#I'll fix that on my next playthrough

[rindomness]

hello hi tell us about mementos and the security level

OH HELLO. Welcome to my personal hill to die on. This post is long. It's one of my out-loud rants in text form. Sorry in advance. There's a cut down there somewhere.

Thesis statement of whatever's about to come next is that Mementos fucks actually as a concept its execution was just horrible and also Yaldabaoth is a terrible final boss. OKAY LET'S GET INTO IT

First things first I really do think Mementos should have gotten a security level. The game plays "Mementos is the public's Palace" very straight, all the way to the end, insisting that Yaldabaoth is created by the public's desire for a status quo yadda yadda yadda. So like. Here's the screenshots actually

I didn't get the whole conversation mostly because I think I was streaming at the time and complaining out loud but like. He just straight-up says this? And then they do nothing with it???

Imagine this with me. Enter the imagisphere or whatever.

It's October. You've just defeated Okumura, and you just watched the mysterious black-masked figure you've been told cryptically about for a while now kill his Shadow. You watch Okumura have a mental shutdown live. It's horrific! It's worrying! What happened? What's going to happen to you? The Phan-Site meter starts dropping rapidly. You go to Mementos to prepare for the next Palace.

There's a security level.

NOT ONLY did this act make the public lose faith in you, but now you're enemy #1, and it's reflected in the collective unconscious. This Chekov's gun that they set up back in May goes off. You have to be much more careful in Mementos because if you aren't, you could get kicked out. The stakes are higher. Mementos, the public view of you, has changed. It's not just doors opening for you anymore.

THAT WOULD BE SO COOL. RIGHT? RIGHT??? BUT NO! No we don't get a security level until the depths, which contradicts itself, actually, because once you get to the depths, the whole POINT is that the public ISN'T reacting to you or your actions! Why the hell would they care that you're In There!

The obvious answer is that it's because the security level belongs to the Holy Grail/Yaldabaoth/the fuckass cup/whatever you personally call him. And okay, whatever, but the game goes out of its way to establish that the Grail isn't really a separate entity from "public desire," he IS "public desire," the status quo incarnate, so once again, I ask, why is this the only time you have a security level! (I know it's because this is the home-stretch to the final boss and mechanically it has to act like a proper Palace. I still think it's stupid.)

And now that I'm talking about the Grail. Hi. Hello. If you've talked to me on Discord you already know this but I fucking hate the Grail. I think it's stupid. I think it's thematically inconsistent. I think its only purpose is to be the "Let's fight God!" final boss. I truly believe that if I hadn't gotten into Persona 5 through Royal, I would not still be into Persona 5, because I would have gotten so frustrated with Yaldabaoth that I would have dropped the game. I regularly complain for half an hour straight about this thing in voice calls. One person once told me the only thing they knew about Persona 5 was that this cup sucked because I wouldn't shut up about it.

I've somehow managed to not do this on Tumblr but I can't really talk about Mementos without talking about it so I guess we're talking about the cup

Narratively: Yaldabaoth just sort of comes out of nowhere??? The whole game is building up to Shido. The whole game. And you do it! You defeat him! And then... there's this other thing??? Apparently??? I was genuinely really confused when I got to this part of the game the first time because I was going ok we beat the final boss complete with eight hundred phases! Hooray! And now there's this other fucker. Going back through the game there's some foreshadowing for him? But it's kind of all concentrated in the start of the game, around Madarame's Palace, when you're just getting used to Mementos, and then it all sorta just disappears.

YOU KNOW WHAT IS FORESHADOWED, THOUGH? MORGANA.

Imagine with me x2 because this is where I thought the game was taking us when it went "btw we need to tackle the depths now"

Morgana has no memories. Morgana knows there's something in the depths that explains who he is. Morgana assumes it's because he's human, and will become human again if he finds out what it is. The WHOLE POINT of exploring Mementos was for Morgana's memories! And then he starts getting these really unsettling dreams, right, where he's a Shadow, or has a Shadow, or whatever. And then you get to the depths.

What I thought was about to happen was that we were going to find out that Morgana was more or less what the Grail claims to be(a being created by the wishes of the masses) and that Mementos was going to be Morgana's Palace. "Oh but Morgana has a Persona-" Morgana's already a weird case I could easily see him having a Shadow or being a Shadow himself while also having a Persona. I'm ignoring Maruki because we're talking about vanilla and Maruki didn't exist yet.

I thought our final boss was going to be Mona's Shadow and that by defeating him(the part of Morgana(as a Shadow/Metaverse being/etc) representative of what they were trying to make Yaldabaoth: wanting to let the status quo handle everything, more or less, the desire to let the system do what it's designed to even if that thing is "crush everything in its path") we would reaffirm that change is possible as long as we all work together. Morgana getting to be this very physical symbol of rebellion and force of will and getting to go NO I want to try even if it hurts me.

What actually happened was... a lot more underwhelming.

What we got was, in a game where one of the primary themes is "rebellion against systemic injustice, you can't just get rid of the One Guy and fix Everything," a final boss who was... one guy who if you got rid of him you'd fix everything?

And I get it Atlus doesn't want to actually shake the boat that much but at the same time Yaldabaoth comes out of nowhere and says absolutely nothing of substance in a game that, over and over again, gets SO CLOSE to saying something really powerful and then sinking back into what's comfortable. It's the aesthetic of rebellion without the teeth of it.

Anyway now that I've complained for an essay's worth here's some positive stuff

I really do like Mementos. It gets a lot of shit for being repetitive and boring and like I sort of get that but on the other hand it is a JRPG. I'm not sure what you expected from the area that is, mechanically, "Here's where you go to grind." I don't see a problem with having this area. I think the special floor events manage to spice it up enough that it's not all that boring. I like Jose being there in Royal, I think he adds a lot, actually. The implications of everything Jose says are fascinating to me. The fact it's impacted by the weather! Like, as a world component, Mementos is so so cool actually guys. I know it's a Persona game so "world impacted by cognition" is sort of the bare minimum but it's really cool!!! The aesthetics fuck! The only layer I really don't like is.. fuck, I think it's Kaitul? Whichever one gets unlocked after Kaneshiro's Palace, I haven't gotten there in my current playthrough yet. It's just... too dark to see, all the time, imo. Mementos feels(except for... 90% sure it's Chemdah) very oppressive and spooky and I honestly think that's great. It's a depressing place to be! For a game about how corruption and systemic violence hurts everybody, it's really good!

In conclusion... don't ask me about Mementos unless you want an essay LMAO in seriousness I understand why Mementos gets shit but I think it should get less of it. And also that I could have fixed it(the cup. The cup is the big bad part of Mementos. Not the grinding you're going to get that with a JRPG no matter what you do you signed up for it when you launched the game.)

