately it is on someone else's ship. In fact, it is often not just on someone else's ship, but in fact behind large amounts of personnel who may hold some strong objections to removing it from their ship. Or, they may in fact be the asset that needs retrieving and may not be particularly interested in coming quietly. Your goal? Completing the objectives set forth in your contract, employing whichever methods suit your particular tastes as well as the contract's stipulations-- some might want you to use a more delicate touch, while others want to send a message. Do what you can to earn as much as you can and maybe even pay off your debt-- or just try and enjoy the relative impunity you operate under.

Things are very much in the planning and testing phase right now. So, without further ado, let's get into one of the big things being worked on right now: Destruction.

------------------------CLANG - what was that?!-------------------------

The game is being developed in Godot 4, which is a fantastic engine for people who are a bit less experienced in the development space. It does have a few major downsides though, and one of the huge ones is a lack of assets and libraries. This makes it a little bit harder to get things moving and also means that there is the need to kind of develop quite a few things completely from scratch.

One thing that people who have messed with things like Godot and Unity in the past would probably understand is that you really want your collision objects to be convex. Basically, nice and solid, no holes or dips. You can stick a line in anywhere and it will only ever exit in one spot. In fact, you cannot even have rigidbodies with concave collisions in Godot. This is because it's really hard to calculate concave collisions, and really expensive on a computational level. This translates to: please have mercy on my framerate.

This generally isn't a huge problem, and there's plenty of ways to get around this, like just using static bodies, manipulating collision masks (which I actually will be using for a few neat things!), or you make sure that your concave objects, like a tunnel, or a doorway, are composed of convex polygons. A square room, for example, isn't just one big cube typically, it's six squares representing each face, 6 distinct collision objects.

It might be useful, then, to have some ways to break a concave shape into convex ones. And you'd be right! In fact, you'd be so right, that you'd assume it was a problem we've completely solved. And you would not be correct unfortunately! It's a topic that has a truly gargantuan amount of research poured into it. Google "Convex Decomposition" if you want to learn more about the subject-- it is genuinely very interesting-- there are people far more qualified than me to talk about it.

I have some plans in mind to solve the problem in a way that is performant for my needs, and I will also be (hopefully, providing it doesn't end up being utterly impractical) releasing these tools on their own within Godot so that other people can use them for free as well!

Actually writing out the code for it is... interesting, to say the least, as I am not gifted in the ways of geometry, and did not know too much about mesh generation until recently. However, I am currently working at implementing a very quick-and-dirty 'hole cutting' method right now.

Here is a gif that shows off the basic process for how it works:

Here's an explanation of how the general process will work:

Figure out your hole shape-- in this case, it's a square hole made by the rod punching through the prism. Get the points along the corners as well as your direction. In this case, we've got the 4 points on the face closest to the camera and pointed towards the left face.

Make a plane that is flush with the first 2 points and in the direction of the cut. Everything to one side gets snipped off of the first mesh and moved into another one (we don't actually separate them, but it is separated for easier visualization). Additionally, make a note of the first point in the hole and its intersection point-- in this case, bottom left point of the hole and about 3/4 of the way along the bottom of the prism.

Now-- repeat this step until you get to the last point of the hole; create a plane flush with the side, snip off everything on one side, and move to the next side. Connect everything up. Additionally, if this is the last repeat of this step, make a note of if you have intersected the two points from step 2. If so, you can drop the intersection point from step 2.

For the last points, just connect the previous point, the first point, and the intersection point from the previous point and the first intersection if it wasn't dropped.

After you've gotten all those pieces, you can just replace the original mesh with the 4 new ones. Tada! You have what looks like a hole through a mesh, but in reality it's 4 segments. If you're so inclined, you can also make the surface of the cut its own material-- maybe you want the 'inside' of a wall to look different.

Now, this solution isn't perfect. It cannot be multi-threaded in this fashion, since the sequential cuts depend on the prior cut to happen. I have a few other methods that could actually be done simultaneously, but this one is pretty easy to visualize and for the purposes of the game it should be completely functional. The astute among you may also realize that this will not work for concave holes without a few changes-- this is actually not the hardest fix, but it won't be relevant for the purposes of this type of destruction. It might be included in the library, though!

My next goal is to actually get this method implemented in Godot so that I can show it in action! This will also get me a bit more comfortable with mesh manipulation.

After that, we will be able to get to some really exciting stuff as well with some more... dynamic destruction. Cutting holes is all fine and dandy, but what about smashing them? Hopefully you'll see some more on that in the future!

[ofcowardiceandkings]

me rambling about "Staring at the Sun" by Jacob Gellar and how much it smacked me in the face under the cut lol (contains exactly ZERO spoilers for TotK 💙)

AS SOON as i saw that his video would touch on the quests it does in some way i knew it'd fuck me up for a week or two but i didnt expect it to go that way - he rarely dives into the base plot of these things so i knew that was safe but ohhhh man

ive not played The Last Guardian but i know its one of my best friends favourite games, though the light in watching my partner play Shadow of the Colossus was amazing to see, but this really hit me hard because it pin-pointed one of the things i love most and maybe why i just love being in the world of Tears of the Kingdom (and BotW) so much ?? ive always been a fan of impressionist art too, and Turner as well, i've been trying to push myself into that space in my own art for so long. i always feel mega cliche saying these really well known artists are my favourites but i truly mean it jfdkjf ... this is probably one of the reasons i appreciated how bright and chipper the art style for Skyward Sword was with its fading blues and 'brush strokes', but it just doesnt compare to Breath or Tears with the amount of work the light puts in now, i spend so much time just STARING and ive just realised its usually at the light playing the forms and atmosphere in a real but beyond real way

i'm stuck in two art world of really enjoying doing linework and texture - and being reasonable at it - but wanting to go into colour and light though ive never been comfortable with doing so for some reason ??? im trying but i often just forget to try when im just drawing something self-indulgent and silly (most of what i have time for)

the play of light off cave art and that theory has lodged in my head forever too, As A Nerd On Such Things, there's something absolutely stunning about cave art, how it was made how it was put there and why how it was supposed to be viewed if at all, anything. absolutely fascinating, especially with the seemingly shifting images of Chauvet & Lascaux caves ??

a thing that always stuck with me as well - it might seem like a bizarre pull but it feels the same to me - is actually how the sun is portrayed and animated in the 1978 Watership Down ??? pulsing and moving and quaking with pattern and colour, not to be seen properly by us on earth, but you cant NOT look. i've not shaken the imagery of the sun from that movie from my mind since the first time i saw it as a child im STILL obsessed, it STILL almost haunts me

additionally, as someone who's repeatedly defended how these games look to people who complain about framerates and textures and whatever, i appreciate this. don't get me wrong, it doesnt HURT, especially from such a large gaming company (not that Nintendo have ever put heavy focus on the technical specs of their products though lets be real) but Breath/Tears just emphasises how much art direction or a vision can carry a project compared to other high-spec but ultimately forgettable titles. maybe a little much salt in that sentiment on my end but boy it bothers me when its all people can think about.

i'm gonna be stuck here for another few weeks lol this happens every time Jacob posts a video theyre ALL so winding and drawn out and beautiful gjfkds fuck

[ellie-bygrave]

FMP - "At the forefront": Lumen

Using UE5 gives access to a very powerful lighting tool called Lumen, which has dynamic global illumination and reflections built-in. This allows for real-time viewing of the final output when working on a game or render. Previously, lighting had to be baked in order to see the full effects of any changes, a process which could become time consuming in a complex scene. Lumen calculates and shows all lighting and reflections as you edit things, speeding up and streamlining the workflow.

