#and yet i have the disco elysium comic that i love so much but i have trouble drawing it lately

[sygneth]

I have always admired people who could write one fic or draw a comic for years because I am living in a constant fear of not finishing what I have started. Not in a 'maybe something terrible will happen to me' way, but simply knowing myself and that after a couple of months or years, I will catch a new fixation and finishing the old story will become hard. And yeah sure, I have heard people say "You don't have to finish if it doesn't interest you anymore" or "It's your art and you decide what it will be about" and I fully agree, but I still love those old things I came up with you know? I still love these characters and I want their stories to be told, but at the same time there already are new characters with new stories in my head and I want to tell them too.

[daydreamerwonderkid]

What fandoms you currently hyperfixated on?

Your oldest fandom?

Your favorite animes?

Favorite games?

How long you've been drawing?

Your favorite character from any franchise you can think of rn?

Sorry for the introgation LMAO, i just want to know more 👀

Lol you're all good, I don't mind asks like this :3

What fandoms you're currently hyperfixated on?

-Currently I'm pretty stuck on Batman/DC (can you tell?), but I'm also really into Dungeon Meshi and Omniscient Reader's Viewpoint. My sister recently introduced me to The Greatest Real Estate Developer and we've both been having an absolute blast with it. Idk if it has that big of a fandom, but it definitely should pffftt

Your oldest fandom?

-I wanna say Marvel and Star Wars since the first movie I ever saw was A New Hope and my first comic books were Spider-man and X-men comics. I was really hardcore into the MCU at its height and I'm a diehard fan of the Clone Wars series.

-Funnily enough, I was getting a bit burnt out by both the Marvel and SW fandoms a while back and that's actually why I got back into Batman and DC XD

Your favorite animes?

-My #1 favorite anime/manga/story of all time has got to be Full Metal Alchemist: Brotherhood. I don't know what to say about it that hasn't already been said, but it really is that fucking good and Hiromu Arakawa is definitely a huge inspiration to me.

-Other than that, I gotta say Paranoia Agent, Mob Psycho 100, Love is War, Spy x Family, Trigun (haven't seen Stampede yet), Mononoke, Castlevania, and Mushishi. I'm sure there's more, but those were the ones I could think of off the top of my head.

Favorite games?

-There's so many games I play, so I'll try to narrow it down a bit. Tbh my longest favorite running series/franchise has got to be Legend of Zelda. The only game from the series I didn't enjoy was Spirit Tracks, but otherwise I've pretty much enjoyed every single entry.

-I also love the Ace Attorney series, Stardew Valley, Jedi: Fallen Order (I have Survivor, but haven't played it yet), Disco Elysium, the Yakuza series, Ib, etc.

How long you've been drawing?

-Genuinely don't remember when I started. I think I've always been drawing. Of course, I was taught traditional art mediums first. I did a lot of oil painting, watercolor and charcoal drawing. It wasn't until, I wanna say, my third year of college that I started learning about digital art. It's not a medium I'm a 100% comfortable with and I've only recently started feeling more confident with it when I realized I could download brushes that were similar to pencils/ink/charcoal/watercolor/copic markers/etc.

Your favorite character from any franchise you can think of rn?

-That's a little difficult since I have so fucking many XD

-Atm, I can say my brain has been super fixated on Marcille Donato (Dungeon Meshi) and Dick Grayson (Nightwing/Batman). Tbh my brain is constantly rotating my favorites, so it really depends on the day or the week who my new top blorbo(s) is gonna be

[intrepidradish]

Media: Disco Elysium

Year/my age: 2022-23/32-33

Another long one!

What drew me to the media:

My husband, again, had been trying to get me to play this game for three years, but I'm not a gamer. Games make me stressed out and I'm bad at them. (He tried to get me into Hades, and I entered the first battled screen, and moaned "I have to fight things in this"? ... I did. :C Do not like.) Generally games give me panic attacks, and then when I'm bad at them, I get really sad about it. DE is nice because you don't fight anything. It goes as slow as you want, and even in hot moments there isn't a timer. Thank you DE.

What also drew me to the media was a dildo enthusiast Thongria on instagram loved the game, which as a follower, blew me away. Like hello?? What? How bizarre right?