[dairine-bonnet]

Who also dislikes this psyker's... costume? Not even the costume, but a hood itself? It covers a face so that I can't see my RT's one. I'm envious a little bit of other RT's whose faces we can see in detail...)

[pavedinashes-if]

+10k?

Oh, so the next big fix is waiting to be published. I make some last playthroughs to be fair and transparent. Well, I said I would expand a few tiny parts, no? Right now it all sits not at 145k+ words anymore. We're at about 155k+ words. Oopsie. How random.

I am super excited to publish this lil update and also to allow code diving then. Can't wait to see how many messages I get that tell me there's so many skipped scenes. I fear it and love it all the same. So yeah, I do hope some of y'all can actually help me out with flavour and paths that don't trigger. Therefore, feel free to dive deep my children.

I'll let you know when the update is up. Also, on a random note...love that 90% of recommendations for PiA on reddit are due to the NSFW scene lmao. Enjoy. And talk soon. *mwah!

[actual-lea]

So who wants to hear about the stupid stupid way I'm playing Baldur's Gate 3?

I made it to Act 3 on my first (original character) playthrough like a week before Patch 5 came out, and after finding it absolutely unplayable (on the PS5) decided it was time to go ahead and start an origin character run for the funsies while waiting on the new patch to fix the Lag Hell. Naturally, I picked Gale. Since this was mostly just for fun/to hold me over until I could continue my other file, I decided it would be a nice time to see what happens if you just refuse to consume any magic items. Of course, if you are not playing as Gale and ignore his Orb Problem, he will apparently eventually leave your party, but what if you ARE Gale? I couldn't find an answer with a minimal amount of Googling SO

There are three stages to his Arcane Hunger, each of which give you increasingly debilitating debuffs: Arcane Hunger, Greater Arcane Hunger, and Severe Arcane Hunger. It seems the triggers for progressing to the next stage are the same as the triggers where he would start needing an item in my other file (i.e. that bridge next to the Blighted Village, entering the temple at the Goblin Camp, the Hag's Lair, etc.) which obviously makes sense. I figure with the amount of contingencies in this game for incredibly specific situations, surely there is some kind of unique dialog or fun cutscene that will play if I ignore the Arcane Hunger long enough and just play through the debuffs.

I played Act 1 completely normally, doing a lil quicksave every time I was about to Long Rest just in case the game gave me a cutscene of the big explosion upon waking up (I thought maybe it would be time-based, similar to the game over you get if Gale dies and you leave him for 3 days (? I think?) which does not seem to be the case). I made it through basically everything without anything odd happening besides the aforementioned debuffs. The Severe Arcane Hunger is where things get really sloggy, because Gale can only move at half speed.

I have been slowly trudging EVERYWHERE since the Goblin Camp.

I eventually started going out of my way to make sure I hit all the Arcane Hunger triggers I know about, to see what would happen, and the answer is nothing, aside from Gale occasionally reminding me that he's wracked with terrible pain.

So, surely, the game will certainly not let me into the Mountain Pass without SOMETHING happening, right?

WELL

That's surprising, but whatever, at least now I have the chance to see what happens if you go meet Elminster without having consumed any magic items,

Except

He wasn't there.

I went to the area in the Mountain Pass where the cutscene is supposed to start, and it just. Didn't happen. Nothing happened. I could walk right up to the entrance to the next area.

But SURELY, the game won't let me into the gotdamn Shadow-Cursed Lands without saying SOMETHING about the fact that the orb has been starving for several weeks at this point, right? The game isn't going to let me into Act Freaking 2 without at the very least giving me a game over to tell me I'm not allowed to do this and make me reload and actually feed this poor starving wizard, right?

RIGHT?

WELL

WELL

Here we are. I'm at the Last Light Inn, I'm at the Taco Bell, I'm at the combination Last Light Inn Taco Bell with a bag full of delicious Cheesy Gordita Magic Boots that I refuse to eat.

SO LIKE. How far does this go??? Am I gonna be able to infiltrate Moonrise Towers without ever speaking to Elminster? Am I gonna trudge all the way to Ketheric at half freaking speed and fight him with Disadvantage on everything?? Am I gonna make it all the way to goddang Baldur's Gate with a Netherese orb that is long overdue to explode???

Like I said, I did not find an answer on what happens if you do this on a Gale Origin playthrough, and at this point, I don't even want to, I just want to see how far I can take this.

I already know I'll have to do another normal Gale playthrough where I actually FEED HIM after this, because I'm sure I've missed out on a ton of dialogue and whatnot, especially from Tara who only ever has this to say when I speak with her in camp:

I am genuinely beginning to wonder if there is actually nothing in place to stop me from doing this. I am wondering what the dialogue options will look like when I get to the "Heart of the Absolute" where Gale would ordinarily want to blow himself up, if Elminster had ever shown up to tell him to do so. Maybe the devs just didn't bother, and figured that no one would be stupid and stubborn enough to play through the whole dang thing while so severely debuffed.

Joke's on them, Disadvantage means NOTHING to Magic Missile Machine Gale Dekarios.

[periprose]

Heyyy I’m literally playing through ps4 Spider-Man again 🤣!

I was wondering if I could request a ps4 fic, maybe Peter and reader have been dating for a while, and she gets hurt during the explosion and he can’t find her but she’s with may at feast with like a broken arm or something?? (She knows he’s Spider-Man) 👀🫶🏼

hey lol thanks for requesting! I'm on the first playthrough of the game myself. Basically this is set during the explosion at the election event in the game, and Peter and you are there to proudly watch Officer Davis accept his award.

/

"Hey." Peter comes up from behind you on the sidewalk, fixing wrinkles in his civilian clothes. He must've just changed.

"Hey, Parker." You nudge him. "Ready to go watch Osborn smooch up to the well-meaning audience of Manhattan?"

"Well, ready as I'll ever be." Peter takes your hand. "I'm really just there to watch Davis get his well-deserving award, y'know. Hey, didn't I tell you to stop calling me Parker?"

"Meh, you love it." You joke. "You'll always be Parker to me, even if you are my boyfriend now. It's our thing."

Peter shakes his head, but you know based on his little smile- he loves that you have a little thing just for him.

Together, you walk to the intersection in front of City Hall, where many people crowd around, waiting for Mayor Osborn and whatever speech he's about to give today. They're all dressed in Osborn themed merchandise, cheering and clapping.

You can't believe this many people care about Osborn's so-called promises to the city- you and Peter are really hoping he won't be re-elected this term after all- but people are clapping for him, and you sigh knowing that your cost of living is about to go up.

"Hey. Wipe that frown off your face. We're here to be supportive." Peter whispers from next to you in the crowd, and you nod.

"Where's Davis? Is that him?" You whisper back, pointing to an older black man up on the stage.