I use Lumen almost exclusively and have been using it in my current project. Lumen has been great for getting realistic reflections on my glass material as well as being useful for creating the bright sky with a slightly darker inside area.

However, there are some limitations to using Lumen. I have been experimenting with adding a mirror into my level. To do this I have used a mirror object with a low roughness and high metallic material to mimic a mirror. There are several ways to actual achieve a mirror reflection in Unreal but the method I found worked best was to use a planar reflection box around the mirror. For this to work, the reflection method in the project has to be set to Standalone Ray Traced. Here you can see the difference in using Lumen reflections (left) vs Ray Traced (right):

Changing the reflection type clearly makes a big difference to the mirror reflections. However, I do see some performance issues when using the Ray Traced reflections. The framerate drops a lot which is not ideal, especially as I plan to screen record the short section of gameplay I'm making for people to watch back.

I managed to create a solution which involves using 2 different post-process volumes. I have one set to infinite extents (unbound) that uses Lumen for reflections. This is what the player would experience most of the time to ensure smooth running of the level. I also created a smaller local post-process volume with exactly the same settings except it uses the ray Traced reflections instead of Lumen. Then I added in a trigger box at the door of the bathroom which, when the player crosses it, disables the main post-process volume, leaving the Ray tracing available to give proper reflections on the mirror. I set it up as a Flip/Flop so crossing into the bathroom allows the Ray Tracing (and causes the frame drops) and going back out re-enables the main post process volume and stops the stuttering. It isn't a perfect solution as there are still frame drops but it keeps them localised to only a small area of the level.

Overall I really enjoy using Lumen as I find it much more intuitive than other methods of lighting. I'm definitely not an expert at lighting and have only touched the surface of what it an do and when to use vs not use it but it is an excellent tool to be able to use.

[veebs-hates-video-games]

I finally finished Tokyo Mirage Sessions #FE Encore, and it only took me barely less than two years to do it. Woo.

I took a lot of extended breaks from it because I kept getting burned out on it, but the stuff I liked I liked enough to eventually make it through the rest. The game probably would've been better and I probably would've needed a lot fewer/a lot shorter breaks if it were like 20 hours shorter (it took me about 80 to do almost everything you can do on a single playthrough), which would've been really easily doable with a few QoL improvements and slightly better design decisions with stuff like combat and the dungeons, all while still keeping all the story/character stuff that I genuinely liked and never had a problem with.

The two biggest problems I had were the dungeons themselves and the lack of useful guidance/direction/tracking for a lot of the side content.

Dungeons first: they're just too long. Make more of them but have each one be smaller, or keep the same number and make them a bit shorter. I always was like "are we there yet?" by the time I got to the end of them, and they really started to drag. The unique gimmicks for navigating each of them were mostly fun the first time through, but some of them suck suck suck every time you have to go back there for a character's side quest or a request or something. If I ever have to even look at Illusory 106 again I'm going to hunt down the person who designed it and bludgeon them with a Wii U gamepad.

Quest tracking second: it's mid at best and nonexistent at worst. Doing everything through an in-game phone UI is a fun idea, and it works pretty well for some stuff. The organization of it for quest info is not the best though, and having to reread a bunch of text messages to hopefully find the info you need is not great either. The worst offender is the requests though. Hi, sorry I didn't play your game for like five months, but I have no idea what this dingus wants me to do because I can't use the notes app my phone doesn't have to write it down apparently, and they'll only repeat a single sentence to me that doesn't have any useful information for me to figure it out.

Sometimes even when they do tell you and you don't stop playing the game for months in between the information it gives is pretty vague and makes it hard to figure out where to go and what to do too. Cool, I have to get...a thing? And it's in this idolasphere...somewhere? Is it on the ground? In a chest? From an enemy? On the third floor? Near the boss? Oh, I'm just supposed to run around for an hour until I stumble on it (or look it up online)? Cool and good, fantastic way to respect my time. I don't need a glowing line on the floor or anything, but give me something to work with at least.

Anyway, I liked most other stuff about it. The combat system is fun, even if I did get a little tired of it by the end because of the overly long dungeons (also not being able to permanently learn skills and swap them in and out of your loadout whenever you want is a dick move, no one wants to spend multiple hours relearning everything just to try a different setup) and each attack takes like twice as long as it should even with quick session on.

I still think it's one of the better looking games on the Switch. It's not super technically impressive or anything, but the art style and character designs are fun and colorful, and thank you for not trying to push the hardware beyond what it's capable of. Slightly lower detail and simpler lighting but native(?) resolution and a mostly steady framerate will do wonders for image quality and let people actually enjoy all the fun stuff your artists did.

And the characters and story were all surprisingly fun for me. It definitely came out better than a lot of actual Fire Emblem stories, and they really leaned into the shonen anime in a fantasy version of the real world vibes and made it work while still incorporating a bunch of FE stuff while they were at it. I actually ended up liking pretty much all the characters and the way the developed and grew across the story and how that tied in with their FE counterparts too. And they really did just go for it and turn Shadow Dragon and the Blade of Light into Shadow Dragon and the Opera of Light, because sure why not?

Kiria's probably my favorite, which isn't super surprising because I also really liked Tharja when I played Awakening (so many people seem to like her because she has female mages aren't allowed to wear clothes disease or hate her because she's a bad parent, but they're both wrong and the real most important thing about her is that she's a snarky bitch in a cast full of people trying to use the power of friendship to save the world). I actually found Itsuki pretty relatable though, which surprised me because usually generic dude main character is completely unrelatable to me in stuff like this. He's just a decent guy who learns that the thing he's best at is helping the people around him feel better about themselves and support them doing their own things, which like yeah me too buddy, if only I'd learned that when I was 18 too.

So yeah, pretty good game that I mostly had a good time with, even if there were a few moderately big issues that frustrated me more than I would've liked (see also: holy crap the amount of time I spent going through the menus just to upgrade weapons must be measured in multiple hours at this point, please streamline stuff like that). I think I liked it more than maybe half the Fire Emblem games I've played and every other MegaTen or adjacent game I've tried too, so that's something.

[rapifessor]

As you might have guessed by my lack of Genshin-related posting in recent times, I'm barely playing the game anymore. Still logging in daily, but only for Daily Check-In, Expeditions, Daily Commissions, and claiming Battle Pass rewards, which takes all of about 15 minutes. And my dissatisfaction with the game's content direction has been made rather clear, I'd say.

Something I have been really into, on the other hand, is Skyrim. As a Skyrim on Switch enjoyer, I was really excited when Anniversary Edition came to the platform in September last year. At the time though, I was seriously bummed out by the frankly unacceptable framerate issues and dropped the game for a while. Those issues have since been fixed, however, so I got back into the game and have really been enjoying it.

The Switch version still has some somewhat significant problems, but thankfully they don't affect what I do all that much. There's an issue that, bafflingly, has existed in the game since Anniversary Edition was released that makes it impossible to gain ownership of the only player home on Solstheim, Severin Manor. It's the most convenient location for crafting endgame gear, but that's all I really used it for, so not having it just means that crafting endgame gear is a bit more annoying than before.