At some point in the spring of last year a lot of DE fanart started appearing on tumblr too. Ustalabo appeared with her comic, which is incredible. I gave up. I was spending all day oscillating between watching my newborns nap and feeding them, which was in two hour cycles into the night. I was tired. I was really bored. I was really stationary (mostly on the couch) and I was really lonely. (I don't have family where I live, I had no job, and I was new to the state)

So I decided to play a game.

What made me a fan:

How could I not become a fan after the game? It's a really incredible story and its delivery is phenomenal. But ultimately, I think I became a fan because of Harry, the amnesiac cop you possess. On my first playthrough, I was very timid and horrified by the character. I ended up a moralist because of my unwillingness to say anything accusatory or polarizing (hahahahaha! so true to life!). I only drank and did drugs when Kim wasn't around, because his observational judgement made me uncomfortable about my addiction (AAAAAA). I tried to please him too but ultimately failed because of how I organized my skills (I did an empathy run but badly, so badly). It was also deeply cathartic for me as a child of an addict, who struggled throughout my childhood with the question of 'why can't you prioritize loving me over your addiction' and as I am not yet an addict, the game gives you an opportunity to live inside a deeply troubled man and maybe...maybe help him? You aren't entirely sure what the future holds for him.

At the end of the game, I was positive he was still going to detonate. I didn't like Kim/Harry, the default pairing, because I thought that Harry still had so much work to do! One week of forgetting your life doesn't fix you! Having a friend to rely on doesn't either! And Kim has his own host of issues that the game only touches lightly. So many post-game questions!

I've come around on Kim/Harry because I've thought about it a lot. I think in the face of addiction and pain, having a friend really does matter (having the right friend too). Dealing with isolation is a big theme of life (not just DE). No one is perfect either. All relationships are a bit codependent when you are in a depression cycle. That doesn't mean they are bad/good/ideal/not ideal/something to work around/something that shouldn't happen, just tread lightly right?

But also the world of Elysium is fucking incredible. It's enormous. It's got everything you want in a new environment. It's depths are unfathomable. It gives you a framework to both interact with canon, deeply, but also inject some of your own bullshit headcanons like they are the only real opinion to have. Haha it's great. The amount of material behind single sentences in the game, throw-away lines, are enough to fill an world-specific encyclopedia (and there is the skill Encyclopedia too to make it oh so much WORSE).

Have I written fanfiction for it? Why or why not?

FUCK YEAH. I'm sort of taping off now a year later. I wrote so much fucking stuff last year. It really saved my life. I was finishing up some other fanfics too but I wrote about 250K words which is wild.

My most popular story is definitely my longest. Schlep is my masterpiece at the moment. I wanted to explore Kim and Harry's relationship while recognizing they aren't necessarily perfect for each other, but that's okay. Surprisingly, even with all the kink and the unhappy themes, it was smash hit. I really enjoy reading it. That was my second fanfic for the fandom.

Final Flight was first. It has some problems for me, but I think the concept is really fun. The romantic notes were wrong though in retrospect. I was being timid. What is surprising about this fandom too is being timid doesn't win you points being a little unhinged does. Nice. 100%

I wrote a smattering of other shorter stories. Jean/Harry, Jean/Harry/Kim, Harry/Dora, Kim/Harry. I wrote a lesbian story for Dora/Klaasje, which apparently inspired a really good writer to write more lesbians! Thank you!

I think in this period my fav is Cold Front which I wrote while worried that my grandfather was going to commit suicide (he's 96, and my thoughts on it are complicated). I don't often write bittersweet fics, but I think this one hit the notes I wanted.

I also really like The Tide at my Door, which is the Dora/Harry. No one wants to read their train wreck, but I wrote some truly beautiful passages in that one that shock me to this day. Like, hello:

"In the far end of this, whatever time is, whatever this is, you’re going to break each other, but you, a woman, will be the weed in the cracks and he, the man, will be the backed-up gutter. You cannot stop this. This is what happens in gendered society, and even if the sky falls on Revachol, it will take harsher earthquakes to shake that truth."

I started and finished a failed case fic for Jean/Harry's church raid, which I'm only posting now. And I picked up a secret santa that amazingly requested a Western AU. This was in the fall of last year, and both are about 50K words. Insane. Just insane.

