#automated ad creation

[tumblasha]

i heard something about a good omens in chronological order edit is that still happening or

[indianreporter]

[zubair-adib]

The Future of Digital Marketing: Trends to Watch in 2025

Introduction The digital marketing landscape is evolving faster than ever. With advancements in artificial intelligence, changing consumer behaviors, and new regulations shaping the industry, businesses must stay ahead of the curve. To remain competitive, marketers need to adapt to the latest trends that will define digital marketing in 2025. In this article, we will explore the key digital…

[mediaferry]

Tindle Newspapers transforms ad creation workflows with Mediaferry

Tindle Newspapers, a leading UK-based publishing company, has transformed its ad creation workflow by integrating Mediaferry, a cloud-based platform by EKCS.

Tindle Newspapers has streamlined the ad production process, with Mediaferry playing a pivotal role in improving the ad creation workflow. Mediaferry enabled Tindle to collaborate better with their customers. Its user-friendly interface has advanced features, including automated version control and dynamic digital templates for different formats. Ads can be created, modified, and signed off quickly. This enables Tindle Newspapers to meet tight deadlines and launch campaigns faster.

Tariq Husain, architect of Mediaferry and co-founder of EKCS, said, “The main challenge we resolved was that the ad creation process was time-consuming. Many rounds of communication between the sales, production teams, and clients often led to delays, late deadlines, and a lack of real-time client involvement. Mediaferry enabled clients to collaborate more closely and approve ads quickly.” Scott Wood, Managing Director at Tindle Newspapers, says, “Mediaferry has completely transformed our ad production process, allowing us to collaborate more effectively with clients and deliver high-quality campaigns faster than ever before.” 

Mediaferry’s platform enables centralised management of multimedia ad campaigns. It enables designers, sales teams, and clients to collaborate in real-time. Clients can give instant feedback, request changes, and approve versions through the platform. This accelerates approvals and reduces the need for revisions.

The integration of Mediaferry has improved Tindle Newspapers’ operational efficiency. Clients appreciate Mediaferry’s transparency and responsiveness.

[thepastisalreadywritten]

"The Writing Boy"

In 1774 AD, during the reign of Louis XVI (1754-1793), Swiss watchmaker Pierre Jacques Dro (1721-1790) unveiled a remarkable engineering feat that would go down in history as the world's first android or programmed automaton.

Known as "The Writing Boy," this creation appeared at first glance to be a simple wooden doll with a porcelain head, barefoot, and holding a goose feather.

But hidden within this seemingly ordinary toy was a technological marvel, a writing mechanism powered by 6,000 intricate moving parts, making it the first automatic calligrapher.

"The Writing Boy" was a groundbreaking achievement, as it was capable of writing complex sentences, such as "My inventor is Jacques Dro."

The automaton was a product of 20 months of meticulous work by Pierre Jacques Dro, and its debut in Paris stunned the court of King Louis XVI.

The android's ability to perform such an intricate task showcased the high level of craftsmanship and innovation of the time.

This astonishing creation marked a significant milestone in the history of robotics and engineering.

Not only was it the world’s first programmed android, but it also demonstrated the potential of machines to replicate human actions.

"The Writing Boy" paved the way for future advancements in automation, solidifying Pierre Jacques Dro’s legacy as a pioneer in the field of robotics.

[alexanderwales]

Alright, here's my dream Stardew Valley style game, designed for my own tastes.

You come to a small town with the usual twenty to thirty people. It's in the middle of nowhere. It's a fantasy town, and no one actually farms anymore, partly because it's only questionably profitable, partly because a lot of the knowledge has been lost. Instead, everyone uses these magic doodads which are very powerful but also very limited. The tavernkeeper has a doodad that makes him a single kind of weak ale and a single variety of off-tasting wine. The clothier has basically a square mile of linen to work with, and everyone wears her drab clothes. Tools are made from a doodad that the blacksmith owns, not even made of any actual metal, just a material that wears away after a month and needs to be replaced by a new copy from the blacksmith's doodad. People get their meals from the doodads. They get their medical checkups. It's all a bit shit.

Because I'm a worldbuilder at heart, I would have this all exist in the wake of a large-scale war that depleted the town of its fighting-age population, with the doodads being a sort of government program to ensure that more of the lifeblood of the town could be drained away. And for there to be some reason for the town to continue existing, perhaps the government is harvesting some resources necessary in the creation of doodads. That's enough for a pro-doodad faction and maybe some minor drama with them, though I do like the idea that the only reason things are Like This is because there was a war and things got bad. It's not necessarily a bleak town, but there's definitely a listlessness to it, a "what's the point".