Since I got back into the game, I've completed an alchemist/poisoner character and have made significant progress with a stealth archer "kill every NPC in the game" character. The way I play Skyrim is similar to the way I play Terraria: several playthroughs with different characters using different builds. I tend not to do much after that, sadly, as by the time I've completed a build there's usually no more challenge to be had, even on the highest difficulty setting.

This stealth archer thing might be an exception though as I'm having loads of fun with it. Yes, I know, it's essentially the basic bitch of Skyrim character builds, but it's the one I have the most fun with. I enjoy being able to relax and play the game at my own pace with a build that rewards precision and careful positioning/planning.

So I think I’ll probably post some more about Skyrim in the future, at least until I get tired of it again, which hopefully won't be for a while. I've got other builds I want to try, one of which is an actual melee build for once. I've never taken one to completion because, frankly, early game melee sucks ass in Skyrim, but I should do one if only for the sake of not doing yet another stealth or magic build.

[sage-nebula]

And I don't say that to diss on the newer games, to be like, "the old games are the only valid ones!" because anyone who has followed me for awhile knows that, for example, I love Sword/Shield, and honestly I would like Scarlet/Violet a lot more if a.) they weren't nigh unplayable due to how poorly they run, and b.) they didn't cut even more corners than their predecessors, especially when it comes to what should be really basic shit by now, character customization. My criticisms of newer Pokémon games mostly stem from the fact that Game Freak is cutting tons of corners, and part of the reason for those cut corners (aside from crunch) is that Masuda doesn't seem to understand what Pokémon fans actually enjoy and want anymore. (His comment about removing postgame content like the Battle Frontier because "all people want to play is mobile phone games" will forever haunt me.)

But I do think that there was a sort of mystery that came with older games -- not just Pokémon, but in general -- in a time before the internet and social media were widespread. Like I remember when I first got into Tales of Symphonia, for instance, and I saw the characters in the opening and didn't know who they were until I met them in-game. This was in 2005, so it was before a huge social media boom. Maybe Namco was still spoiling things with trailers and such back then, but despite being an internet user at the time I didn't really know it. But then years later, when Tales of Xillia was coming out, we had detailed bios and trailers of all the party members long before the game even released. The mystery was ruined.

And Pokémon does this, too. They release trailer after trailer, albeit sometimes to their detriment because they show off the cut corners, but a lot of things that would have, in the past, been surprises are now things you know going in. And I understand why this is done; they want people excited to play these games, they want to drive up hype. But it's a fine line between driving up hype and taking away things for the player to discover. And it's especially notable in something like Pokémon, where they've been reducing the explorable areas (even with the open world nature of ScarVio, there's really not too much there to actually explore, especially with all the framerate drops and glitching and potential crashes). They reduce the explorable areas and take out major puzzles, so there's not really anything to discover beyond what they decide to spoil in trailers.

This still sounds a lot like "back in my day it was better!" but, I dunno. You can't really get around the fact that everything and everyone is on the internet now, so things are going to be spoiled. But I think that, with Pokémon at least, it wouldn't be as much of a problem if they still had hidden areas and puzzles that weren't shown in the trailers, and that actually took some work. Everyone always brings up the braille puzzles for the Regis in RSE, but I think it's valid to bring them up! Yeah it was hard, yeah we had to learn how to read braille, but it was also extremely fun and rewarding, to go on that mystery hunt and read that braille and figure out the clues to solve the puzzles to find a legendary pokémon. I love Sword/Shield, but the max raids or adventures or whatever they were called in Crown Tundra to get the legendaries really doesn't compare at all.

This is a long ramble, and it's not anything too new; I think a lot of people agree that Game Freak has cut a lot of this stuff out of Pokémon and that it's sad they've done so. And I also think there a lot of people who would agree that, prior to social media becoming a huge thing, it was a lot easier to have hidden and discoverable things in games. Granted, little kids whose parents manage to keep them off social media could still have a similar experience, maybe . . . but it would be hard for them to do so when things like the Regi puzzles have been taken out. (Though at least Sword/Shield brought back some roamers, and I did like the Sword of Ruin legendaries in ScarVio.)

I dunno. This is really long and probably wasn't needed. It was just thoughts I was having. I'm going to get back to the episode now.

As a Johto native, I have to say, episode 78 of Horizons? Totally unrealistic. The true Johto experience is Entei fleeing the second you get into battle with it unless you secure it with a Mean Look or somesuch similar. And even then, it will usually use Roar to bail anyway. All of us from Johto know this.

[yeah-yeah-beebiss-1]

would you recommend scarlet & violet to someone who really didn’t like sword & shield? (ignoring the obvious performance issues)

Depends on what you disliked about it.

-The fairly low general difficulty is still present, although the nonlinear structure means you can choose between “standard modern Pokémon difficulty curve the whole way through” or “challenging for half the game and then steamrolling through the half you’re overleved for.” People have already figured out an order to do everything in that will give you a fairly typical Pokémon level curve, but anyone going in blind is going to have a weird mix of all-or-nothing difficulty.

-Story is a bit more present than SwSh, although it isn’t on the level of SM or BW. You’ve got 18 objectives divided into three story arcs (typical gym-challenge routine, dealing with school delinquents, learning about the legendary Pokémon) that you have to complete to reach the climax.

-The school setting feels barely relevant, for better or worse. They send you out into the world very early on and while you can go back to take classes (cutscenes likely intended to teach newcomers basic gameplay mechanics), I haven’t seen any real benefit to doing so yet. The history classes offer interesting bits of lore, but that’s about it.

-Linear routes are gone, instead you effectively have one gargantuan Wild Area.

-No HMs. You can use (the equivalent of) Fly to landmarks you’ve already visited immediately, and doing the titan quests unlocks new movement options for Ko/Miraidon (sprinting, swimming, higher jumps, climbing, and gliding).

-Trainer battles out in the field are completely optional, you have to talk to them to initiate a battle. This sounds heretical, but I feel like it’s a wise decision in light of the open world - it would be a massive pain in the ass to be trying to run to a destination only to get interrupted by a trainer you missed whose whole team is now 15 levels lower than yours so you have to mindlessly mash A for two minutes to get moving again.

-Terastal is an improvement over Dynamax, it actually has meaningful strategic implications without being a “BECOME THE FUCKING STRONG” button.

-I’m enjoying the raids a bit more than SwSh’s, they use a weird Final Fantasy-type ATB system for a faster pace rather than just repeatedly bashing at barriers (and the raid theme is a banger).

-Towns/cities feel more barebones because you can only enter 2-3 buildings per town (gyms and sandwich shops, nearly everything else is either a menu you interact with or just a facade).

-Breeding is in fact still present, but there’s no daycare - instead, you set up a picnic and idle and compatible pairs of Pokémon will just randomly spawn eggs for you. The other picnic features are making sandwiches (which give “make X-type Pokémon spawn more frequently for Y minutes”-type buffs), and a clone of SM’s washing mode.

-Can’t comment on online/multiplayer aspects due to lmao pirated copy, but if it chugs this much in single player, I’m not optimistic.