Another smash hit, which surprises me, is my Halloween crack fic, Kim's Disco Inferno. I wanted to introduce Kim to the skills, and I wanted it to be a horror theme so its a blend of Silent Hill, Dante's Inferno, and more. It received some amazing fucking fanart from Shower, which got 4K likes on twitter (*giant eyeball emoji*)

It remains a tremendous pleasure interacting with the fandom through fanfiction. Everyone has been very very kind and supportive.

Opinion on the fandom:

I love this fandom! It's basically made of transmen, nonbinary folks, and beautiful lesbians, which is exactly the space I want to be in. It's also made of people interested in discussing leftist politics, the gross (sensual) side of sexuality, and the effects of poverty, addiction, trauma, and disability on people. Sign me up!

I've made some lovely friends who I talk to daily around the world.

Right now the fandom is embroiled in discourse about a lawsuit at Za/um the company that released the game and will eventually, possibly release a second game. It's a very hot topic and people are very impassioned about the issue. We, the fans as outsiders, don't really know much of what is happening outside of press releases and its quite difficult to get a bead on what's going on. People are still hot blooded to point fingers and shout as always.

I'm pretty on the fence about it. My husband bought the game on sale for $10 3 years ago. I haven't dropped a cent on it since and won't until they release (if they do) a second game. Even then I probably wouldn't pay full price because I'm a cheapskate (I'm poor). I also write fanworks for free about it, so I'm very glad the original game exists but that's sort of where my interactions end. It has brought a lot of joy to my life.

I popped into the official discord to say I'm excited about the collage maker for storytelling reasons, and got called a bootlicker (which is hilarious to me since DE made me recognize I like degradation and I'm well known for writing kink porn around boot worship. Peeps gotta come up with a better accusation against my proclivities, sorry bb). That's my contribution to the discourse.

However! I will say of all the fandom discourses I've witnessed, this one is the most justified. Some shit has gone down! It's very poltical. There is money laundering involved! Share holders! The original writers are cast out! Did they get paid? Were they forced out? A guy kicked this whole thing off from a mental institution.

Things I can say for certain is, I don't like that guy, but I don't feel like I have a strong enough understanding of IP law, Estonian millionaires and criminals, or the office politics at Za/um to really know what to make of it. People are definitely throwing themselves on the train tracks about this shit though. I hope everyone gets some time outside touching grass, because it is just a game. A game we love, but ultimately, not super important.

Would I read it again?

Oh yeah. I have such a backlog of stories I need to read from DE.

[rawliverandcigarettes]

How about 3, 17, and 24 for the writer asks?

Hey, thank you so much for the great asks, these were headscratchers in a very interesting way!

3. How would you describe your writing style?

But beyond this first instinct, I think I'd describe it as... introspective??? maybe??? I'm bad at writing movements and I apologize.

What I can say is that it's very literary-inspired, especially by the specific sub-genre of woman-driven character studies (so Helen Oyeyemi, Emily Friedlund, Emma Cline, Akwaeke Emezi, Lauren Groff to a smaller extent...): lots of weird verbiage, metaphors, comparaisons and parallelisms all around. I love sentences that are compelling, beautiful and revelatory: if I can nail one like this every once and a while, I'm very happy.

I also had to admit to myself that my writing style has a lot of spiritual ties to the realism movement of the 19th century in France, especially Gustave Flaubert, which 17 years old me would have loathed me for. I am driven by similar concerns, for example the immensity of romanticism having to cram itself into the claustrophobic constraints of reality, and my obsession for subtext as well as my love for tragi-comic situations do come from somewhere.

I am also inspired by every story that really is invested in a place or a group, and gives the reader a glimpse at its truth through flawed and limited perspectives; I'm thinking Jorge Amado, the TV Show The Wire, the game Disco Elysium... Things that try to breach the barrier between the personal and the political.

It is also not illegal to call my writing style flowery (though I will be moderately-to-unfairly grumpy about it since I try to put care and importance on the words I use), but it is true that my primary goal is not always clarity. I do go for depth over accessibility sometimes, which is a choice readers don't have to love and is understandably not everybody's cup of tea.

17. Past or present tense? Why?

It depends on the story! I love both (like I love every point of view pronoun, depends on the story and what it needs)! For some stories, I seek the immediacy of present tense to convey something about the mood, the character's perspective, etc. For others, I love past tense for its distance, its contemplation, sometimes the breath of inevitability it can bring with it.