So you're a farmer, but no one is really a farmer anymore. Maybe there are a few books, but you don't learn farming from books, you learn it from practical experience; that's a lot of what this game is about. When you start, there's no one to buy seeds from, there's just a bunch of wilderness where farms once stood, now all long overgrown.

So you go out and forage, for a start, and you clear the land, and you pay attention to the plants and how they can be used, and you start in on making recipes with them, maybe with the help of your grandfather's old, partially incomplete books. You find some wild corn that's a descendant of the old times. You find some tomato seeds in an urn. You discover potatoes because you see them dug up by a wild boar, which itself was once a domesticated animal.

In my ideal game, you need to pay attention to the soil quality, to how far apart things are planted, to what crops work well together. Farming is a matter of companion planting and polycultures. You get some chickens by giving them consistent feed, and you keep them around because they're natural pest control. Your climbing beans climb the stalks of your maize. You're attracting pollinators. (From a gameplay perspective, yeah, we probably put this all into a grid, and you have crop bonuses from adjacencies, and emergent gameplay that comes from all that, some plants providing shade, others providing nitrogen fixing.) You're a scientist making observations about the plants, maybe with your incomplete book giving you confirmation on the nature of all your crops once you hit certain production goals or a perfect specimen or whatever.

Cooking is the same. There has got to be a system that I like better than just "combine tomato with bread to get tomato bread". I'm pretty sure that it's some variant of the actual process I use when cooking, which is making sure that things are properly cooked, balancing flavors against each other, adding in a little salt or acidity or umami or whatever. Time in the kitchen, in this game, is often about making meals, ensuring that if you have a fatty piece of meat you have some asparagus that's coated with lemon to go with it. (From a gameplay perspective, I think building the dish once is probably sufficient and it can be automated after that, and building the meal is the same. I don't want to play this minigame every time I'm cooking a dish, I just want to play it a single time until I have good knowledge of the best way to grill a BBQ chicken breast with a homemade sauce.)

But if we're having a little minigame here where we pay attention to how long we're cooking the kale to make sure that it's the right texture, and we're paying attention to abstractified mouthfeel and palette, then we can get something else for free: variation. See, you're not just cooking to get an S grade, you're cooking for people with different tastes. The cobbler has a sweet tooth, the librarian loves fruity things, the mayor cannot stand fish, that sort of thing. From a gameplay perspective, maybe we represent this with a radar graph with some specific favorite and least favorite individual flavors, and maybe it's visible to the player, but the important thing is that player gets feedback and have a reason to strive for both "good" and "perfection" and some of this is going to depend on the quality of the ingredients.

And this is, gradually, how the town is brought back into the fullness of life. You're not just cooking for these people, you're also selling them food, and they're making their own recipes, and all the stuff that's not food is making their businesses not suck anymore. After the first test keg of ale goes swimmingly, the tavernkeeper wants more, a lot more, and puts in an order for hops, wheat, grapes, anything he can use to make things that will improve nights at the tavern. The clothier will skeptically take in wool and spin her own yarn, and then eagerly want more, because how awesome is it to have a new textile? There's a chemist who is extremely interested in dyes and paints, and wants you to bring him all kinds of things to see what might be viable for going beyond the ~3 colors that the doodads can provide.

So by year two, if you're doing things right, you're the lynchpin of the revivalist movement. People are now moving to the town, for the first time in decades, because they hear that you're there and doing interesting things with the wilderness. Maybe there are other farmers following in your wake, but maybe it's just new characters who are specifically coming because a crate of wine was shipped to the capital city. Maybe some of them bring new techniques for you, or a handful of plants from a botanical garden, and there are new elements for the minigames, or maybe some automation for the stuff that's old hat.

I think something that's important to me is that there's a reason for the crops you plant and the things you do. I always like these games best when it feels like I'm doing something for someone, when I can look at a plot of cabbages and think "ah, those are the cabbages I owe to Leon". Where these games are at their worst, everything is entirely fungible and I've planted eight million blueberries because they have the highest ROI.

And yeah, in most of these games, there are other minigames like fishing and mining and logging and crafting, and since this is just a blog post and not a game, I definitely could massively expand an already sizeable scope.