-I know you already said “aside from the performance issues,” but let me reiterate that you can make Ko/Miraidon backwards-long-jump up cliffs like it’s a Super Mario 64 speedrun. It’s very silly.

In general, I feel like they could’ve had something really special on their hands if they’d given it another year or two in the oven, and there are certainly moments where that specialness shines through. But then you find another “city” that’s effectively a bunch of facades and a gym, or the framerate drops, or you have to deal with the clunky-ass minimap and you’re reminded of how half-baked it all feels. If you like Pokémon, have a high tolerance for jank, and can find a copy on sale, you’ll have a solid time with it. But I can’t in good conscience recommend people drop $60 on it.

[kristannafever]

A Sky Full of Sun

Kristanna Modern AU Rated: M  WC: 2032

~This is 1000% self-indulgent and all fluff 

------------

Kristoff smiled at the sundog in the sky.  It was only on the coldest, sunniest of mornings that you got to see such a neat phenomenon.  He hastily fished his phone out of his jacket pocket to take a quick picture for his Ma.   She enjoyed stuff like that.  He did too.  It was breathtaking, and she had always told him growing up that it was a good omen for his day.  

“This fucking cold snap is something else.” Sven came up to him, dramatically rubbing his arms trying to warm up, his breath coming out in white vapour as he talked.

“It certainly sucks to work in.” Kristoff slipped his phone back into his Carhart jacket.  In all honestly the cold wasn’t too big a deal to him. Being a construction framer, they worked in all kinds of weather and he was rarely bothered by it.  Except when frigid temperatures brought nasty wind chills, then it was a nightmare and he would go home and have the hottest of showers and sit on the couch with his big blanket, thick wool socks on, and a blazing fire in the wood stove.

“So… about Mexico-”

“I don’t know, Sven. I’m not really a beach kind of guy.”  They started off trudging trough the deep snow to where a lift sat waiting for them to haul materials onto and get to work. “I don’t like sand and I hate that it gets everywhere.”

“It’s not just the beach though!  There are pools, and a bar, and fishing, and quads, and sunset cruises, and Ixtapa island, and of course Zihua has a lot to offer.”

“Zihua?”

“Zihuantanejo, you know what I mean.  From Shawshank Redemption, like I said.”

“I know, Sven.  I just wasn’t sure you were so familiar all of the sudden.”

Sven made at face at the smirk Kristoff was giving him and the proceeded to load wood onto the lift. His friend had been on it for days on end.  He even went so far as to rent a four-bedroom condo for two weeks and now he was trying to find someone to help with the cost of the place.

“What about Ed, he’ll go with you.”

“Ed?  Fuck you, Kris.  Really.”

Kristoff laughed in his friends face as they loaded the plywood.  Ed was nice and a good worker, but the guy was impossible to take in anything but small doses.  Couple times he tagged a long for a beer after work and most of the guys at the table wanted to tape his mouth shut, he was so crass.  

“It’ll be sunny and thirty-plus degrees every day down there!  Come on, Man.  You’re by BFF.”

Kristoff snorted.  “I know I am, and that means you should know that beach vacations just aren’t my thing.”

Sven pouted at him. The man really pouted, and Kristoff decided he could throw him a bone.  It had been a long time since he’d been anywhere besides camping for a vacation.

“Fine, fine.  You’ve officially worn me down.”  Sven grinned like an idiot and opened his mouth to comment, but Kristoff stuck a finger in his face.  “But I’m bringing a bunch of books and I am doing my own thing, you got that?  If I don’t want to go to the beach, you leave me alone.   If I don’t feel like going out to any night clubs you’ve been talking about taking Liz to, you leave me alone.”  Kristoff resumed loading wood, then added, “I don’t feel like being a third wheel the whole time anyway.”

There was a silence then and Kristoff’s stomach twisted.  Damn Sven.  Damn him, because Kristoff knew was about to come out of his friend’s mouth.

“Well, Liz invited a friend too because there are four bedrooms-”

“For fuck’s sake, Sven!”

“No, no, listen!  It’s actually great because she initially asked this other couple we know, but between you, me and the outhouse, they are insufferable dickheads who always try and one-up ya, you know?  But they dropped out due to some family drama bullshit or whatever so Liz has this new work friend who… you know... could use a friendly group of people-”

“People my ass!” Kristoff felt his cheeks getting hot. “Let me guess, she’s single.”

Sven hesitated. “Well, yes.  But-”

“You’re seriously trying to set me up on my fucking vacation?”

Sven’s hands went up in surrender.  “No, seriously dude!  That’s not what this is.  Not at all! We’re honestly just trying to get people to fill rooms, but we’re having a hard time finding takers to help with the cost.  I don’t even think we’re going to be able to fill the fourth room.  I mean we already paid for the whole thing after all.”

“I’ve never known you to over-commit on something.” Kristoff managed with a serious face.

It took Sven a half a second to recognize the joke and he burst into a huge smile.  “You’re still in then?”

Kristoff looked back up to the sun dog in the frigid air, making his decision final despite his sudden reservations about a stranger joining them.  “Yeah, yeah,” he said through a sigh.  “I’m due for a vacation anyway.”  

They jumped onto the lift and started to bring it up then Kristoff turned to Sven, and gave him a firm look.  

“But I’m not going to play nice if you all try to gang up on me and make me do shit I don’t want to do.”

“Oh, I believe you, you grumpy asshole.”

Kristoff nodded, comment aside and they got to work.

 Two Months Later

A ringing phone woke him up.

Kristoff rolled over to grab his cell of the nightstand, wondering who the hell was calling him at this hour, whatever hour it was, he had no idea.  He went to bed at nine in the anticipation of getting up early to catch his plane to Mexico.

“Yeah?” he groaned, as he sat up in bed, rubbing the sleep out of his eyes.

All he heard was hacking on the other end.  Kristoff pulled the phone away from his face to look at the screen and realized it was Sven.

“Sven?  You okay?”

After the sound of a flushing toilet and some clearing of a clearly hoarse throat, he spoke.  “I’m sorry Dude, I really am.  I am a as sick as a dog.  Gotta be food poisoning or something.”

Kristoff let his head fall between his shoulders.  “You’re not making this plane, are you?”

“Unless I can stop puking and shitting myself, that would be a no.”

He felt for his friend, he really did, but that meant he now had to board a plane by himself, go to a condo he didn’t rent in his name, and supposedly meet someone who Liz had invited to stay with them.  It was too much, he would have to cancel, money be dammed.  It was too awkward.  

“I told you that gas station sushi was a bad idea,” Kristoff huffed.

Sven groaned in response.

“I’m sorry, dude.  It sucks you’re sick.”  

“I’ll get my ass down there,” he mumbled.  “It just won’t be tomorrow.  Or today? What the fuck time is it?”

Kristoff pulled the phone from his face to look at the time.  “Quarter after three.”

Sven wretched again and Kristoff hung up.  That was something he didn’t want to listen to, so he texted his friend he hoped he felt better and to keep him posted on how he was doing and when he might be able to catch another flight down.

Sleep was impossible after that.  

He had to be up at six anyway, it wasn’t anything to him to kill a couple of hours cleaning his small house for when he got back.   He was a little anxious what it was going to be like without his friends there for a buffer, but he was trying his hardest to take things as they came lately, no matter how much they infringed on his comfort zone.  