I am also deadset on writing a short story in future tense at some point. This point of view really intrigues me in what it can do and how far it can be pushed.

24. Thoughts on flashbacks/flashforwards.

Hehehehe.

So I think flashbacks are just a great storytelling tool in general; there's so much meaning that can be brought from the backstory of a character to its fictive present, and regular character introspection can hardly ignore flashbacks given the character has working memories.

Then, I think flashbacks can be pushed super far, become characterization themselves, and then become absolutely unmanageable and eat your very soul. It doesn't have to be, but it can do this, and will do this if you let them.

(I am struggling so hard to figure this part out in TEoP)

I have rarely interacted seriously with flashforwards, but I keep on wondering if they really are that different from flashbacks in principle? I suppose it depends on where the fictive present is located, but if flashforwards are considered as such for retrospective fiction (for example, an old character looking back on their youth and something that happened then), then what's a flashback and what is a flashforward?

Maybe it's because I haven't played with them enough to fully get it, but I have trouble understanding how to truly separate the two given that time is an illusion, especially in fiction.

Thanks again, these were really fun!

(based on the Yet Another Writing Asks!)

[puffyartist]

You know what time it is! Art summary 2021 baby!!!!

- A thing I ended up doing this year was taking some college courses this year alongside my full time job. I did a single class each semester, just to get a feel for what the workload would be like on me. I’m glad I took these classes, it’s definitely been nice to learn new things that are completely unrelated to drawing or art. However, between the school work, normal work, and family stuff, I ended up having to be a lot more pickier about what I was drawing. I didn’t have as much spare time, and if I had a project or a commission to work on that would end up being the only piece of art I’d work on for weeks at a time. The productive art rat in me feels like I should be more upset at this turn of events, but it’s been kind of nice to just spend more time getting One Big Thing done then a lot of little crappy things. 

-That said, I definitely still had moments where I would work in a manic frenzy and get a ton down in the span of a week, usually shortly after the school semester ended lol. The Manatee Mermaid comic, that Disco Elysium fancomic, and something I made more recently but haven’t shared yet were byproducts of said manic frenzies lol. 

-Not pictured in here since a lot of art was done for it last year, but the Ring Fit Zine was launched in January. I made a point to post it before my spring semester of college courses started, and I figured after said courses were done I’d figure out if a print run was feasible. Doing the graphic design for that zine genuinely was fun, and I would love to see it in print, but figuring out the logistics was just too intimidating and time consuming for something I felt not a ton of folks would find or end up buying. I toyed with the idea of putting in that effort if Ring Fit Trainer & Ring became smash fighters but, alas....

-Nice side effect of the Ring Fit Zine was that I was reached out to do a commission for another fan booklet, this time the cover! I didn’t get as much commission side income this year compared to last year, but man the nice thing about making the cover art is that when people take pics of the finished product, it’s usually your piece in focus. Seeing some of the cute pics people have taken with my cover specifically warms my cold heart.

-A thing I mentioned in my last art summary was that I hoped to do a game demo. I actually followed through with that!!! I ended up making Satyr Girl And the Escape From Hell on my copy of gamemaker that was so old it was no longer being supported and I can no longer easily port games made in it to systems other then PC. Working on that involved a largely different skillset then what I normally use, but it felt really rewarding. Even the most seemingly smallest of actions would involve way more work and troubleshooting then I would ever expect, and honestly there’s a lot hanging by a shoestring in that demo that I’d want a better framework for in a more polished game. Solving a programming issue would feel like such a huge victory, and I am happy I was able to assemble -something- together for the jam. I haven’t touched gamedev much since this, outside of getting rpgmaker on sale in hopes it would have more tools in place related to what I wanna make. Here’s hoping I’m able to slot more time into this whole game dev stuff so I can one day make that horror rpg game that keeps haunting me to this day.

-Between the fanzine and assembling the PDF for the Manatee Mermaid, I think I actually enjoy graphic design?? Especially in the context of book design. It’s fun trying to evoke a specific mood or feeling through stuff like layout and designs and I don’t have to think about stuff like ‘making up my own fonts’ which is what I used to think Graphic Design mostly entailed back in the day. I’d like to see if I’m able to make it my day job instead of warehouse work, we’ll see.

