#Poetic games

[mstrchu]

[iloveabunchofgames]

#JakeReviewsItch

And All Would Cry Beware!

by Tales of the Renegade Sector

Price (US): $9.99

Included In: Indie Bundle for Palestinian Aid, Bundle for Racial Justice and Equality

Genre: Shooter

Pitch: A story-driven first-person shooter on an alien world, with a bit of exploration and backtracking.

My expectations: The Itch page calls it an "old-school-style" shooter. I'm mildly skeptical of that claim. It looks like a basic Unity shooter with low-resolution textures. Whatever. I love shooting and Metroid-ing. The game and the developer both have names that sound like your high school's most audacious bands. Expectations are high.

Review:

You have a gun. You get a new gun. The new gun offers different advantages in combat and can open routes blocked by obvious barriers. These routes lead to new guns.

And They All Would Cry Beware! Is a competent, playable shooter that offers nothing special. It handles exactly like every other indie shooter made in Unity. (Though you’ll need to go through something like Steam if you want to adjust aim sensitivity on a controller.) Enemies types are all distinct, but their movement and attack patterns are uninspired, as is their abstract, geometric shape design. Likewise, the small, alien world’s regions are varied enough that you won’t get too lost while backtracking, but it’s never exciting to step into a new biome. There’s no atmosphere.

The path is littered with transcribed audio logs that fill in a story that’s Stargate meets The Book of Genesis.

I got stuck right at the end and had to look for hints in the Itch comments section, where someone mentioned rocket jumps. I’d previously shot a rocket at the floor and died, but I guess the two were unrelated, and I was just supposed to know I could safely hop on explosions. Ugh.

+ A complete, reasonably passable passable game that can be finished in an hour or two. + Breezing through old areas with powerful new weapons is satisfying. It helps that everything has unlimited ammo. + Different areas look and sound different, easing in navigation. + The most Biblical shooter since Super 3D Noah's Ark.

– Doesn't excel at anything. – Bad UI. Just a bunch of flat, garish rectangles. Worst of all are the Health pips, which so small they're practically invisible. Poor feedback in general. It's hard to tell when you're taking damage and from what direction, made worse by the aforementioned Health indicator. Enemies flash and shake when hit, but they can be hard to see around your own bullets, and guns have a deceptively short range, so what looks like a perfectly aimed shot might not be doing anything. – Very few hidden collectables. Just enough to trick you into thinking exploration is important. It's not. – Did I miss something? I thought I was paying attention. I read every written word I encountered. How was I supposed to know that jumping on an explosion (which, again, I thought had killed me because I couldn't identify what had actually killed me) was necessary to reach the end? Hiding collectables to reward players who have Quake on the mind is great, but if a move as illogical as rocket jumping is part of the critical path, you better make sure I know about it.

🧡🧡🧡🤍🤍 Bottom Line: While I didn't have a bad time with And All Would Cry Beware, and I was charmed by its poetic aspirations, it's hard to recommend a shooter that's this thoroughly average.

#JakeReviewsItch is a series of daily game reviews. You can learn more here. You can also browse past reviews...

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[justabiteofspite]

"Astarion doesn't do big romantic gestures."

My Durge still trying to get graveyard dirt out of her ass crack after being lovingly pounded into it by Astarion who wanted to share with her this deeply joyful and meaningful reclamation of himself after sharing a vulnerable declaration of his love, at this place he hasn't shown anyone else but her: "Then what the actual fuck was that???"

[circuscountdowns]

I don’t think the crown works like this. added the full pages

[dottyistired]

if you put me into this thing rn it would just be a loop of "you can call me anything except late for dinner/he was the center of my universe, the sun of my galaxy/so you never cared about ford?/i never said that./were we even partners?/one thing led to another/who else will give you this feeling again?/puppet hour/the love cage/my blessed muse/oh sixer, it would eat you alive/it would eat you alive/it would eat you alive/it would eat you alive./GET OUT OF MY HEAD/you first."

[collecting-dustbunnies]

The longer I play Obey Me, the more I feel like Obey Me is a story about how the MC, in their quest to seek acceptance by the people they care about, ends up destroying themselves in the process and losing the very thing that made them so special and loved in the first place.

In the beginning of OG, they started off as just a normal human who got whisked away to a weird ass world where literally nobody respects them. Despite this, they recognised from the beginning that these demons and angels were not so different from humans. MC's ability to see the demons as actual people and not just beings controlled by their sins was what allowed them to form close bonds with them. They had good intentions to reunite the demon brothers who had undergone centuries of misunderstanding, resentment, and pent up grief. Even though they were excessively nosy, MC's unique position as a complete outsider allowed them to see just how much love the demon brothers had for each other, and how they can become closer if everybody would just better communicate with each other. Serving as the bridge to better improve the brothers' relationships was what convinced the demon brothers to also see MC as a member of their family.