*******

Anna could not keep the smile from her face.    She was so excited to head somewhere warm for two weeks with nothing on the agenda but rest and relaxation.   Liz and Sven would have to join them later – poor Sven and his food poisoning – but at least she wouldn’t be alone.  She was going to meet a new friend!

There was no way she figured she be able to pick him out in an airport full of people waiting to board planes, but there he was, right in front of her when she cleared security and walked into the terminal.  Just as described, he was blond, tall, broad chested and ruggedly handsome, although she wasn’t sure why Liz had even added that last little tidbit since she assured Anna this was not a set up or anything like that.  They just needed help paying for the Condo.  

Anna felt a pull to go up and talk to him then, except he was eating breakfast and that was hardly the right time to introduce yourself to someone.  Not only that, she needed to grab some food for herself.  There wasn’t much open in the terminal so early and she had to admit that the sub he was eating looked pretty good.  Anna got in line at Subway to get herself one and by the time she got it with a mind to maybe sit at his table, he was gone.

Not that it bothered her, she was looking forward to fun and sun and getting away from the frigid cold weather.  Even if the guy was a jerk, all the rooms had their own bathrooms and she could put herself in her own space when she was in the condo and not be bothered by anyone. She was no stranger to doing things by herself.

Anna ate her sub and walked around the terminal a bit, stopping at the place to load up on snacks despite the highway robbery prices.  Then she made her way to the gate and happened to see the blond guy again, arms crossed and leaning against a wall nearby, bag tucked between his feet, idly watching people pass by.  

If there was ever a time to introduce oneself before a flight and vacation space they were to share together, now would be it, she figured.  She also liked the idea that he was standing.  Anna decided it would be good for her too to get as much standing in a possible too before being seated on a plane for five hours.  It wasn’t such a big deal for her, she was small, but this guy clearly needed some leg room and would probably be itching to get off that plane by the time it landed.

Anna approached him and his gaze swung towards her direction then stopped when their eyes met.  She wasn’t sure what to make of first impressions based on facial expressions but his lips parted slightly and his eyebrows twitched up as she approached him.

“Hey, are you Kristoff by any chance?”

“I am, yes.”  His demeanor shifted towards being guarded rather than looking bewildered like a moment before.

“I’m, Anna!  Liz’s friend.  I guess we’re headed to the same place!”  She stuck out her hand.

The tall blond looked down at her hand a moment before slowly reaching forward with his own and shook it.  His hand was warm and… so big.  How tall was he anyway?  At least six-two.  Maybe six-three.  

“Nice to meet you,” he mumbled.

“You too!  I’m looking forward to soaking up some sun.  How about you?”

“Um…” His hand came up and rubbed the back of his neck.  “Sure, yeah.”

Well at least he appeared friendly.  If anything, Anna figured he was probably a quiet person, which suited her just fine. As long as he wasn’t a dickhead, she’d be able to enjoy herself.

“Well, it was nice to meet you!  I’m not sure where you’re sitting on the plane but let’s meet up at the cab stand when we get there and split a ride, okay?”

He nodded, ghost of a smile on his lips.  “Sure, sounds great.”

-----

Next 

[rikalovesrice]

Rika’s Wittle Review of Pokemon Violet (Spoilers ahead!!!)

I’ll go ahead and say that, aside from the atrocious framerate and occasional glitchiness, I had a blast playing this. It’s beautiful to see how far Pokemon has come in terms of immersion. With such a rich variety of Pokemon wherever you go in this vast landscape with different habitats, all interacting and exhibiting behaviors specific to their species (and even their natures!), I genuinely feel like I’m in the world of Pokemon. I love it so much >w< I quite enjoyed the three stories and the CHARACTERS. Ahhh the characteeersss I love them all so much lol

Now for the more spoilery bits in good old bulletins. These aren’t in any particular order but in general I’ll start with stuff I loved and things that were kinda eh. Let’s goooo~

There’s now a canon Pokemon character named Rika aaaayyyeee XD Feels a little weird, ngl

Unpopular opinion, but I actually love Meowscarada lol At first I was like, “Uuuggghhh of course they made it stand up” but the more I understodd what it was, the more it grew on me. She’s a jester, magician, dramatic sort of character and she’s a kitty........all things I adore lol

Arven is a precious bean who must be protected at all costs. Seriously, I adore him so much and his story was so saaaad T_T My poor baby...And then it turns out his dad not only wasn’t around but he freaking DIED.

AND YOOOOO SPEAKING OF WHICH I DID NOT SEE THAT COMING. Like bro, Pokemon actually went there. At first I thought Turo was stuck in the future or something and that’s why his transmission got all wonky. BUT NAH. HOMEBOY STRAIGHT UP GOT DEAD AND UPLOADED HIS CONSCIOUSNESS INTO A ROBOT LIKE???? Every time I saw his face on the screen I was like, “Why is his face so...stiff?” Oh. That’s why. AND MY POOR BOY ARVEN.

Also that final battle was legitimately a little terrifying. I loved it haha

Miraidon is electric Toothless and I loved him and we’re best friends forever uwu

I know some people may be bummed that Team Star didn’t turn out to be a bunch of hardcore criminals. But the fact that Pokemon decided to tackle a subject as serious as bullying in school? Big, big claps. And in my opinion, it was really well done and heartfelt. By the end of game I adored Team Star and little Penny. Seeing them go back to school and bumble their way back into society, awkward, shy, but being true to themselves, was so precious. (Giacomo is literally like, “Let’s yell at everyone so they know we’re friendly” and for that I cherish him)

I’d join Team Star in a heartbeat, facts.

Penny being Cassiopeia wasn’t immediately obvious to me but as soon as she mentioned her hacking skills I went, “....Waaait a second...” Might I add that when “Clive” first showed up I physically buried my face into my hands lol

Okay and then when Clavell “revealed himself” as Cassiopeia I went, “Huh?? That...How??? Makes no sense but ok...????” And then was like “just kidding” and I just...wtf dude XD 

Can I just say I love Clavell’s character? He genuinely cares about every student with all his heart and shows compassion towards Team Star. He turned out to be such a good-hearted man who wants to do right by his students and I love that.

While I do love Nemona (what’s the girl version of a himbo? lol), I will say her character felt the least fleshed out, in my opinion. But I guess it could be all that energy conceals more subtle character traits? I liked how she mentioned that people mistunderstand her because she comes from a wealthly family and assume she was born with her battle prowess. When if fact, she’s just super passionate about battling and so became really good at it. Wish the game had leaned a little more into that but Nemona still cool lol Paradox Pokemon are gonna destroy the world and she’s just like, “ Can battle? :D”

While I loved Path of Legends and Starfall Street, Victory Road was the most....meh storyline for me lol There wasn’t much to it, really. And the Elite Four and Geeta were so easy. After the nightmare that was the BDSP League I was fearing for the worst but they were about as easy as the Kalos League. But that’s overall neither here nor there for me.