-Managed to do what I always wanted to do, but hadn’t been able to do until this past year: read Hana and the Firebird live on twitch to celebrate it’s anniversary. More people showed up to the stream then I expected, and it was actually a lot of fun! Maybe I should do it more often??? I don’t like drawing live, but I like reading stuff out loud and explaining things. Maybe I should be a teacher?????

-Something that’s hard to convey in the visual is that throughout September-November, I was working on a pitch package for a graphic novel called Cloud Girl Story. It was something I had dedicated a lot of time to in 2019, but shoved to the wayside when lockdowns in 2020 started. This year I was able to find the heart to slowly pick away at it, and when I finished that DE comic in August I suddenly had an idea for a Cloud Girl Story comic in mind that I felt would make for good sample pages to include with the pitch. Once I had those sample pages, it felt a lot easier to have the rest of the pitch document fall into place. December was a lot of editing, and right now I’m currently waiting to hear feedback from friends. I do think I can genuinely start sending out this pitch to potential agents and editors in the next year though. This is both really exciting and also *stock scream sound effects*

-I’ve been making the active effort to use Clip Studio Paint this year in lieu of Photoshop. This time around I made a point to change my hotkeys to what I was used to, and I guess that was the magic button to help things click together, bc I ended up doing all of my art from my pitch in that document. I probably can’t ever fully kick adobe out the door, but it feels good to know I’m not as beholden to it as before.

I think that about covers it all! I’m honestly surprised I was able to show a piece for every month. It was a good year in establishing a healthier relationship with my art lol. Some hopes for next year include Cloud Girl Story getting picked up by anyone, making pitch packages for some other ideas I have (Secret Keeper has been on my mind recently), doing more game dev stuff (maybe a more polished version of Satyr Girl?), and maybe trying to do some merch ideas? I’m not expecting myself to get all of this done, it’s more for future me to read back on next year and maybe get a chuckle out of it. Hope future me reading this is doing well.

[twiststreet]

I'm curious: a bit ago you referred to Disco Elysium as being a "Child-of-Kentucky-Route-Zero game." I think I get what you mean, but could you elaborate on that a bit?

Well, Kentucky Route Zero kind of looms large in my head, for a lot of reasons (moreso than something like Gone Home which may have been equally influential but which I just didn’t really like much):

1) It was an adventure game that really abandoned the puzzles. I’m not gamer enough to tell you the historical antecedents for that-- I was aware of things like Gravity Bone or Jason Rohrer’s Passage before it, the Stanley Parable, that game where you’re an old person walking around a cemetary, etc.  I had been kind of lay-person aware of indie games (but not like Japanese games like you sometimes post where it’s ... a kid having magical summer or whatever, Boku no Natsuyasumi).  But it was the first one in that sort of graphical adventure space that really clicked in my head, where a lot of ideas I think finally came together and got amplified or put together into a bigger whole, a bigger story that those ideas felt organic to...

Unlike puzzle-era graphical adventures, KR0 was just really confident about the story it’s telling being enough.  It gives you a level of control but it doesn’t come to a dead halt if you don’t know what to do with that control.  It’s sort just happy to let you walk around in its narrative space, but it’s not trying to “create the Holodeck.”  Even if you didn’t read about the behind-the-scenes, you can tell the creators are more interested in theater than in simulation, which I think the older generation of game designers were more into-- there’s a classic designer who talks about his dream game being one where you perfectly simulate a single neighborhood corner, whereas I don’t see that as being a goal for the current generation the same way.  (Though I thought of that designer a lot too playing Elysium because so much is set in a small place of people colliding with one another, but in a more D&D way...).  

Disco Elysium skews back the other way more in a way-- I think the creators talk about it having more of a classic D&D influence in terms of player choice. But they’re emphasizing choice instead of puzzles, which I think is different.  There’s ways of failing but you’re not going to just come to a complete halt the same way with Elysium, I don’t think.  It’s going to tell a story to you rather ... kneel at some altar of “gameplay” that doesn’t really make a ton of sense.  Because those puzzle games have their time and place, but I don’t think they were even as fun to play as KR0 has been, even when your character’s like... slow and limping... KR0 just sort of gets that the game tools are there to create an emotion in the player rather than to be some “challenge” to be surmounted or conflict defeated. 