I think for mining the player would use doodads of their own, and maybe you could make a mining minigame out of that, using the same planting tile system to instead create an automated ore harvesting machine that plumbs the depths of the earth (possibly dealing with rocks of different hardness, the water table, and other challenges along the way).

Fishing is a question of understanding the different fish species, what they eat, where they congregate, and then setting nets or lines, since I have never met a fishing minigame I really enjoyed. Again, there's some idea that the player is gaining information over time, building up a profile of these fish, noticing that some of them go nuts when it rains, understanding the spawning season, that they go to deeper water when it's cold, etc.

Crafting really depends on what you're crafting, but if you're reintroducing traditional artisan processes to this town, then people are going to need tools and machines and things. I'm not sure I know what a proper crafting game looks like. The only experience I have to draw on is wood shop, where I made wooden boxes, cutting boards, and picture frames. Since this is an engineering-lite puzzle-lite game, you could maybe do something in that vein, e.g. defining a number of steps that get you the correct thing you're trying to make, but ... eh. I love the idea of designing a chicken coop, for example, or building a trellis if I want my climbing beans to not need maize, or whatever, but I don't know how you actually implement that. There are definitely voxel-based and snap-to-grid games where you build bases, and I tend to find that fun ... but it's mostly cosmetic, for the obvious reason that doing it any other way than cosmetic requires programmatic evaluation, which is difficult and maybe unintuitive. The closest I think I've seen is ... maybe Tears of the Kingdom? Contraption building? But I don't know how you translate that to a farming game. Maybe I should ask my wife about this, because she's always doing little projects around the house (an outdoor enclosure for our cats, a 3D-printed holder for our living room keyboard, a mounting for our TV).

Making an interesting crafting system is difficult, which is why pretty much no one has done it.

And if I'm talking pie in the sky, without concern for budget or scope, I want the villagers to all have a mammoth amount of writing for them. I want petty little dramas and weird obsessions, lives that evolve with or without my input, rudimentary dialog trees that let me nudge things in different directions. This is just an unbelievable amount of work on its own, it would be crazy, but I would love having a tiny little town game where sometimes other people would fall in love. I would like to be invited to a wedding, maybe one that happened because I encouraged the chemist to hang out with the clothier, and in the course of working together on dyes, they fell in love. With twenty people in town and another ten that come in over the course of the game if you hit the right triggers, I do think this is just a matter of having a ton of time/budget. You write tons and tons of dialogue so there's not much that's repeated, you have some lines of conversation between characters that are progressed through, you have others that trigger off of events, and then you have personal relationships between NPCs that can be progressed through time or with player intervention. Give single characters a pool of love interests, have their affections depend on their routine which depends on what's changed in town ... very difficult to do without spending loads and loads of time on it though.

Anyway, that's one of my dream games. No one is ever going to make it, it would be a niche of a niche, and as scoped here, is too much for a small team to ever actually finish, let alone polish. But it's the sort of thing I'm imagining in my head when I think about playing Stardew Valley and its successors.

[tmntxthings]

heyy so I literally got this kind of idea like not really long ago, how about a donnie x reader fic/scenario/prompt where donnie makes a new AI hologram assistant (the reader) but ends up falling in love with them ?? (kind of blade runner 2049 inspired)

thanks ! luv your work (´▽`ʃ♡ƪ)

一∑ Dizzy・゜・。

author’s notes: so this may not be exactly what you asked for, this donnie is a bit… cagey? protective? overbearing! but hopefully the ending is a good indication that he did indeed fall?? :D

warnings: fluff, platonic to romantic, cursing, very unedited, & super short >.<

word association: sentience, slight yandere!donnie, light projection, holograms, creation, possessive, obsessive, fluff, change, feelings

song: “ Round & Round by Selena Gomez ”

—————————————————————————

“Y/n”

Donnie waited for you to appear in his vision as he was glued to a new construct. Both hands busy with small tools that required the utmost care and attention. And patience.

He waited a couple of more seconds before a crease appeared between his draw on brows.

Seriously?

“Y/n!”

Donnie shouted louder. There was no way you couldn’t hear him. He was this close to pushing up his goggles but like magic you apparated in his vision. A tiny version of yourself in the corner of his eyesight, “Yyyessss?”

You drawled, dipping forward dramatically but not obscuring his view of his hands so he could continue his work.