"Yup. You wouldn't believe it, he was so helpful in Hell's Kitchen. Dude whipped out his gun and had my back like we've been best buds for years." Peter smiles. "There's not many out there doing it like him."

"He sounds like a real treasure. I'm glad you have someone on your side." You squeeze Peter's hand, and continue to look up towards the stage in mild excitement.

You don't really care for Osborn's speech- Peter laughs about his promise to open up technology for NYC when you both know that's reserved for the elite- but you both grin when Davis, looking nervous as ever, walks up the stage to receive his award.

"It is my privilege to present Officer Jefferson Davis with the Department Medal of Honour." Osborn hangs a medal around Davis' neck, and you and Peter clap.

"I'm so glad this is all over. The gang war, I think." Peter whispers to you, and you raise your eyebrows.

"Really? Does this mean you'll finally be a little safer?" You ask, but Peter frowns a little.

"Well, there's some loose ends still to be tied up, but-"

"Loose ends?" You give him a wary glance. "Like what?"

"Like whatever 'Consolidated Shipping' is. It doesn't make sense." Peter sighs, watching concern grow on your face. "It's not right, but I'll figure it out."

Davis says a few words- he thanks his wife and his son, Miles, who you can see is sitting up at the front of the stage.

"Aw, cute kid." You remark to Peter, and he nods, gaining a slightly sheepish smile.

"Officer Davis did say I remind him of his son. I'll take it as a compliment." Peter jokes, and you snicker, calling him even more of a baby.

Behind you, Sable guards are talking on their walkie talkies about "keeping eyes on Osborn," which to you sounds as if they perceive a threat. You turn back to tell Peter, when he suddenly flinches.

"Peter-?"

He grabs his head, panicking- you watch as his pupils dilate, and he's clearly in some kind of shock.

"Everything feels off-" Peter flinches again, and you know he's having a Spider-Sense meltdown. There must be multiple things happening at once- even worse, you're not sure what he's supposed to do in this situation. He's not suited up, and he risks revealing his identity if he does anything.

Either way, Peter runs behind you. He shoves people out of the way, trying to get to the back of the event, behind the audience, but he's not fast enough. There are men arriving out of cars- corrupted men, turning that strange grey-blue-transparent hue that confirms their connection with Martin Li.

Peter runs- he dashes- but you see him flinch again, cowering under such threatening energy. He turns to the stage in horror, and you gasp in shock.

There's another corrupted on stage, covered in explosive devices.

An explosion goes off behind you, to the right of you, than another massive one on stage- the ground shakes beneath you, and you're too in shock to move.

"Get down!" Peter shoves you back, attempting to push you out of the way, just as another two explosions cause the earth under you to rattle, and you lose your footing and fall back on the pavement. You twist your arm unnaturally and hit your head.

You black out, the last thing you see being massive blue-black explosions in the sky.

/

Peter wakes to floating ash in the sky.

He coughs- there's a sharp pain in his right side, and a slight ache at the top of his hairline- he touches his forehead and pulls his fingers away to see brown-red, dry blood.

It doesn't matter. He'll heal faster than most, anyways- he needs to locate you.

He gets up, seizes a little due to the pain- and to his alarm, you're nowhere in his near sight. He walks around seeing Sable guards help people off the streets- although Peter really thinks they're poking and prodding and shoving them away, so they can clean up the mess around here.

He hopes you haven't been taken away by Sable guards.

Peter rushes to the nearest clinic- but there's too many people crowding around there with their injuries, and the receptionist at the emergency room tells him there's no one by your name here.

He begins to panic. You're not responding to his calls, either. Peter doesn't want to believe the worst could've happened to you, but he does hear people talking on the streets about the casualties. Apparently at least 10 people have been found dead so far- Peter starts swearing under his breath.

He decides to head to FEAST- he's not sure if you'll be there, but it's better to ask Aunt May or some of the volunteers if you've been seen. FEAST also operates as an emergency medical clinic, too, even with limited supplies, and it's with this small amount of hope that Peter travels there.

Pushing through the doors, the front desk woman- Amanda- she's startled by how intensely Peter asks about you.

"I don't know, Peter." She points to the main auditorium, where many homeless and injured people are currently being attended to. "It's kind of an open house back here- you're going to have to look through the crowds."

Peter sighs. "Thanks, Amanda."

It takes him about fifteen minutes to do a full, quick walkthrough. The entire time, his heartbeat thumps faster as he realizes- he's not seeing you anywhere. There's nobody wearing your trademark scarf, your usual dark blue jeans- nobody with your fastidious expression, where you always seem to take in the entire world before speaking- nobody to relieve the steady ache in his heart.

Peter walks into the room full of medical supplies, expecting to see Aunt May- and while May is there, busy with another volunteer, the first thing he sees is you, with your hair all disheveled and messy, bruises on your cheek and a cut under your lip, and your arm wrapped in a cast and a sling.

But you have a soft, comforting smile. You're kneeling down to help a little girl- she can't be older than five- and you're placing a bandage on her knee. And the little girl squeals, hugging you after you say "It's all better now."

Peter would agree with that.

You look up, arms still embraced around the little girl- Rina is her name- to see Peter, looking wistful, sad, a clear lump in his throat. His eyes are watery.

"Peter?" You watch as he comes forward.

"I thought you were- I thought..." He wipes his eyes. "Are you okay? What happened?"

"Well, Little Rina over here needed a little bit of medical attention." You kindly tap her shoulder and she nods up at Peter, smiling. "She tripped and fell and no one was paying attention to her knee, so I decided to help her."

"That's..." Peter trails off, wondering how you could be so selfless when your own face was looking a bit worse for wear. "That's sweet of you to do. How do you feel, kiddo?"

He kneels towards her, and she grins really big. "Better!"

"Alright, high five then." Peter high fives her, and she dashes off afterwards, most likely looking for the parent she came with.

"Why didn't you respond to my calls?" Peter asks you as soon as you turn back to him. "I thought... I thought the worst had happened-"

"Peter, please. Stop with the wounded ego." May calls him out, listening from the sidelines. "What's important is that she's safe and in one piece- that's more than enough to feel grateful about."

Peter looks down, ashamed. He knows May is right, and he has to swallow his pride for a moment.

"I'm sorry, Peter." You grasp his hand, and he looks back at you, jaw tight as he listens. "I didn't mean to not answer your calls- my phone got shattered. And I didn't know where to find you after I woke up- I was already being taken away by Sable guards to 'safety' and then I decided my best chance to find you was over here."

"Oh." Peter feels kind of dumb, but he also feels glad you think of FEAST as a spot to find him. "I should've kept you safe."

"Don't. Don't make yourself crazy with what you could've done." You plead with him, and he sighs but shakes his head. "My arm will heal with time. I guess I landed on it weirdly and broke it."