Picnics were fun but I wish I could get closer to my Pokemon like I could in SWSD and pet them like the Switch has a touchscreen whyyyy T__T Or just use the same format as the washing bit but with a hand :(

Welp, following Pokemon didn’t improve all that much rip Same issue of some Pokemon just being too dang slow. Or too dang fast to the point that they look unnatural cause they keep slowing down and speeding up so rapidly. I always have to ride Neon (my Miraidon) when I let Jellica (my Meowscarada) out cause otherwise she’s just constantly startin’ and stoppin’. Still a lovely feature but I just wish it was better. The Pokemons’ mannerisms are still adorable tho <3

This game removed a lot of little shortcuts (like using items on Pokemon, certain buttons when using the Boxes, switching Pokemon around, etc.) and I gotta say, not a fan lol

Customizatiooooon. I get it, we’re students. BUT WHY DOES PENNY GET TO WEAR HER LITTLE CUTE FIT HMMMMM?????

Socks, gloves, and shoes are fine, I suppose...I just wish there were more ways to customize the uniform at least. It would be cool if the school sold jackets, sweaters, t-shirts, skirts, scarves, ties, etc. Freaking Atticus’ little compadre bought NINJA OUTFITS from the school store. Where’s my ninja outfit huh????

Also Clavell said we shouldn’t let our Pokemon out inside the school and then there are Pokemon in the school at all times for the entire game lol Plus Arven, Nemona, and Penny get to have their Pokemon out in their rooms so why can’t I??? D:<

Side note MC, Arven, Nemona, and Penny gotta be my favorite Pokemon friend group besides the SWSD squad ^^ (That shot of all of us climbing aboard Miraidon before plummeting into the Crater was so precious holy Arceus my fwieeeends)

Ehhhh what else?

Sad to say that a lot of the Pokemon designs this gen weren’t really my taste. It was hard for me to put together a Paldean team cause I just...didn’t like how so many of them looked lol

Grusha has no right being that pretty. Also poor thing ;__; Would’ve loved to know more about him.

Larry. That is all.

All the Gym Leaders were so much fun. Wish we could battle them over and over like in BDSP.

History Class was my fav because looore.

I actually riverted back to a student mentality for a bit playing lol I was like, “M’kay, I’ll take my level 2 classes, explore, then move on to my level 3 classes before dark. Lemme fight this Gym and then I’ll take my midterms. What’s that, I gotta go the Great Crater and finish the story? I should finish my finals and graduate first.” Lol

The music in Area Zero o__o

Ummmmmm

I mean yeah, the framerate is awful but we all know this probably lol The game’s performance ain’t it, sis. Like I said, this would probably be my favorite Pokemon game to date if it ran the way it should.

Looking forward to patches and whatever new updates and shenanigans will ensue in the DLC hehehe

Those are the biggest things, me guesses. Loving the game and will definitely keep playing it~

[demiurgenesis]

My internet went out for four days and rather than, y’know, read a book or something, I decided to annoy my friends by replaying Let’s Go Pikachu and doing what we’re now calling ‘The Banana Challenge’.

Named after my pikachu this playthrough, the Banana Challenge is simply that I only battle using my pikachu and no other pokemon. I do this because it irks my friends, which I enjoy. I didn’t grow up with any pokemon games like they did - we’re of the same genration but I had a weird childhood - and so I kind of Don’t Care about learning the game or playing well. My satisfaction comes from my friends yelling at me “you can’t use electric moves on rock types!” and similar objections. While they’re off playing the new framerate abomination game, I’m just swinging my pikachu like a pillowcase of bricks at everything in sight.

What makes this better for me (and worse for my poor friends) is that I’m using what I call ‘The Vinci Strat’, which is named after my first playthrough’s pikachu: Vinci. Because at some point during that first playthrough I realised I could catch a whole lot of pikachus and feed their candy to MY pikachu to make her stronger. I also realised that those pikachus are very, very close to the start of the game. I also realised you get a lot of leftover candy which sells for 10 coins a piece.

So I started this game, named my Pikachu as ‘Banana’ and off we went right away to the forest to chain-catch what ended up being 300 pikachus. All the XP plus all the candy resulted in an extremely overpowered Banana in about three-to-four hours.

This was before the first gym. This was before pretty much *anything* that was important. The game let me do this. I could just... do this. After the first 100 pikachus they became so easy to catch it was basically a guarantee. I didn’t even run out of pokeballs because I could just sell candy to buy more. The only thing that actually stopped me was that Banana leveled up so much that I couldn’t feed her anymore Pikachu Candy, so that was that.

Everyone in the first gym died in one hit, once I realised I had to use the non-electric moves.

“Oh you’ll have to use other pokemon eventually,” my friends said.

Nope, guess again.

Not long after that I bought a Magikarp (also to annoy my friends) but discovered there was a good use for it - in so much as it was completely useless. It’s only available move does fuck all which made it the perfect partner for double battles against those Team Rocket guys.

Banana forever.

And finally to make myself really insufferable I got a TM for a move called ‘Pay Day’ where my pokemon just throws a fist-full of coins at their opponent. I love it. It’s insulting, it’s visually hilarious, it’s demeaning, it smacks of arrogant snobbery, it’s completely off-brand for a heroic pikachu protagonist, and also it gives me a few hundred extra coins at the end of every battle. With Banana being so overpowered it was sufficient to knock everything out in one hit for quite a while after.

Eventually some things started to need two hits, and then three, but that just meant I got more coins at the end of the battle. I used a PP up on it (much to my friends’ horror) and it’s still working really well for me. I can buy whatever I want and not worry about cost. I’m an absolute jerk.

It doesn’t work on ghosts but I can just electrocute those guys.

So that’s where I’m at now: an extremely overpowered pikachu who beats everyone to death with money, occasionally paired up with a very useless fish.

My internet’s back now so I have other things to do, but I’d like to try and finish the game with Banana and see if the challenge holds out.

[mostlysignssomeportents]

Games Workshop declares war on its customers (again)

There’s a difference between a con-artist and a grifter. A con-artist is just a gabby mugger, and when they vanish with your money, you know you’ve been robbed.

A grifter, on the other hand, is someone who can work the law to declare your stuff to be their stuff, which makes you a lawless cur because your pockets are stuffed full of their money and merely handing it over is the least you can do to make up for your sin.

IP trolls are grifters, not con artists, and that’s by design, a feature of the construction of copyright and trademark law.

Progressives may rail at the term “IP” for its imprecision, but truly, it has a very precise meaning: “‘IP’ is any law that lets me control the conduct of my customers, competitors and critics, such that they must arrange their affairs to my benefit.”

https://locusmag.com/2020/09/cory-doctorow-ip/

In that regard, it is a perfect grifter’s tool — a way to put you on the wrong side of the line for simply living your life in the way that works best for you, not the grifter.

Now, copyright and trademark’s framers were alive to the possibility that they might become this kind of weapon, and they wrote limitations and exceptions into each doctrine that were meant to safeguard the public’s right to free speech and free action.

But those limitations and exceptions are weirdly self-eviscerating. Both trademark and copyright’s limitations assume that they aren’t being weaponized by immoral sociopaths. Both collapse if they are.

Take copyright. Copyright has a suite of limitations and exceptions under various global legal systems, including US law. US law also contains a specific set of exceptions colloquially called “fair use,” a subject of much mystification for lay people.

Under fair use, someone accused of copyright infringement can ask a judge to find that their use of someone else’s copyrighted work is permissible because to deny it would be socially harmful.

The fair use law sets out four factors that judges MAY consider when considering such a claim. Note that these four factors are neither comprehensive (judges can weigh other factors), nor dispositive (failing to satisfy a factor doesn’t disqualify your use from being fair).