“Where are you?”

Habitually it seemed he had to ask you this. He was like this with Shelldon too. But ever since you started getting curious and venturing out of his lab, he just had to at least check in…

He would have just checked your holo-tracker but his hands were busy at the moment. So calling out your name was more efficient. His wrist tech was voice automated and connected to your system easily enough.

“And why did you ignore my first call?”

He questioned further, eyebrows still drawn. His tongue peeked out between his lips as he carefully pieced together two small bits in the right formation.

“I thought we agreed Donnie. If you didn’t need me, I could explore the perimeters!”

You glitched momentarily, moving from the corner to right in the center of his vision before going back to your original place with a raised brow.

“Yes yes. That was the agreement but addendum six was—“

You groaned.

“Y/n it’s been… how long has it been..?”

He just knew it had to be four or so hours since you last checked in. Which meant he could call! As per agreement! If you didn’t check in then he would worry and a time frame was even added into fine print for this very purpose! Donatello prided himself on thinking of every-little-thing!

“It’s been 30 minutes.”

His eyes widened. Looking at you now and squinting.

No way.

You sighed dramatically as you brought up the time. Sure enough. It was only 2:30 in the morning. Not 5.

“Ah, well my mistake.”

Donnie placed down the tools and pushed up his goggles. The zoomed in version of his project gone, as well as the time and your miniature self.

He could still hear you though with his headphones on.

“You didn’t answer my first question…”

He still wanted to know.

“I think that should be void considering you can just check now!”

Your voice was exasperated but it had a teasing quality.

“I’d rather you tell me,”

“With your brothers!”

“What?!”

No response. “Y/n?” No response still. He grumbled bringing his goggles back down and yep, you were gone. He shoved them back up and shot out of his chair.

Two years ago. Donatello went a step further from robots. A step further from Shelldon, definitely still a very proud achievement of his! You were a hologram program. One that connected just like Shelldon to all of Donatello’s devices and gadgets. But you didn’t have a physical body. You were a pure light so to speak. And while Donnie had agreed for you to explore…he hadn’t really disclosed another sentient being in the lab to his brothers.

Selfishly… Donnie had created you solely for him. While Shelldon had been sort of a prank but definitely for his brothers… you weren’t.

“Y/n.” Shelldon whispered harshly as he peeked out of the doorway from his lab. You were nowhere in the vicinity. He scowled. “If this is supposed to be funny, let me be very clear! It is not!” Then Donnie started to rush with his words while he crept further out into the lair.

“Those dumdums have no idea of your existence Y/n! For all we know they could— I don’t know! Attack?!”

You were radio silent. And it annoyed to Donnie to know end. You were ignoring him on purpose. Dragging him away from work to chase you down. And he would do the dragging this time, right back to his side if he must!

The further he went, the more apprehensive he felt. He could hear music. He could hear hollering. It was not the right cues that said ‘Y/n is just pranking me! They wouldn’t reveal themselves without my go-ahead! Surely!’ Yeah none of that was feeling close to happening right now. Donatello’s teeth ground together as he gave up being stealthy in favor of finally seeing what the fuck was happening.

And boy was he in for a shock.

As he cleared a corner that gave him a full view of the arcade that stretched down a distance away. The DDR (Dance Dance Revolution) was on, bass pumping throughout the room. A beautiful voice beckoning him closer like a siren’s song. Where Raph was dancing on one side. And you on the other.

Donnie stopped short. His breath catching as he watched your hologram dance, when your shoes met the correct arrows your whole body took on a glow of purple, blue, red, and yellow. It reflected throughout your entire being. You hit perfect after perfect, head tipped back in laughter as Raph started to trip up, losing his footing and sweating profusely. You on the other hand would never tire.

You were completely energized. You were having fun! It shined in your eyes. It reminded him of how you were when he first created you. When everything he introduced to you excited you.

Donnie felt like such an ass. Keeping you tucked away from the rest of the lair. From his brothers. From the world! As he watched you now he knew he was going to have to change. Because he surely wasn’t letting you go completely. But maybe he needed to loosen up, him and his contract.

Because he wanted you to be like this more. To smile more. To be exuberant and full of life! And he couldn’t stop smiling as you tilted your head towards him. You didn’t falter, you just smiled brighter and winked as the song came to a close and the points were tallied up.