Peter winces. "Well, you can always ask me for help if it bothers you. I'm there for you."

He traces your lip, where the cut under is still a red-brown, harsh hue in comparison to the pink of your bottom lip, and May takes this as her cue to leave.

Peter snorts. "I wish you had my-"

"Super healing? Yeah, I wish that too." You laugh. "Were you lucky enough to not get hit, or did you just heal on the way here?"

Peter's reaching for a facial bandage and some rubbing alcohol. "The latter."

"Ugh, lucky bastard." You smile up at him, cringing only slightly as Peter rubs away the blood from your wound. "I'm just glad that means I don't have to worry too much about you."

"You still do." Peter remarks, placing the bandage on your face. "But that just means you love me."

And, being ever so thankful that you're safely back in his arms, Peter places a soft kiss on your forehead, and then a slightly-less-soft one on your mouth, hoping it doesn't hurt you, but happy that you kiss him back anyways.

[zombeebunnie]

Trembling Essence Devlog 6:💙Cabin route progression + Fail-safe balance!💙

Hi and welcome new followers, it's been another 2 weeks since part 1 so here's part 2 of how things are going in this month of May! :]

So leaving off from part 1, I found a way to organize and keep up with everything I create for this game moving forward and I've been happily pacing myself.

Before I could continue with anything else, I had to bring a certain path/route up to date with the rest of the game. In good news, I manage to finish this pretty quickly!

A lot of dialog and choices from the player(Y/N) and Noah in this route is abouuuuttttt 90% different compared to what's in the [Extended Demo]. I won't go too in depth about it but I'm happy with this change and balancing out all the inconsistent variables going on.

Route progression with play testers:

One thing I want to talk about is the route progression of the game. I was going to talk about this in depth with a Master-post however, it's still in the works and I ultimately decided that once I finally have all of Day 3 sorted out I'll hopefully have it ready.

After having a very long discussion with my play tester's and their advice, I've decided that there will be only 3 routes in the game. There was a time where I had created multiple routes/paths, I don't remember the specific number anymore since I have to go and find every single one I wrote in the script but ever since I've gotten better at learning new concepts I came to terms with a few things. Trying to progress all of them past Day 3 would be a very big challenge and drag the development process out even further, a lot of the writing in them is extremely outdated, and I personally believe keeping all of this would lead to burn out.

Does this mean a bunch of content will be scrapped?:

Not really, I do want to give life to most of what I wrote and I actually had plans behind the scenes of turning these into Day's instead of routes/paths. There were some I wrote that gave off Day 4/5+ vibes when I was trying to pick routes that were strong enough to be in the [Extended Demo].

Will any of this be added for the next [Extended Demo] update?:

It's too early for me to really give an answer. There's so much of Day 3 that needs to be fixed up before I can say much else.

Fail safe + Variable callback balance!:

It's time to talk about them! :D

In the [Extended Demo] I used a lot of these as callbacks for the player(Y/N)'s choices, closeness with Noah, etc in order to make sure these had an affect on the overall story building. I'm getting better at keeping up with these and I'm making them easier to go through. Due to spoilers I can't say much else although, I can talk about one other thing I added into the game which is a [fail safe!]

A [fail safe]? What's that and WHY!?:

Basically if the player(Y/N) doesn't meet the set requirements for certain parts of the game, a specific outcome will happen. There were some [Extended demo] bad endings inside the cabin that I was going to scrap but I stumbled upon a great alternative! This sort-of [fail safe] style will only be used for very specific situations I have no way of writing around without dragging the story out and/or adding 'filler'. This also helps me in the long run so I don't have to keep up with too many unique variables, It feels nice having this structured and simple enough to check back on. >:] I'm still brainstorming it out to make sure it doesn't have too many situations routing to it but there's 2 variables where this [fail safe] WILL happen regardless and another 2 that can only happen if the player(Y/N) makes certain choices that can possibly trigger the [fail safe]. I then grouped them into separate areas because originally, the player(Y/N) could make several choices but I decided to make this a little more linear as a quality of life change so it's easier to navigate out of if the player(Y/N) restarts the playthrough.

I don't have plans on changing this in the future. A lot of the code had to be updated to get it to work which surprisingly took a lot of time for me to adjust to.

This is mainly because the [Talk to Noah], [Look around.], [Go to sleep.] and [Continue to wait.] choices weren't complete. I don't mind this since the choices, CG's, SFX, dialog, etc. in these endings were all outdated anyway. I even took it a step further and removed some responses so it's more straightforward. :P

CG updates and optimization!:

Before:

After:

This won't be too long but in very exciting news I found a really awesome way to save on space/optimization towards the game!

Basically, when I was new to everything regarding the game, I really wanted to have a Day/Night setting with detailed backgrounds depicting the different times of the day for a beautiful immersive experience.

Here are some very old and outdated examples of this.:

I had a lot of fun messing around with the different hue's, saturations, etc however, this made the file size of the game itself too large and I was barely able to upload the [Extended demo] as it exceeded 1GB and it's not even complete which heavily worries me. :,,,,[

I am still new and learning as I go but I managed to discover a way to adjust the lighting, etc within the game! This will take a bit of time since I'll have to add/remove CG's but I mighttt put a pin in this as something to look into in the future or adjust them as I go.

Also, I made two new hyper links that will be on my pinned [Extended Demo] post!:

Noah's spotify playlist's:[Listen to it here!]

For video meme's regarding Noah will be in #Noah: meme videos

I'm still working on stuff behind the scenes which includes some stuff regarding Noah's birthday month, it's just a little scattered right now! :,D

If you like what I create, please consider supporting what I do on kofi! All donations and tips help tremendously while I continue to work on the game. Thank you to those that optionally bought the [Extended Demo] on itch.io. :,]

Q&A / Ask box is open:

To know and understand Noah through Asks and random posts about lore, they'll be under #Get to know: Noah ! :]

**Some asks won't be answered if it contains spoilers but I do appreciate what I receive.

If you have any questions about Trembling Essence/Noah feel free to ask [here] or on itch.io please. This makes it easier for me to see and answer accordingly! I enjoy hearing from you guys!

Thank you guys for the continued support and influx of downloads for the [Extended Demo] recently! I really appreciate it! :,]

[morroodle]

So recently I started a new, ninjago themed playthrough of my beloved Cult of the Lamb and it has led to some very funny things

Kai got that quest line thing where you make another follower eat poop 2 times then imprison them then kill them and it was targeted at Garmadon. Cannon.

They are friends :D

My wife <333 (she fits as Leshy so well!)