But as the MC became more involved in the Devildom's problems, they started to adopt the same toxic traits that had created wedges between the brothers in the first place. From relying heavily on their pacts to subdue the brothers, to allowing a curse to control Barbatos (even though they had the ability to break it), to going along with the brothers' manipulative scheme to trick Satan into reconciling with Lucifer when Satan ran away to the human world -- it's almost like MC has unconsciously picked up on some of their loved ones' behaviour. Gone are the days where MC brings in a new perspective to problems. Now, they just embrace the chaos and their more darker traits, for that is what is expected of them to survive in the Devildom. And since everyone within their circle puts them on a pedestal, this further affirms to the MC that this is how they should be.

Dealing with the affairs of the Devildom had also caused the MC to grow more apathetic. In the beginning, they had been actively taking steps to form pacts with the brothers and were generally very invested in freeing Belphie from the attic. They remained true to themselves and insisted that they form a pact with Satan based on mutual trust and understanding, and not just as a means to smite Lucifer. Despite being in a helpless situation, MC never refused to give up their agency. But the longer MC gets involved with these shenanigans, the more they grew... numb to everything.

Solomon bringing me back to the Devildom unannounced? Oh, sure. Diavolo and Solomon hiding the reasons for my sudden return? Not my problem.

Simeon facing a problem to the point of having a quarter of the cast acting as his bodyguards? Eh, I'll just ignore it until I can't anymore.

Watching and waiting. That's what they have resorted to doing.

And that mindset of kicking problems down the line until it lands on MC's doorstep and they have no choice but to act -- that's exactly how they have been acting when they were stuck in NB, hasn't it? MC didn't bother forming pacts with the past version of the brothers until they were given an ultimatum, and even then, they simply relied on the convenient timing of each brother struggling with an inner crisis to swoop in, resolve the situation and tick them off their checklist.

MC in NB seems like an unfortunate culmination of everything they faced so far. They're too apathetic to care about getting sent to an unfamiliar place once again, too desensitised to life in the Devildom to reclaim their agency, and too desperate to earn the love of their former family to even think about anything else. They became so co-dependent to the demon brothers that they seem to think they cannot live without them or their affection, even if the ones they are living with in the past are different people from the ones they grew to love in the present.

The phrase "You either die a hero, or live long enough to see yourself become the villain" fits way too perfectly for the Obey Me MC. After all, MC keeps getting rewarded every time they try to get themselves killed (or even when they actually got killed). Maybe that's the only way they know how to resolve problems.

So if they can't die as the hero, they'll just learn to live as the villain.

[mushramoo]

something abt a creature being made from the grief of a man who lost everything and took that pain out on the people around him. and that creature only knowing some fragments of tear-stained memories from family that it never knew and never will. going through the motions of the man it came from, trying desperately to feel fulfilled by the values that aren’t from it. something abt that photo reminded it of who it was EVEN FOR A SPLIT SECOND. memories that it never had. PAIN THAT IT NEVER FELT! longing for people it NEVER KNEW.

something about a creature made of Afton’s pain and agony, that only remembers the desire to see his kids again. I AM GOING PRIMAL

[kiwiaok]

I love andrew. I love every andrew. gimmie big arms andrew. and big titties andrew. sleeper build andrew with tummy. and emo andrew. and skinny sickly victorian child andrew with eyebags that take up half of his face and skin that has never seen sun. and andrew that smiles with all of his teeth. andrew with cheekbones sharp enough to kill a man. and andrew with a gun. I really want andrew with a gun.

[celesterayel]

midnight secrets | luke castellan

pairing : luke castellan x nyx!reader

request: can you write about luke and a daughter of nyx? <33

IN WHICH — he knows only one true thing: you put all the stars to shame.

"now I just wanna stay here and fall into midnight. Want nobody else now, only you, feel right" - a.

w.c. 1.9k

warning(s) : soft ゜✭・.

✩ ‧₊˚ author's note can you tell when I was younger I had fallen in love with the night and the idea of it? cuz I did. very much so, I'd say. also water, always loved the concept of it--the fragility and softness of it, like a balm against my skin.

long, long ago you learned of the sea of stars and their stories, from which rose their beginning and end. the stars were beings of heat and fire; they were beautifully mortal and alive.

they danced upon the domain of zeus; showering the sky with lights when night fell and befitting the world with their glow.

but as the sands of time bade the next and the corners of the sky dulled, the toll of living and breathing became too much. and so in the vast space of nothingness among the empty silence, the stars took on the duty of protecting a human and god: following where they might go, to every lifetime and universe as if they could erase the tragedy of the divine that swam through their blood.

and when each stars’ child died and their soul followed its ache to finally rest, the star would fall out of the sky in a blazing trail of destruction and divinity to taste freedom one last time and meet them in the next life.

there had been something raw and gruesomely alive about the stars when you learned of the story and so everyday, you’d trapeze the mortal line between night and sleep to watch them in absolution. you yearned to find an answer as to why? why would such immortal and imposing celestial beings like the stars willingly ruin themselves for us humans, for us beings that hungered for war and found pain like a symphony?

you learned your answer when you met luke castellan, your own tragic star who would follow you when the blood of the gods stopped flowing through your veins and your existence came to its calamitous end.