Of course anything created by Donnie would be extraordinary at dancing. Therefore it didn’t surprise him one bit that you received a maximum score of 10,000,000. What did throw him off guard was the rapid pace of his heart. And maybe a bit dizzy? He hadn’t even been the one dancing!

Yeah this wasn’t good!

—————————————————————————

[potatomakesart]

So I might have made a Venom cosplay...

Used the 3D model venom skull with base as a base:

Process and thoughts below!

So I saw the dandelion crayon girls video where she unboxed a dandelion crayon shoulder plushie and thought "I want that". But with Venom becaosue brain go brrrr.

Started with printing out the model and then adding leds to venom eyes. Because I thought it would be cool and winning my schools 'automation' competition have me believing that I know how to make electricity stuff. Like I did make it but with lots of mistake.

So I started adding some felt over it, so I could sew on some tentacles and eyes, together with soldering everything in place. Made many mistakes under this but ended up only destroying one cheap Led so a win is a win.

Just like the dandelion plush it had magnets on the bottom and I have some magnets under my clothes so it is attached and steady. Might need som better magnets but I can move around and dance without venom falling off so it's good enough for now.

My beautiful creations wishes to bite off the heads of every transphobes and eat some chocolate.

I also wished fo attach a speaker inside his mouth but couldent find one small enough. (Ran out of space anyway) so now I just need a proper jacket with a high pocket or something.

What can I say. I have the power to create stuff and what I use it on might just surprise you.

[askviktor]

Apologies if this subject is too personal for you to speak on, but I'm not acquainted with anyone who's designed or built their own mobility aids, so I'm fascinated by what you've done with yours. I'd like to ask:

How long has it been since you began developing your cane? What about your bracing system?

What kind of research and testing went into that process?

It looks like there's some custom-fitted pieces of leather and metalwork in your current setup. Did you commission any of those, or did you fabricate them yourself?

What's the maintenance like?

And finally, can you share any first-hand experiences with accessibility barriers in Piltover or Zaun? How do you expect those barriers to change as your support needs increase and your mobility aids evolve?

Thanks for everything you do!

Sincerely, a physio nerd

On the contrary, in my opinion, discussion of disability lessens the stigma surrounding it.

I suppose I have been developing it since childhood. My first was simply wooden, with added ergonomic adjustments to the handle. I paid more attention to my other creations, applying scientific methodology to the likes of automated toy vehicles. I did not conduct “tests,” as it were.

I received various mobility aids from doctors in Piltover during my time at the Academy. But, in recent years, my condition has called for more intricate, personalized care; it is comparable to your Post-Polio Syndrome, though more likely more aggressive. After the installation of my permanent back and leg brace - developed by medical professionals - Jayce presented me with a crutch tailored to my needs. I was shocked, to say the least, but apparently he had been observing me and developing it for some time. I did initially find this upsetting. But I am, of course, quite grateful for his thoughtfulness today.

Several months later, we developed and tested an additional leg brace aid my mobility on more, eh, difficult days. While the maintenance of these devices is manageable, I admittedly miss more medical appointments than not. Such fuss, and for what?

I have made my and Jayce’s mobility designs open to the public for free use. My greatest hope is to use my current research on the Hexcore to allow profoundly disabled individuals - especially those in Zaun who face greater challenges - to interact with their environment with intuitive ease, the arcane adapting to the needs of their bodies regardless of environmental accessibility.

[liongoatsnake]

ESSAY: My Hearthome in ABZÛ

by Ocean Watcher from House of Chimeras (He/they) I was inspired to write this essay after attending the panel, "No Place Like Home: On Hearthomes" at Othercon 2024 Note: This won't be the official home of this essay. I'm planning on adding it to our system's website, The Chimeras Library sometime in the future either as a standalone essay or part of something bigger.

My Hearthome in ABZU

by Ocean Watcher from House of Chimeras Date Written: 15 August 2024 Approx. Word Count: ~2,180

Approx. Reading Time: ~17 minutes

“They say home is where the heart is, and for most people it consists of four walls and a welcome mat. For me, it’s the ocean.” ~ Bethany Hamilton, Soul Surfer. Directed by Sean McNamara. California: Sony Pictures Releasing, 2011.

Defining Hearthome

A hearthome is a location, whether real or otherwise, that an individual has a strong emotional connection toward to the point it feels like a “home,” typically despite never having lived or spent a significant amount of time there. The specifics on what qualifies as a hearthome within this general definition is largely up for personal interpretation.