Yea that fits

Green cousins got drunk then Wu died of old age and they immediately started fighting. I broke them up and they fought again. Repeat 2 more times. This has got to be the most cannon thing that has happened

On one of my runs I ended up with the ax and a x2 attack speed buff and it was so overpowered cause I could hit hard as fast as I could click. The next run I ended up with 7 demons. This game is great!

Don't have pictures of it but I have begun breeding followers. Zane and Pixal made Minipix and then I bred Cole and Jay (I was NOT intending to keep the egg I just needed some yolks and they were compatible) but then they gave me my first golden egg so i made Joel the usher robot from the nightmare love triangle in season 3. Once I get a Geo I will be making the finder childeren :D also I had to wait a while to get Lloyd because I specifically wanted him to be the child of Garmadon and Misako and it took me forever to unlock the mating tent.

And finally: the event my followers (the ones who survived) my followers will forever remember as the great abaabandonment. I'm not actually sure what happened but i think the game might have somehow remained unpaused while I was eating dinner and looking at bedframes. I didn't notice when I got back until I got a notification that The Overlord (what I renamed The One Who Waits aka a follower who is supposed to be IMMORTAL) died. At that point I fucking booked it back and returned to find an absolute disaster

A total of 15 followers died. The only ones who survived were Wu and Garm, the ninja and Morro (aka the important ones). Wu, despite being a disciple, was dissenting. 2 followers had already dissented enough that they ran away and I got a notification that if I didn't fix things FAST then half of my remaining followers would also leave. There were so many corpses. I still haven't recovered. I am so sorry my babies.

I have a spreadsheet of all my followers and all the ninjago characters I plan to make into followers. Top half is good guys, bottom half is bad guys, green is alive and red is dead.

I'm waiting to do the serpentine until after I unlock the snake follower form but in order to do that I have to find all the lore and I have found none of it despite thoroughly beating the game ;-;

Anyway I'm having fun. I'll update with any future shenanigans.

[oneknightstand-if]

Fencing Club Route is a Go!

Update 2: Chapter 1 Part 3 - Fencing Club Route

Don't feel like playing polo? Join the fencing club instead!

Play the Updated Beta Test

(Since there were bugs reported throughout Chapter 1 & 2, your current saves are probably going to reset to the beginning of each section of the game)

*If you're getting error messages or the fencing club route isn't showing up properly for you (after you refreshed and restarted the game), you'll need to clear your cache. More details found here.*

Additional Word Count (Sans Code): 120,000+ Additional Word Count (With Code): 155,000+ New Total Word Count (Sans Code): 614,000+ New Total Word Count (With Code): 833,000+ Average Playthrough: ~60,000 words

Note: You can view the game code on my site the same way you do on Dashingdon just add /scenes to the end of the URL.

Next Update

Merlin's Guide to Minor Enemies

A bucketload of owed texts & e-mails to the MC

Decisions of great import... just where are you sleeping in that motorhome?

A̴ ̴C̴o̶m̴p̷l̷e̵t̷e̴l̴y̵ ̶N̴o̷r̸m̴a̶l̵ ̵G̴a̴s̸ ̶S̵t̵a̷t̷i̶o̷n̸ ̵S̴t̸o̷p̷

Take part in your first multi-user spell! (Potentially depending on the length of the gas station stop?)

Meet the next Harbinger - RO #4 (Potentially depending on the length of the gas station stop?)

Link to New Polls on the Update (Which don't auto close in a week like the Tumblr ones)

Also...

I'm currently coming down with something (Covid test says not that, so maybe just the flu?) so I'll be taking a bit of a break after this.

More (Fiddly) Info on the Update Behind the Spoiler Cut...

The Update Also Includes...

Calmly letting Merlin into your apartment after escaping the monster-under-the-bed no longer removes the mute flag

Fixed Adrian literally calling the MC as "MC" in the pub

Fixed expresso back to espresso AGAIN *stares at it*

Fixed the phil_status 2 bug AGAIN (Somehow I must've reverted a bunch of bug fixes in Chapter 1)

Fixed bug where MC's name permanently changes to their pseudonym if the player tried to back out of the renaming screen

Fixed the "On second thought, let me try a different fake first name…" option so it only asks the player to change their fake first name (as originally intended)

Fixed some dialogue with Adrian depending upon your clothing choices in the polo club branch

Fixed the Adrian text messaging bug. Again. Hopefully third time is the charm.

Fixed bug where your current job being your dream employment wasn't triggering the positive job attitude flavor text

Fixed bug where the mute flag was being toggled off when interacting with Adrian regarding your fancy outfit before the polo club meeting

Choice where Lucid Dreamer MC talks to Modern Arthur about Merlin's dreamwalking advice is now set to toggle only when the MC speaks to Merlin in the Camelot dream sequence

Fixed bug with the user's input option for Business Casual outfit

User's choice option for Business Casual & Business Suit now toggles pants or skirt variable

Fixed bug with the Cracking text effect in darkmode

All piercings & scars now available in one choice during customization.

Fixed bug (AGAIN!) when Lucky MC fails the luck check to escape the bed monster

Added reactions to Camelot-affiliated names belonging to inanimate objects.

Fixed *set ag2 2 -1 bug in Camelot dream sequence (I wonder how that didn't trigger QuickTest)

A Bit More Info on the Update Mechanics

The decision on which club you join is one of the first questions in Chapter 1, so players will have to restart from pretty early on. However the fencing club flavor text will continue to run throughout the rest of the game (including in the Camelot dream sequence with the Courtyard branch for the Lucid Dreamer MC).

Otherwise this current update does not progress the game further into Chapter 2.

Also Part 2....

We lost power to part of the house (thankfully not including my computer), and while I'm usually the one who deals with the circuit breakers, since I'm currently sick I asked my mother to do it this one time. She turned the power off to the entire house. 🥲 The uninterruptible power source did nothing and now my computer and the microwave are bugging out. I'm just going to lie down now.

[forevergoldgame]

2 MORE DAYS EVERYONE!!

LS here. Today I'm going to talk about my favorite thing: UI design. When it's good, it's utterly invisible, but when it's bad, everyone notices!

There were definitely some hurdles and hiccups in the UI design of the demo. Part of it was me being unfamiliar with my tools, part of it was not understanding some of the in-built features of the sugarcube twine template. Since then I've brushed up on my JS and restructured things to make the game more intuitive.

First up, we now have two different options for the choice menu! By default, the game displays the "scrolling list" as seen on the left. Using either touch controls or your mouse scroll wheel, you can cycle through the available options before making your choice... or if your device lacks touch/wheel options (or you dislike needless UI animation), you can set the choice menu to "static list" and have your options display in a plain list.

Next is the top bar! At first glance, the buttons might look the same as they did in the demo, but they are not. Yes, the larger of the two still leads to a (new) character summary, but the smaller button now opens the new glossary rather than than being a redundant link to the inventory.