But yeah: how much interactivity is “enough”?  Like, KR0 I think asks that questions in a more interesting way than other people did.  

2)  But yeah, KR0′s de-emphasis of the player-- it really from the get-go was unapologetic about de-centering the player.  Who you even play as changes moment to moment sometimes (which is kind of a move I’m always into, e.g. MGS-2), but also on a more molecular level... You’re not there to “save Kentucky.”  You have a minimal mission in the game, making some deliveries, but it’s hardly a mission game.  That world exists before you, and the stories that have happened there have already happened, and you’re just sort of there to explore that narrative and react to it, rather than try to control it.

Which I think is just healthier in ways, too-- would a game environment that deemphasized “heroic fantasy” ideas would produce the same kind of “They targeted gamers... gamers!” mania? There’s a pretty great game designer (I’ve read all this stuff in the last few years-- it’s horrible) Chris Avellone, who did a lot of Fallout New Vegas and stuff, who talks about how with people playing traditional role-playing games, they don’t care about their decisions unless those decisions are couched in “How will this effect your character” and “will it make your character more powerful?”  (I forget his exact phrasing so I might be mis-remembering).  Whereas KR0′s powered just by empathy and curiosity and metaphor.  

(New Vegas is an interesting comparison point as Elysium where New Vegas has the same “trying to be D&D quality” of emphasizing choice but the combat is more traditional games and... while the very best parts of New Vegas, which is to say the casino for foodies, resemble Elysium, it’s mostly... It defines the role-playing completely differently.  KR0, there’s this variety of choices that are about deciding things that may not matter but that you want to decide, maybe deciding who people are and how they feel and who they were, rather than just what they do.  And I get the feeling that’s a big part of paper-pen role playing, whereas New Vegas and those games try to create a “blank slate” which you can then define by your actions and see that as being the appeal of RPG’s, the ... character definition through action functions.  Elysium, it’s about really deeply exploring this single character and deciding who you want your character to be, down to deciding whether they think of themselves as being a HoboCop or a superstar cop...)

(I don’t know-- I’m rambling and within parentheses at that, but I think the difference in those approaches can be understated... I think that’s 90% of the ballgame, but it’s like... You know, it’s hard to talk about without getting into “power fantasies” and heroic fiction and the sometimes-troubling relationship between those, which KR0 really completely eschews...)(Though again, see Metal Gear Solid 2, for the alternate move which is just ... taunting and belittling the player for wanting a power fantasy, which I kind of admire more but...)(I’m really loving Death Stranding so far, but I think that sort of willingness to be just openly hostile to his audience is a huge part of what I admire with Kojima-- he made an open world game where you *fall over a lot*).

3) Plus, and I don’t know how much this is just me overstating it, but:  KR0 has that thing comics people used to talk about, to no effect, of being a “container” for other art. (In comics, they just meant they wanted pie charts about how Cyclops is into cuckoldry...?  But perhaps predictably).   My memories of games back then aren’t reliable but... It has art direction.  It has visual storytelling.  It approaches the 2d plane of the viewing screen as a proscenium so then you have those moments of that coming apart in the first game and I found that pretty thrilling.  I just don’t remember the level of that being as high before KR0-- certainly the abandonment of AAA photorealistic values in the indie space was inevitable, but it doesn’t just do, you know, that cute ultraflat “lowpoly” stuff-- it has a look to it.  Style!  Like, Elysium gets compared to Planescape Torment a lot, which I never played, but Elysium just looks really gorgeous by comparison... Just designed.  

But it’s to a thematic effect that I think the games after it have really adopted of ... contemplating people within an environment, and that relationship.  Games are really amazing at creating environments to explore-- it’s like the easiest thing to do in a game engine-- you can download Unity and in about 5 minutes create a whole little world to walk around in with mountains and trees and clouds and everything.  (Doing anything else is a little tricky, it turns out but).  Kr0 kind of shifted the focus onto the environment more and thinking about how that environment was shaped by and in turn shapes the people within it.  

This invariably turns out to be a “political” consideration, so KR0 and Elysium and Night in the Woods all have a certain amount of political content.  (I think KR0 most successfully because I don’t think any game after it has their sense of the poetic, but.  Or KR0′s not interested in explicit political messaging so much as ... the humanity of the situation, but).  And I think that’s really cool, personally, as it opens up a space to think about what games are for... that I don’t think was a part of the conversation otherwise.  