you had spent most of your life curiously confused as if there was something missing that made you feel broken; a piece of the puzzle that made drizzles seem like hurricanes and everything seem like an unsolvable mystery, constantly itching at your skin as if you just needed to pull back the layers and scratch.

and then, one day it stopped.

the buzzling in your head faded and you seem to finally just be.

luke castellan was the rain before the storm, the pain before the raw scream; every fatal, holy thing that meant absolution and destruction in the same manner. a price you were willing to pay if it meant loving him.

and you did–love him that is. every part of you ached with love for your golden boy who had weathered storms like they were his prison and had wanted like it was a fatal wound that might never heal.

you first met the golden castellan boy nearly a year after coming to camp where you were claimed to be a child of the night and stars, the goddess nyx; an absolution of divinity that you would be every dark, enchanting thing he would know. you were the only thing that would allow the hurt in him to finally cease its dance and just allow him to simply be.

while the blood of the gods flowed through your veins, the peace only night could bring was your cover. it was every paceless sleep spent at the docks praying to your mother for one more star to keep its dance, it was heaven and heartbreak in the same measure.

when both man and monster fell to slumber, it was the knowing that eventually everyone would cease their dance sooner or later.

people would watch you like you were a painting come to life as the moon basked you in waves of starlight and the forest came to life in your presence. when the night grew tired of its waiting and the stars lost their way, it was you coaxing them back to life to the restlessness all beings underwent.

you were a creature of presence and peaceful destruction, misfortune and desire–every loud, unsaintly thing the brown-eyed, dimpled boy had thought.

and he was your exact opposite: bold, bright and charming like the sun. it was as if hermes had threaded gold through his veins and ichor had poured forth to create whatever celestial thing luke was. a type of burn only the sun could bring when you went off to your death.

the night had settled upon the camp long ago and so nothing but the loudness of silence and pensive dreams continued its echo. except for the child of the night and her sun who seem to find balance between the bumbling and the glow of the soft moon.

luke grabbed your hand and threaded his fingers, clutching you tightly as if you’d disappear with the breeze and never return.

he guided you to the docks where the river reflected back the divinity of the night sky and lapped gentle waves against the shore. you sat side by side, silently basking in the quiet.

breaking the silence, he asked, “what’s wrong?”

what was wrong? you didn’t quiet know. there was just a sort of cloak of discomfort that had settled over you that you couldn’t seem to shake off.

“do you ever wonder what’ll happen next?”

you settled his hand in your lap and grabbed it like it was a lifeline, tethering your aching body back to the living when all you wanted was to fade. he only rubbed the back of your knuckle, soothing the skin and the bone-deep itch all at once.

you turn to gaze at him, and suddenly you were jealous of the moon and how it shined so beautifully on him like it was made for him to bask under.

he turns to look at you, “before no. now…every moment, i begin to think what makes us so different from humans that we suffer tragedy while they can live how they please and without the cruelty of the gods. I think about what will happen when i finally pass on from this life to wherever my soul may go.”

you don’t think you could handle leaving this world after him. it was a type of pain that would kill you inside out, you decided. you knew it.

there is vulnerability in him that speaks out, “and then i dream that none of that matters because someday you and i make it out of here. out of this place and away from gods and monsters.”

you only grab his other hand and the one you currently have trapped and place a kiss upon each of the palms, embedding all the affection you have for him in that moment. it is something so humanely lived that the world stops moving and the gods see a love for the ages.

he plucks you up from his side and merely places you in his lap, wrapping you tightly in arms like there is no war spreading and reaching it’s claws from the horizon toward the two of you.

you simply close your eyes, soaking in the boy who's holding you like you are a divine being.

“open your eyes and show me the stars, pretty girl.”

all he can think is the moon and stars, which you've fallen in love with so many times has nothing against you. and suddenly your staring the biggest star in the face, wondering if in another life you were the moon and he was the sun king.

but when he kisses you, you realize no. he is simply the star that will follow you when your bodies turn to ash, being picked up by the breeze. and there is only the secret that luke castellan would allow himself a thousand years of destruction if it meant following you where ever you go.

you two are simply a star and his love.

[manderleyfire]

HOUSE OF THE DRAGON COUNTDOWN TO S2 Day 7 – Dynamics: Otto x Alicent x Aegon

[why] DO YOU [destroy yourself] LOVE ME?

[spineless-lobster]

Whenever you die in a dream that’s hypnos and thanatos high fiving btw

[asleepinawell]

Irem, the Pillared City: Futures

[fluffs-n-stuffs]

KIERAN AND CARMINE IN PALDEAN WINDS OH MY GOD

[vaggieslefteye]

ᴍᴀᴋᴇ ᴍᴇ ᴄʜᴏᴏꜱᴇ ↳ anonymous asked: HUSK and ALASTOR or angel and valentino?

[bruisedboys]

finnick odair who tells you “I think my soul is yoked to yours forever, my love,” on a random saturday morning as he sets a plate of eggs in front of you, and you have to sit there and try to act like he didn’t just change the trajectory of your life with one sentence.

[divineandmajesticinone]

KISS X KISS X KISS: Love ii Shower (2023) I Atelier Kiss "Aside from me, do you ask someone else to model for you?"