The glossary is a small feature a few readers suggested and it does exactly what it says. It combs through the current passage and looks for vocabulary words which may be unfamiliar to readers.

As always, the glossary feature is meant to be a convenience for readers who may have taken breaks in their playthrough and would like a refresher. It's an anti-frustration feature, not "homework!"

The settings menu is much like it was before, but with a few new features. Changing the theme now changes the UI popups as well as the main layout, so no more white text on dark backgrounds for light theme users! Mobile users will also be happy to learn that you can adjust touch sensitivity - this should hopefully fix some of the issues with people triggering the touch menu when scrolling down the page.

(The touch sensitivity range given in the menu might be tweaked later though - I've only had a few people test mobile for me so my perception of "the average mobile device" has a lot of holes in it. Mobile users, you'll have to let me know if the range is too great/too small to be useful!)

The "You" page has been separated from the Party menu and overhauled. This was mentioned in a previous post, so I'll move on to how the Party menu has been restructured!

Wanting to have as much information as possible easily available, I did away with the individual subpages in favor of these smaller summaries you can scroll through (using touch, mousewheel, or buttons).

The longer, unclear lists of companion thoughts are now represented by almost equally vague relationship icons. The left icon gives you an overview on "what" your relationship is, while the right icon gives you an idea of its "tone." Broadly speaking, "low tension" relationships are ones where the given companion and Quincy largely agree, and "high tension" relations are ones where you do not. A friendship with high tension might manifest as a cheeky rivalry, while a low-tension enemy might be someone who resents Quincy but stays polite for the sake of shared goals.

The travel log has gotten a similar retool for ease of use. We've chosen to drop the framing of "quests" in favor of plainly listed "tasks." Itemizing story events as "quests" was a sort of holdover from early development, when we were still conceptualizing what "gameplay" for an IF story like this would even look like, but as development progressed, it became clear that was kind of an overcomplication.

The timeline on the synopsis page has also been done away with in favor of this woven history log which tracks the beginning/ending of arcs and some big ticket player choices. You can scroll through the squares for a brief reminder of what you did in your specific playthrough!

The inventory has been redone to better reflect how we're putting the inventory system to use in-game. Doing away with "notes," we now have three categories of inventory item: actual items, Quincy's observations, and oaths. What is an oath? You'll just have to find out!

The codex has received a ton of QoL updates - namely, better options for navigation and a simple search function. We've also altered the categories somewhat and reassessed what "deserves" an article and what should exist as an amendment to a larger article, as - for example - giving each and every named location a codex entry like we originally planned would very quickly spin out of control and overwhelm players. We hope the end result is a cleaner codex experience!

And, finally, we have the retooled map. Instead of awkwardly navigating submenus, we now have one huge map with everything on it! The player can navigate by either clicking the points on the map or the list of available locations. A selected location will display in the corner, and list any active story tasks associated with that location.

And that's all for today's post! We're so close to release, and I can't wait to hear everyone's thoughts on what we've made!

-LS

[city-of-heavenly-heartbreaks]

Onto the next playthrough!

This time around, I really wanted to make a character I could have fun with. Introducing Veryl Ingellvar - her hair is purple and so is she 💜 I've heard great things about the Mourn Watcher background, plus I love how Campy their faction is, so I had to give it a try! I can't picture my Grey Warden or Veil Jumper Rook walking around with blown-out curls and cut eyeliner, but Ingellvar is just that girl 💅🏻

She's a former Crypt Baby/Nevarran Street Kid who loves to talk shit and blow things up with her Orb and Dagger. Watch out, Emmrich.

I'm pairing her with my Inquisitor Evelyn Trevelyan - Evelyn was the first Inquisitor I ever finished DAI with, so she's very near and dear to my heart! Now that I've gotten my Solvallen fix, I'll let her and Cullen take over.

[monocodoll]

MonocoDoll's Vile Ventures (Drug Dealing) Mod Report (Additional Objects Made, Animations for Three Drugs, and House Raid Function Fix)

Just another monthly Mod Report regarding My Vile Ventures mod. This month I worked on creating a few more objects, consumption animations for three drugs, and fixing a bug found during my playthrough. Which I will go over these on the report.

[Additional Objects Made]

-Rolling Paper

The Raw Rolling Paper object will be utilized to create joints of weed. The joint created will depend on the strain that you have.

-Swisher Sweets

The Swisher Sweets object will be utilized to create blunts of weed. The blunt created will depend on the strain that you have.

-Bong

The bong will be utilized as one of the options to consume Cannabis.

-Lighter

The lighter will be utilized during some consumption animations. In particular, while lighting a bong.

[Consumptions Animations For Three Drugs]

This month, after finally being able to figure out how to properly set up animations into the game I was able to set up Animations for three drugs during the month. Lean, Cold Medicine, and Shrooms. I have two individuals to thank greatly. As they have answered my many questions regarding setting up object animations. Both Savanita and Olomaya were a huge help.

-Drink Lean

You can drink lean while standing or sitting down.

-Cold Medicine

You may drink cold medicine while standing or sitting down.

-Eat Shroom

You may eat shrooms while standing or sitting down.

[Fixes Made During Testing]

-House Raid Fixed

During my playthrough, I found that my house raid function did not work properly. I went back into the code and completely rewrote how my raid function works. I tested it many times and it has been succesful each time after the rewrite. I'll go over how it works, now that I have in game screenshots of the scenario.

Your sim is sound asleep after a full day of dealing. Getting rest to start doing it again the next day.

You have a Cocaine Brick to cut tomorrow morning...

Some Cured Cannabis to collect tomorrow too...

And some Drug plants to take care of tomorrow morning...

However, before tomorrow can hit. You hear sirens outside late at night.

Your door gets rung...

Only to find out that your residency is being raided...

Once the Raid begins, the suspect sim will remain still while the officer conducts the search. The officer will confiscate every drug, drug plants, dirty money, guns, etc.

If illegal product is found in the residency, then the Suspect sim will be arrested.

Once arrested, the suspect sim will be taken to the police station and be sentenced.

And that is all I have to report on for this month. We went over creating a few objects that will be used in the future, creating animations for three of our drugs, and fixing our House Raid Function.

I am so happy that I finally figured out how to put an animation in the game. As well as having a functional House Raid Function. It's a cool scenario in my opinion. For the following month, I'd like to create animations for all my pill varients of the drugs. Such as MDMA, Xanax, Adderall, and PainKillers. I'm rather slow with animations, so finishing animations for all drugs included with this mod may take a bit. LSD, Cocaine, Meth, Heroin, All 6 Cannabis Strains, Trenbolone, Testosterone Enanthate, and Estrogen blockers are the other drugs that need animations as well. So a total of 3/20 drugs have their animations completed. Some drugs will have more methods of consumption. For example Cannabis will have several options such as using a bong, Joints, Blunts, or a vaporizer.