If that sounds confusing to you, don’t worry. It is confusing. As the lawyers say, “fair use is fact-intensive.”

The specifics of a use really matter: who’s making the use, what they’re using, why they’re using it, how they use it, and how much they use.

That’s why anyone who claims that “X is never fair use�� (for example, commercial fanfic) are full of shit — as are people who say “X is always fair use”).

Commercial fanfic absolutely can be fair use. No less a body than the Supreme Court says so:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Wind_Done_Gone

Despite all this ambiguity and nuance, IP grifters who want to force other people to arrange their affairs to their own benefit are laser focused on the four factors, reasoning correctly that if they show a judge that the factors favor them, they’re more likely to prevail.

Half of the four factors are out of the grifter’s reach. As a rightsholder, you can’t control “the purpose and character of the use,” or “the amount and substantiality of the portion used.”

But the other two factors are more readily within the IP wielder’s remit. As someone seeking control a work, you can frame “to the nature of the copyrighted work” by talking up how much creativity and originality went into it, which judges will weigh in your favor.

More importantly — and disturbingly — is the way that an IP holder can influence the fourth factor: “the effect of the use upon the potential market for or value of the copyrighted work.”

Think about that fourth factor for a moment here: if my use of your work doesn’t cost you any money, then it’s more likely that my use is fair.

The corollary: if you can bully some people into paying for something they’ve always gotten for free, then you can claim that the people who refuse to pay are ripping you off — that there is a “market” for the use, and that their failure to pay weakens that market.

This is effectively what’s happened to music sampling. Seminal albums like “It Takes a Nation of Millions to Hold Us Back” were produced with thousands of uncleared samples — but at the time, no one was clearing samples.

https://memex.craphound.com/2011/07/08/creative-license-how-the-hell-did-sampling-get-so-screwed-up-and-what-the-hell-do-we-do-about-it/

Had the rightsholders to those samples dragged Public Enemy into court, they wouldn’t have had the fourth factor on their side. No one was paying for samples, so a failure to pay for samples had no “effect on the potential market for the copyrighted work.”

However, in the 33 years since Nation of Millions dropped, paying to license samples has become common practice — and the mere existence of paid samples makes not paying for samples more legally risky.

So say a rightsholder decided to aggressively license simple quotations — as the Associated Press did in 2008, when it offered to sell you a license to a 5-word quotation for a mere $12.50.

http://nielsenhayden.com/makinglight/archives/010341.html

All other things being equal, a short quotation from a news article is likely to be fair use. But if the AP managed to terrorize enough bloggers into coughing up $12.50 for a 5-word quote, it could create a market for 5-word quotations.

That market would change the fair use argument for people who don’t pay — yes, they’re making a transformative, critical use, but they’re also undermining the market for the copyright, and a judge might find this change tips the scales away from fair use.

Even more importantly, the additional uncertainty might stampede more people into paying $12.50 for a 5-word quote rather than risk a $250,000 statutory damages award for copyright infringement.

The more people who pay for 5-word quotes, the sturdier the market becomes and the riskier it is to rely upon fair use.

The fourth factor looks like an escape valve for uses that harm no one.

But it actually rewards to bullies who intimidate others out of money they don’t actually owe — until they do.

Trademark has a similar gotcha. Trademark is very different from copyright. Fundamentally, trademark is about protecting buyers, not sellers. Trademark meant to help buyers avoid being tricked into buying an inferior product because it was deceptively named or styled.

If you buy a can of Coke, you want the true Black Water of American Imperialism, not an inferior brand of dilute battery-acid.

But if your Coke turns out to be a fake, you might shrug off the harm or balk at the expense of punishing the fast operator who mis-sold you.

So trademark empowers Coke — and other vendors — to punish third parties who trick their customers, acting as their customers’ champions. Trademark doesn’t exist to prevent Coke from losing money to a rival — it exists to help Coke drinkers get what they pay for.

Trademarks can be registered with the USPTO, who nominally weigh trademark applications to ensure that they’re distinctive and original. Practically, examiners are busy, sometimes careless, and ideologically inclined to grant, not deny, claims.

https://memex.craphound.com/2018/06/14/son-of-cocky-a-writer-is-trying-to-trademark-dragon-slayer-for-fantasy-novels/

But you don’t have to register a trademark to assert it. You can threaten or pursue legal action on the grounds that someone has violated an unregistered trademark, which is any distinctive graphic or phrase that is associated with your product.

Registered or unregistered, trademark enforcement primarily comes down to whether a “naive consumer” would be mislead by someone else’s use of a mark. That is, when you bought a Coke-branded sack of chicken feet, did you think it was blessed by the Coca-Cola company?

If there’s no likelihood of confusion, trademark holders struggle to enforce their trademarks.

This standard seems reasonable, but, like the fourth factor in fair use, it has a sting in its tail.

One of the ways you can induce confusion in the public is to gain a reputation for being a litigious bully. Say Coke is known far and wide for clobbering anyone that uses its trademarks, no matter how trivial the use and no matter how bad it made them look.

If Coke is truly notorious for its zero-tolerance policy, that will lead to a widespread public understanding that every time you see Coke’s marks, the use was blessed by a Coke lawyer — meaning a use that might not otherwise be found to be confusing can be made confusing.

“If that was any other company’s trademark, I’d assume that they had nothing to do with it — but since I know Coke has an army of baby-eating attack lawyers who destroy anyone who uses a mark without permission, that must be an authorized use.”

Like fair use’s fourth factor, trademark’s confusion standard rewards the most vicious and uncaring businesspeople with new rights that their more reasonable competitors do not enjoy. IP selects for sociopathy.

Now, IP — in the most sinister sense of the phrase — has pervaded every industry, but the contradictions of IP are felt most keenly in its spawning grounds: the culture industry.

Culture is in tension with the control of ideas, because culture is the spread of ideas.

Creators (and execs) are vulnerable to the pirate/admiral fallacy: “When I take from my forebears, that’s legitimate artistic progress. When my successors do it to me, it’s theft.”

This pathology, combined with ready-to-hand IP weapons, incentivizes all manner of wickedness. Remember when Marvel and DC teamed up in a bid to trademark the word “super-hero” so that no one else would be allowed to use it?

https://memex.craphound.com/2006/03/18/marvel-comics-stealing-our-language/

These perverse incentives are made tragic by the inherently participatory nature of culture.

It’s not merely that Marvel and DC wanted to steal the word “super-hero” right out of our mouths.

It’s that super-heroes are culturally important because of how we take and remix them in our lives. Marvel went on to use the law to stop us from pretending to be superheroes online, something Casey Fiesler called “Pretending Without a License.”

https://www.researchgate.net/publication/277598023_Pretending_Without_a_License_Intellectual_Property_and_Gender_Implications_in_Online_Games

Which brings me, at last, to Games Workshop, a company that has consistently led the IP bully pack, indiscriminately terrorizing the Warhammer 40k fans who made it a massive commercial success.

Warhammer is a strategy/roleplaying game that is played with miniature creatures that players buy, modify and paint. If you’re not familiar with all this, maybe this sounds a bit like toy soldiers.

