In this award-winning game, play as a research assistant trying to do their job amidst the strange and supernatural.
Outliers takes inspiration from my 5+ years as a research assistant, with a big helping of absurd comedy in the style of Welcome to Night Vale and Gravity Falls.
Far Horizons CoOp is bringing Outliers to Kickstarter for a print run! You can sign up to be notified when we launch on Feb 15th.
Heatwave swirls the cube, staring suspiciously into it.
It's late night, or early morning, and he isn't sure if the cramping in his tanks is hunger or a premonition. He's leaning towards the latter, based on the cheshire grin Kade's sporting.
"Is this poisoned?" he asks, swirling it again. It's sparkling, there's clearly something floating in it. "Did you decide to finally get rid of me?"
"Just try it!" Kade looks far too proud of himself. He doesn't emit an EM field, but if he did, Heatwave's sure there'd be undertones of malicious intent. "You can trust me, can't you?"
"I can't," Heatwave says, but he is kind of hungry. Besides, what on Earth could possibly hurt him? And if Kade poisons him, they'd have to get rid of Kade. That's not so bad. Heatwave can go through a little poisoning for that. "But whatever."
He tips the cube and takes a sip, nearly dropping it when the taste hits his glossa. No way.
"Happy anniversary!" Kade says, waving his hands jazzily. "Today marks one year you guys have been on Griffin Rock, and well, sue me if I wanted to be the first to say it."
Heatwave's still processing the cube, before he empties the entire thing into his mouth, swishing it around and savoring the taste.
Mica chips, Heatwave's favorite additive. He hasn't had a cube flavored with them for so long. He's sure he's mentioned it at some point, but never in his life would he have expected Kade to remember. The chips aren't quite mixed properly, and the texture is kind of grainy, but by Primus, that's the nicest thing anyone's done for him since he got to Earth.
You know what? Maybe it's better I didn't see that coming.
Algorithm : I see you enjoyed and are obsessed with tfota. My calculations tells me that you must also enjoy and obsess over acotar and Taylor Swift.
Me : Actually, I didn't really like the SJM universe and I rarely listen to Taylor Swift and only the super old songs... I'll notify you that I'm uninterested in these topics so you don't have to show them to me
Algorithm : ...
Me : ...
Algorithm : I see you enjoyed and are obsessed with tfota. My calculations tells me that you must also enjoy and obsess over acotar and Taylor Swift.
Dear Vector Prime, since there is a Delta Magnus, are/were there Alpha, Beta and Gamma Magnuses? And what happened to them?
Dear Magnanimous Muse,
These three are elder members of the House of Magnus, and naturally, Delta wasn’t the last of his house. Their Old High Cybex names are for the most part sequential, so keeping in mind that Greek letters are only an approximation, here are some of the more notable individuals of this lineage:
Alpha Magnus, whose true name was Ultra Trion, a key figure in the Autobot resistance who died protecting the Oracle from Megazarak,
Beta Magnus, the worthy warrior who gained the power to control rays of electrons, but who was cursed with a monstrous appearance,
Gamma Magnus, a loadbearer with an avian alt-mode, who cast off his armor and turned away from war to reunite with his kin,
Iota Magna, who is rather difficult to describe, since she inhabits the realm of imaginary numbers,
Pi Magnus, the sacred geometer, whose teachings influenced the prominent philosopher Platonix,
Omega Prime, the form taken by Ultra Magnus when chosen by the Matrix of Leadership after millennia, referenced in the Covenant of Primus.
I think we all need to come together, as a society, and agree that “it’s” is perfectly acceptable to use as a contraction AND a possessive. No more of this “it’s” for contractions and “its” for possessives. Death to “its,” that ugly outlier in the possessives category.
Welcome to the lab, research assistant! Don't mind the blood seeping from the regulatory binders.
Our handbook, OUTLIERS, will guide you through navigating this new position. Give it a read, then pick up your new badge from the wailing void. I'm sure you'll be fine!
"It's raining," Heatwave growls, pulling his helm back over the threshold of the garage.
"Well, you can't predict the weather," Blades hums, defeated. Heatwave rumbles his engine, because he should be able to predict the weather, but apparently Primus doesn't think that's important enough to know in advance. But Blades wouldn't know any of that. None of them do.
"What, afraid of a little rain?" Kade jeers, leaning against the frame of the garage's door.
"No," Heatwave snaps. "Just... not a fan."
Chase makes a weird noise behind him. "I do not like how it feels," he says, seeming unsure, his finials pressing back.
"Well, rain means plans are cancelled, right?" Heatwave says, trying to come across as reassuring as he pats Chase's shoulder. "So you don't have to go out in it-"
It's just then that Heatwave feels his tanks cramp and his world darken, as he watches lighting split a tree in half, fire racing out around it despite the rain.
FYI we remove outliers on the suspicion that they're bad data. If you know for a fact that they're not then you have to include them. Especially (blank) Georg.
A few little sketchy moments from imagining my characters Mal and his sister Cat interacting with @chibi-netherlands' characters Moira and Jupiter on a night out. I'm enjoying this scrappier style, so hopefully you'll see more soon!