Progress was slow this month as I was learning how to set up animations into the game and I am completely new to animations, so progress won't be as speedy as when I was focused on the coding aspect of the mod.

Now I'm going to go back into hiding as every cow should.

[hyouta]

Aaaannnnddddd that's Melody of Memory and Dark Road completed!

A little bit later than I planned, but still miles ahead of the last possible date (I'm not even sure if it'll mean anything anyway, but TR remastered 4-6 is coming out next week so my dad MIGHT grab my ps4 again).

Melody of Memory

Anywho, my clear time for KHMoM is so funny because I picked it up before I did a full series playthrough, but I didn't clear the final stage because I wanted to finish the other games first (even though that never stopped me for Days or DDD).

For a simple little rythm game it's a lot of fun. I'm not perfect at it, and it took me a while to learn some tracks, but it's the only game in the series where I have played Proud mode (according to my clear stats, it was the mode I used the most?? sure).

Almost sucks to have gotten the switch version because I would have unlocked a lot of ps4 trophies...

I definitely think they could have done more for it, and it sucks that it's TECHNICALLY Kairi's game and you only play as her for ONE track and you can't even unlock her after? Ok. Justice for my daughter please??

I will also still complain about there being no Symphony of Sorcery representation in this rythm game like I know the tracks are like 10 minutes long but COME ON...

Last thing I have to say is that, prior to finishing I had seen the credits for this game, but I teared up anyway, I think knowing it's my last playable experience for a while...

Dark Road

I think this and Birth by Sleep (I guess you can throw KH1 in there) are great contained stories. Obviously they mention or lead into bigger stories but I think if they changed the format of Dark Road it'd be one of those stories you can just pick up and watch without worrying about remembering that many details from the other games. (I appreciate that it was broken into clear episodes, even though I watched it all in one sitting).

Going into this the only things I really knew was that it'd explain Xehanort's character a lot more (which is why I didn't comment on his motivation in KH3 because I was reserving judgement) and that Bragi = Luxu. I think this worked for me because asking me to watch a 4 hour graphic novel of sorts is a lot. It took me longer than 4 hours to watch... but I was hooked on the story.

It took me longer of course because I was making notes to process the information I was given (unfortunately I couldn't draw much because I had to pay attention to text, please dub this). It's a bunch of nothing but this is what my notes ended up looking like:

(I think I wrote about it in my notes but the talk about people being a light for others and losing purpose without them, Nomura I'm going to beat your ass specifically for that one!!)

Whether you read relationships in KH as strictly platonic, or something more, it's the relationships in this series that I think makes it so special...

Anyway, art I will probably never fix or finish but wanted to add

(I actually was drawing Lea and Isa clothes swapped to (most obvious thing ever considering what I was watching), stopped to make notes, tried to draw Urd, gave up trying to draw + read at the same time so drew this after - typed up this post and thought oops, my wips...)

Now that I'm done, I sort of want to do something for finishing everything but I don't know what and don't want to be too ambitious my art idea/wip list is already too long. Maybe I'll do one more post talking about everything or something hmm...

[ageless-aislynn]

Mass Effect 2, the adventure continues!

Tali! I found my girl but may have made a mistake in telling her to take the Quarian with her instead of asking her to join us. I just felt bad for the guy and wanted him to go back to his people but, I swear, as soon as I clicked that option, I realized I'd just passed on the other option to invite Tali with me. If that somehow locked me out of anything with her, well, I'll have to come back to this mission in order to fix it. 😬

The Normandy 2! Okay, I have to say that I just finished touring the 4 decks and I LOVE this ship! I loved the Normandy 1 but all of the new additions just make the 2 so much more immersive! Plus, it honestly feels more like the Tempest from Andromeda and I adore that ship, so there you have it. 💖

Shepard can have fish! I remember reading something about that before and I'm so excited! I honestly could just stand here for a while looking at it empty, it's so peaceful, but I can't wait to have some occupants! Or just one. Can't remember. But I do know you have to feed it, so will stay on that for sure!

This outfit doesn't fit my sweet Paragon Shep but believe me when I tell you that I'm GOING to wear it at some later playthrough, lol!

No offense to Miranda and Jacob but I can't wait to get my squad together! Who do you like to take with you in ME2? Do you change it up depending on the mission? Do you have a ride-or-die that you always bring along with somebody else more mission-specific? I'd love to hear anything you'd like to tell about!

I finally read something that made it click for me when it comes to your squadmates and "telling" them which target to use their powers on: just consider that their powers are your own, rather than think of it as directing somebody else. Since you can map a power from each of your squadmates to the left and right D-pad, it works out just like having Shep use his own powers. That finally made sense to me, yay!

Oh, I also went ahead and kept Shep as a Vanguard. I read through the descriptions, powers and weapons available to all of the classes at the start but just honestly couldn't tell which would be best suited to my style of play. I like to get in there and brawl, so Vanguard seemed as good a choice as any. Though I also like to hang back and snipe and I don't know if I'll have a sniper option like I did in 1. Guess we'll see!

Aria! She's so no-nonsense, I love her already! 😍

Okay, just wanted to get some of my thoughts down. I had a rough start but am picking up the combat a little faster now, though I'm not entirely sure about the Galaxy Map. In ME1 and Andromeda, you don't "go" to every place you look at but the first time I sorta explored around the map, it looked like I was legit flying the Normandy 2 to all of those places. And I see there's a fuel depot on the map. Do I have to manage our fuel and make sure we don't run out of gas, too? That's so much PRESSURE, ZOMG. 😱😉

Oh well, I'll figure it out eventually! I'm already really enjoying ME2 and can't wait to get my squad recruiting going!

Love you, frens, hope you're had a great weekend and this next week is better than you could ever hope! 🤗🤗🤗

[elysianstars]

Another dose of Persona 5 Playthrough Commentary. Surely we're more than halfway through the game by now?

Sorry Haru, you are lovely but your father had it coming. Also, I think our recent real world CEO incident proves that people would NOT turn against the Phantom Thieves as 'murderers' over a case like that. They'd just cheer them on harder and suggest more targets.

Can someone kill Futaba's uncle next please. She's my gremlin otaku baby sister now, and I will protect her at all costs.

Oh hey, Yoshizawa is going to join up as - oh wait, no she isn't. Fair enough, I suppose it's not something everyone would be into, even if they're capable. That was odd.

Hanging out with Yusuke is hilarious. Let's row across a duck pond and say weird things to passers by. Let's strike dramatic poses in a church, until the priest warns us not to bother his congregation. Causing a mild public nuisance wherever we wander.