I mean, by comparison, the New Vegas folks when they were promoting their new thing Outer Worlds (which I’m going to play!  I like those guys!)... they’re out there talking about how their game is “political” but not “politically charged.”  What the hell does that even mean?  Whereas Night in the Woods, say, I mean that one’s to the left of me.  Night in the Woods is pretty much a game about how cats should join a union... I don’t want cats unionize!  Imagine the amount of yarn the NLRB will have to buy...  (This is where I think Oxenfree falls down where... Oxenfree had a lot of KR0′s surface qualities, but didn’t really get at anything more, I don’t know, “thematically mult-valent” or whatever, I don’t think... Oxenfree was more a surface experience for me...)

I don’t know.  There’s probably more to talk about.  (Other people are bigger fans of those side-games than I am-- I appreciate those but haven’t delved as deep into those as other folks).  Or there are things KR0′s doing that I don’t think the games after it have caught up with yet-- KR0 has a meta level to it, where it’s in conversation with adventure game history, in ways I might not fully appreciate, and if that’s true of Elysium, say, I don’t see that. For me, I think another thing about all those games though is they have a sense of the tragic, but then don’t wallow in that space.  KR0 has some sad shit going on it, ruined lives, broken places, but I think if the only way KR0 was influential was just the Junebug scene, and her song in it, it’d still be the game of the decade, you know?   Elysium and Night in the Woods both have that same mentality of ... It’s not about the misery, it’s how people find meaning past that point.  Which isn’t to say there’s not a quality sometimes to contemplating the misery and really acknowledging the terror and anxiety of that. I think you can do interesting work that isn’t “hopeful”, if that’s not your honest orientation. But what I think is interesting is how KR0 and its progeny carve out this space for sadness and anxiety and a feeling of the spookiness of a post-collapse space that isn’t just a “horror” game, that isn’t just jump-scares or whatever (though I remember getting pretty anxious playing some KR0 bits, even knowing it’s not a horror game, e.g. that contract scene)... I think that’s really interesting, that it’s not as easily categorized as that... 

Sorry to ramble.

[entergamingxp]

The Best Games You Missed in 2019

December 20, 2019 12:00 PM EST

Thought this year was an off-year for video games? Think again, buddy! Here are 8 of the best games you missed in 2019.

This year has been an odd year for gaming, hasn’t it? We may not have followed a boy and his godly father or became a cowboy in one of the most realized worlds in a video game, but 2019 was filled with bangers, some of which I will remember for years to come. With it being such an “off” year, there are certainly games we have yet to play, as they may have just fallen off of the radar while you were playing Resident Evil 2 and Call of Duty: Modern Warfare. Here are some of the best games you probably missed in 2019:

Outer Wilds

Arguably the most talked-about indie game of the year, Outer Wilds is not just considered a great game you may have missed; it is widely considered one of the best games this year. Truly a test of your imagination and patience, Mobius Digital’s debut expertly crafts a narrative with your own experiences. Whether it’s exploring a new planet, or solving a puzzle that had you banging your head for hours, Outer Wilds will leave a strong impression on you when your adventure inevitably ends.

Our Review Score: 8.5

Baba is You

Developed by Hempuli, Baba is You is a puzzle game unlike any other. DualShockers contributor, Chris Compendio, gave the perfect description of the game:

“Like a lot of first romantic partners, people have had, Baba is You is confusing, and seemingly has everything you need to know about them written all over like a book, yet there is so much it just won’t tell you about itself.”

Essentially, the game presents you with a set of conditionals, with one of those conditions being a win condition. However, those conditions can be altered in several ways that are legitimately brain-melting. Although it shows just a taste, the trailer above shows a bit of gameplay that represents how wacky this game can be. Baba is You is such an anomaly and definitely deserves your attention.

Our Review Score: 8.0

Void Bastards

This is a game I am currently playing and really enjoying. Combining elements from the immersive sim and roguelike genres, Blue Manchu’s Void Bastards is such a fun, bombastic adventure brimming with varying possibilities. It’s also just goofy as hell, which is something I’ve come to appreciate as most of the biggest games tend to accentuate the “dark” and “gritty.”