It’s a lot more interesting — not just because of the game rules or lore, but because of the incredibly, unbelievable, jaw-dropping virtuosity of Warhammer players when they paint and style those miniatures.

There’s a reason I look forward to Saturday morning’s weekly linkdump from Jonathan Struan of the week’s best Warhammer and other RPG miniatures:

https://www.superpunch.net/search?q=warhammer&max-results=20&by-date=true

and why I follow incredible painters like Aurelie Schick:

https://www.flickr.com/photos/110246635@N06

Warhammer is intrinsically participatory, co-creative and active — it’s not media you consume, it’s media you produce.

Games Workshop has become fantastically rich off of this…and they hate it, and they always have.

For years they’ve pursued fans for producing their own fan-made supplements and additions to the game:

https://www.lumendatabase.org/notices/99301

The more Warhammer players complained about the indiscriminate censorship of their fan media, the harder GW cracked down on them, wiping out whole genres of creative work:

https://www.boardgamegeek.com/geeklist/48933/games-workshop-files-purge-09

GW claimed it was only defending its rights, the grifter’s signature move, making you a crook for having the audacity not to put their shareholders’ interests ahead of your own.

Then Games Workshop claimed a trademark on “space marine,” a generic term that had been widely used in science fiction for decades, including, notably, in Heinlein’s classic “Starship Troopers” (1959).

https://web.archive.org/web/20130207002144/http://mcahogarth.org/?p=10593

They didn’t just go after RPGs that used the phrase — they used trademark claims to remove novels from Amazon for having the phrase in their titles.

“Space marine” is a generic phrase, but GW was betting if they were sufficiently, spectacularly brutal in their enforcement, they could create a proprietary interest: “Now, I know GW destroys anyone who uses ‘space marine,’ so this ‘space marine’ must be endorsed by GW.”

GW just launched a new set of terms of service, including: “individuals must not create fan films or animations based on our settings and characters. These are only to be created under licence from Games Workshop.”

https://www.games-workshop.com/en-WW/Intellectual-Property-Guidelines

Now, this isn’t how copyright works. There are many ways in which a fan film or animation could be fair use, no matter whether GW forbids or permits their production. But this isn’t mere overreach: it’s a direct play against the fourth factor in fair use.

If GW can establish that all animations and vids are produced under paid license, then any fanvid that doesn’t pay for a license has a weaker fair use case, because the fourth factor protects existing licensing markets.

Indeed, as Rob Beschizza points out on Boing Boing, GW timed the terms of service change to coincide with the announcement that they’re launching a subscription service including “cartoons, in-house hobby videos, access to a vault of ebooks and mags.”

https://www.pcgamer.com/now-even-warhammer-has-a-subscription-service/

This is bullying with a business-model, in other words. Fans have figured out how to have fun with each other for free, and GW wants them to stop and pay the company for its in-house version of that fun.

Warhammer creators are demoralized and disheartened. The creator of the hugely successful Oculus Imperia Youtube series posted a heart-rending message of surrender.

https://twitter.com/OculusImperia/status/1421136444437970949

Oculus Imperia also edits “If The Emperor Had A Text To Speech Device,” (TTS) another beloved Warhammer fan series. Alfabusa from TTS posted his own absolutely demoralized goodbye to his work.

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

Ironically, both channels would have a stronger fair use case if they mocked and criticized Warhammer, rather than celebrating it, as fair use tips favorably towards critical uses.

The fact is, they love their hobby and its community and they want to improve it, not tear it down.

Neither wants to get dragged into a brutal copyright case against a deep-pocketed corporation. Even people with great fair use cases balk at that:

https://waxy.org/2011/06/kind_of_screwed/

Now, some people might be thinking, what’s the big deal? Why don’t these creators just make up their own stories instead of remixing the ones that come from Games Workshop?

Those people are assholes.

*All* stories are fanfic of some kind or another. Every mystery novel is a remix of Poe’s Murders In the Rue Morgue. Games Workshop’s stories are the thrice-brewed teabags of many sf writers (remember “space marines?”).

Tolkien straight up ripped off his characters from the 1000-year-old Norse poem “Elder Edda,” which features dwarves named “Thorin, Balin, Dwalin, Fili, Kili, Oin, Gloin, Nori, Dori, Ori, Bifur, Bofur, and Bombur.”

https://musingsofatolkienist.blogspot.com/2015/07/hobbit-origins-catalog-of-dwarves.html

Culture is made of other culture.

GW made something wonderful with Warhammer — by plundering the stories that preceded it.

The sin isn’t in the taking, it’s in the pretense that it never happened, and the vicious grifting that punishes anyone who does unto GW as they did unto everyone else.

[wasabikitcat]

Pokémon Scarlet and Violet have been getting a lot of criticism for being so buggy and unfinished, and it's 100% warranted. The Pokémon Company has literally the biggest franchise in the world yet they can't seem to afford to pay a few more developers or just allow the developers they already have to take a little more time to iron things out. It's executive greed and crunch culture at it's finest.

But, I have to say that as I've been playing Pokémon Violet, I haven't had this much fun playing a main line Pokémon game since... well ever. I see a lot of people criticizing say the game is unplayable and that is simply not true.

In my experience the average player not actively seeking out game breaks will likely never encounter a game breaking bug and will only experience some graphical errors, low framerates on some animations, and maybe some slightly inconsistent load times.

There are some excellent improvements on the standard Pokémon formula, combining the mechanics from Legends Arceus and the familiar mechanics from previous games in a way that is very fun and satisfying to play. I love how they've completely changed random encounters, removing the wild grass entirely and instead just showing the Pokémon on the overworld. For me it makes the goal of completing the Pokédex a lot more fun, being able to select which wild Pokémon to start a battle with and actually being able to visualize what new Pokémon are in an area makes it a lot less tedious.

I also like how when you start a battle it doesn't just ship you off into an artificial battle arena anymore and you just battle where you actually are. It makes a lot more sense and is much more immersive, not to mention making it a lot less tedious without having to go through two additional loading screens. I was especially impressed with details like how environmental elements can actually play a part in battle, like in the desert area there's a sandstorm and during battle your Pokémon will get buffeted by the sandstorm happening around you.

There's a lot of nice quality of life changes, like Pokémon centers are no longer seperate buildings and are just stands, which is another unnecessary loading zone cut out. There's a lot less loading zones in general, you spend most of the game outside where there's no loading screen when you move between areas.

I also think it's really interesting how much exploring is rewarded, in total I've encountered only one invisible wall and it appeared to be a bug. Aside from Legends, there's never been a Pokémon game that hasn't had a ton of linear areas where you can't move the camera. You're able to jump off ledges, get over obstacles, etc. Not only are these things allowed, but they're encouraged, as you'll often find free items and TMs in areas that you simply wouldn't have been allowed to reach in any other Pokémon game.

That's just the tip of the iceberg of nice changes and additions.

I'm not sure what the point of this post really is, I'm not trying to defend The Pokémon Company and their practices. They're a multi-billion dollar company and should do better. But I think saying "Pokémon Scarlet and Violet is the worst Pokémon game" is kind of reductive, since it's really not and it might make people who have played and enjoyed the game discard your criticisms entirely if you start off by implying they're stupid fanboys or bootlickers for thinking it's a good game. Because imo, it is a really good game, it's just suffering from the practices The Pokémon Company is enforcing on the developers.