I suck at batting, but I like darts! Don't understand billiards though, or how it's different from snooker or pool, or any other game where you put a bunch of balls on a table and jab them with a stick. I'm...not a sports guy, okay.

Uh, how is Morgana throwing the darts please. I'll accept that he picked a lock in Madarame's shack, because I have seen cats break in and out of the most unbelievable, supposedly secure containers. But this? Is everyone at...Club Penguin or whatever it's called, just chilling, watching some guy walk in with a cat in his bag, then play a game of darts with it like that's normal?

Makoto wonders how they can invite Akechi to the school festival, and Joker has to chime up like umm. I might have his number. Yeah we've been out places together a few times. Also I've seen him naked. Don't worry about it.

Would not have predicted that Sojiro would be the first confidant I'd max out, but I got invested in his story. What a good guy. And he doesn't mind that he's sheltering Phantom Thieves either.

Second to max out was Makoto, and her Persona got a new form! Assuming that happens with every party member? If so, I need to focus more on ranking theirs up.

Back to the main plot, Akechi has joined the team. Albeit in the least friendly way possible, while still managing to get cooperation. I think I respect how he's laying some of his cards on the table? Don't get your hopes up losers, this isn't the start of an awesome fun partnership where we have a bunch of adventures together. I hope I never see your faces again after we fix this mess. Even you Joker. Especially fucking you.

Shadow Sae wears even more eyeliner than I did during my teen goth phase. Thank god we can rig the gambling games instead of playing normally.

Mishima said creepy things to Futaba, and she just obliterated him by calling him an NPC. Giving her a standing ovation.

[invinciblerodent]

easily over 600 hours and 3 playthroughs into this game, and I'm still finding things and texts i've never seen before.

(anyway, I'm a MintharaxKlagga truther now.)

Transcription:

Image 1:

[A childish doodle of a goblin presenting a fungal bouquet to a drow adorns this crumpled letter.]

Dearest yer excellency and most prettiest Minthara,

You might not remember me. I ain't nobody important after all. Not yet.

I was chasing chickens with the lads when you came to visit boss Ragzlin. You looked right at me when you told him that if we was as good at killin' humans as we was at pluckin' poultry we might be worth a damn. Made me feel proper special to be recognised like that.

Next raid, I'll spill so much blood the Absolute'll have to notice me. Then I'll come to Moonrise and you'll notice me too. I'm the one with the stumpy leg and the gammy eye.

Klagga

Image 2:

[A scrap of paper containing what appear to be ideas for a love letter.]

Can't compare her to the moon or the stars or any of that rubbish because she lives underground... she ain't got any scabs or boils so can't compliment the best ones... might think I'm too small, tell her I'll buy a footstool for when we're kissin'... put some dead spiders in my hair next time i see her... probably just send her some bits of people wot I killed...

(edit: typo fix)

[ejthenobody]

A Random Rambly Thought About Hi-Fi Rush.

Sooooo while I haven't been able to play the game at all lately due to having a dead laptop that I need to get a job to pay to fix, I've been looking at LPs and whatnot of Hi-Fi Rush as the next best thing, daydreaming about what I'll do for my own Youtube videos on the game and my quest for 100% completion. Due to watching other people play the game I've ran into this fun little thought about it from a few playthroughs:

(Warning for possible spoilers for Hi-Fi Rush, go play it if you haven't)

Chai's trash guitar/"junker", as I like to call it, isn't actually becoming a guitar in the moments we see it transforming during a cutscene. That is purely in his head due to Chai being kind of delusional about his dreams of becoming a rockstar.

Now, I think this interpretation is wrong, BUT I wanna ramble about it anyway just because.

First and most boring reason why I think it's wrong is because, well, it's just the tone of Hi-Fi Rush's world and story. Chai's whacking stick becoming an actual guitar whenever he's, *IN THE ZONE*, is not the most absurd thing we see in the game and is fully believable in comparison to people like Roquefort or Kale's whole plan with Spectra. This is a slightly fantastical, bright and colorful world with super advanced technology and a main character whose sick-nasty powers are coming from an MP3 player mistakenly embedded in his chest, and if you've gotten to the point of asking if that guitar-shaped whacking stick is actually becoming a guitar or not, then you likely won't care anymore within the next ten seconds when he takes that guitar and smashes a giant robot's face in with it.

Secondly and from a more interesting angle, I think there's enough evidence within Hi-Fi Rush's story and gameplay that points to the idea that Chai's junker is actually transforming in the moments we see it doing so.

Like I mentioned earlier, Chai's guitar only seems to transform whenever he's really feeling it; whenever he's at the top of his game; whenever we're going so hard that we're getting S ranks like it's as easy as breathing. In gameplay, we see this as being a feature of regular combat, where Chai's junker will transform into a proper guitar when we're doing well. In cutscenes, we always see Chai's junker transform with this very specific effect, where it seemingly starts charging with this blue energy aura before it then shifts into a guitar and the aura quickly fades. We only see this during moments when Chai is likely feeling extremely confident, A.K.A. when he's literally delivering the final blows to every single boss. It's during the final boss fight with Kale himself we see something that clearly shows the guitar is actually a guitar directly after Kale is defeated. It's a brief moment where Chai drops the guitar on the ground and it doesn't break apart or revert back to the junker, it actually hits the ground like it should with a very distinctly not-pile-of-scrap-metal-hitting-the-floor sound.

Outside of all of that, in general, we're lead to believe that Chai's "musical robot powers" and the power boost they provide are very clear and very apparent to everybody, even if Chai's the only one moving to the beat and seeing the world as doing the same. He's noted as having a ton of firepower in comparison to everyone else by Macaron, with that one line about how, "If even Chai can't get through that wall, then we're out of luck," or however it goes. And while we're pointing out quotes, you can't forget Kale's, "All you're good at is hitting things with a guitar," line, which is another big point to the idea that Chai's whacking stick is actually becoming a guitar, since I doubt someone like Kale would be willing to call said bonking stick a guitar unless it was actually becoming one every now and then.

Okay, this is kinda random to say here at the bottom of all of that but I don't have much in the way of creative flow going on right now so coming up with an actual ending to all of that is kind of hard, buuuuuuuut: I think the thought of Chai's junker only transforming whenever he's feeling 700% confident is a fun, if unnecessary, headcanon as to why he's not using the Flying V Chai Custom in the ending cutscenes and instead has the Vandelay Custom Crimson Red. Because Chai isn't always at 700% confidence, and...Really no one is or can be, or at least should be. He's a cool dude but he definitely doesn't have his chest always puffed out, especially at the end of the game's story.

If the junker can only transform whenever he's at the peak of his game mentally, with all hype cylinders firing, then of course he can't use it as an actual guitar the rest of the time when he's just chilling out with the gang and practicing.