If you haven’t seen any gameplay of Void Bastards, it is a first-person shooter where you explore randomly generated space stations to find a bunch of junk. Most of the items you’ll find with aid in your progress, even after death. Its FPS gameplay is not as great as the tried and true mechanics of the Call of Duty franchise, but it is just as fun. The cel-shaded comic book style presentation makes it one of the most stylish games of 2019. Void Bastards is a worthwhile spacefaring romp that won’t take too much of your time.

Indivisible

To be honest, I don’t know a whole lot about Indivisible. What I do know is staff writer Cameron Hawkins would hunt me down if I did not put this game on this list. So, here we are, with Indivisible.

Despite that, Cam’s passion for this game is unparalleled, and in tandem with his review, he has convinced me to check it out. Lab Zero Games expertly blends the platformer and RPG genre within a beautifully animated package that impresses. In his review, Cam says, “Indivisible is a platformer action RPG whose mixture of gameplay is blended wonderfully into one of my favorite experiences in the genre.”  Alongside a well-told story, I can see why anyone would want to pick up Indivisible.

Our Review Score: 9.5

Disco Elysium

Have you ever wanted to be a cop who goes on a drinking binge, only to not remember a single thing from the past few days. What if we took that a step further, and you had full-blown amnesia? Well, then Disco Elysium is for you. In all seriousness, ZA/UM’s open-world RPG is a tour de force in storytelling and world-building.

While there are moments of action in Disco Elysium, it is the conversations you have with the people of Revachol that make up most of the game’s gameplay. While dialogue-focused gameplay may not seem all that exciting, I can assure you, it is incredibly well done. In our review, contributor Steve Santana said of Disco Elysium, “I really enjoyed my time with it, especially because of the characters, the mechanics of the inner dialogue, and the overall fiction of the world from its history to the small part of a church that absorbs all sound.”

Our Review Score: 9.0

A Plague Tale: Innocence

Every year, I feel like there is always one sleeper hit that stands out among the rest of the year’s releases. Since this year was essentially filled with sleeper hits, it has been difficult to discern which game really represents that title. Out of everything that came out in 2019, A Plague Tale: Innocence is one I think hasn’t really received the recognition it deserves.

In truth, I don’t think there is a single facet from A Plague Tale: Innocence that really stands out. But everything just works together so well, creating a thrilling experience. Mostly consisting of stealth and puzzle-solving, Asobo Studio tells a genuinely great tale set during the Hundred Years’ War and The Black Death.

Our Review Score: 8.5

Samurai Shodown

There are a few games on this list that will be on my personal Game of the Year list. SNK’s return to Samurai Shodown is the first of them. As such, I don’t want to say too much.

I will say that it is arguably the best fighting game in the generation, and really sticks out among the rest of the games in its respective genre thanks to its unique, slower-paced mechanics. Samurai Shodown exudes style, and is a game you will not want to sleep on, especially if you like competitive games.

Our Review Score: 9.0

Judgment

Remember when I said a few games on this list will be on my personal Game of the Year list? Spoilers: this is the other one. Judgment has everything. There’s drama, romance, mystery, horror, a man who steals panties. It is so utterly ridiculous, but it is so well done. I could not stop playing through Yagami’s adventure until its brilliant end.

For those who don’t know, Judgment is the latest from Yakuza developers, Ryu Ga Gotoku Studio. Again, without saying too much so I don’t just repeat myself in a few days, if you enjoyed Kazuma Kiryu’s adventure, you will absolutely love Judgment.

Our Review Score: 8.5

Obviously, these aren’t the only games you may have missed during 2019. There were loads of great titles that released during 2019 despite it being less glamorous than prior years. Personally, this year has been one of my favorites with multiple games I can say are some of my favorites this generation. What are some of your favorite games you think the gamers are missing out on? Let us know in the comments below.

Speaking of gaming in 2019, our Game of the Year content is just around the corner. We’ll have tons of lists from DualShockers’ own staff, as well as a sitewide Game of the Year discussion for your pleasure. If you want to get in on the discussion, we currently have a “Readers’ Choice” category for Game of the Year where you get to have your voice heard. Make sure to vote before the cutoff time, on December 22, at 11;59 PM Pacific Time.

December 20, 2019 12:00 PM EST

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