The location in question can be as all-encompassing as a whole planet all the way down to something much, much smaller. The location could be a real place (whether that be one that still currently exists or a location that once existed but doesn’t anymore), a setting depicted in fictional media, or something else entirely. It can also be a specific easily named location or merely a general description of a place. Finally, the exact kind of emotional connection and feeling like “home” a location can elicit can range from a feeling of familiarity, of comfort and relaxation, safety, nostalgia, homesickness, and/or more. In short, within the definition of hearthome there are many possibilities on how the experience can exist.

The term used to describe someone who has a hearthome or the state of having a hearthome is sometimes called hearthic, though not everyone uses it. (So, for example someone might say “I have a hearthome in [insert place here]” rather than saying “I am [insert place here]hearthic.” Whether hearthic is used or not alongside the term hearthome is largely personal preference.

Describing ABZÛ

ABZÛ (also written as Abzû) is a video game initially released in 2016. The game fits within several genres including adventure, simulation, and art video game. It has no dialogue and so the story is told solely through visuals. The main draw of the game is the graphics put into the diverse ocean environments and the wide range of marine life that inhabits each area. Most of ABZÛ is home to animal species that can be found in today’s oceans; however, there are over a dozen or so species that appear in the game that went extinct a long time ago.

The gameplay itself consists of the player controlling an android diver exploring a large variety of ocean environments in a vast ocean and getting to see a myriad of marine life at every turn.

Knowing the backstory of what occurs isn’t needed, but for some context: Deep at the bottom of this ocean was a primordial source of infinite energy. Where the energy permeated from the ground life spontaneously came into being. An ancient civilization discovered they could collect and use it to create (marine) life whenever and wherever they wished. However, at some point, they created machines to automate the process. The creation of these machines caused a disruption of the natural flow of life as they took up so much energy they drained the vitality of the ocean away. The civilization disappeared, leaving their machines to continue to operate. The objective of the player-controlled robot diver, another creation of the ancient civilization, is to return the energy back to the ocean and put an end to the machines causing the destruction.

ABZÛ is overall a short game, with most players seeming to complete it within an hour and thirty minutes to two hours, on average.

Home is Where the Heart Is Indeed

So, my hearthome is ABZÛ.

To start, I want to put some context between the game ABZÛ and my hearthome ABZÛ. The environments in the game are striking and hold an emotional importance to an extent that I have labeled it as a hearthome; however, the ABZÛ that I think of in my mind’s eye and thoughts is not just an exact mirror of the game. That is because the ABZÛ I have conceptualized in my own mind is laid out like a normal(ish) ocean thanks to some noemata I have.

The noemata I have reads that all the “game-y” elements necessary for it to function as, well, a game, aren’t present in the idea of ABZÛ that makes up my hearthome. So, all the things necessary to keep a player in a defined area and on a specific path are absent. Further, all the different locations shown in the game would exist in a much more natural way. Plus, even more biodiversity would exist than shown in the game itself (as it is only populated with a little more than a few hundred different species whereas a more realistic ocean would have tens of thousands). Basically, the concept of ABZÛ in my mind looks and functions a lot more like a natural ocean (if a much, much more vibrant and filled with even more aquatic life, one).

I also have noemata that reads that while the old structures of the civilization still exist in a way like how they appear in the game, the inverted pyramid machines have long broken down and been reclaimed by the ocean and there are no unnatural dead zones. (So, I guess, one could say my hearthome is based off how things look at the end of the game.)

So, there is all that.

That is all well and good, but now I want to cover why exactly I distinguish ABZÛ as a hearthome; why I feel it warrants a special label of significance to me at all.

Not to state the obvious, but games are meant to be emotionally and/or mentally moving. They are meant to make a player feel something. ABZÛ is no different. It is meant to be a “pretty ocean” game, if you will. The environments in ABZÛ certainly reflect a more idealized and concentrated concept of ocean life (the magnitude of marine life at any particular point in the game itself being far more than an ecosystem could sustain). So, of course, the game is meant to be visually stunning and calming (save for a section in the game roughly 3/5ths in) in relation to the ocean, but my feelings for the game go deeper than what would be normally expected.  

It is true that much of the allure I have toward ABZÛ could be dismissed as merely as a natural consequence of my alterhumanity being so immersed in the ocean if not for the fact there are aspects of ABZÛ that draw out emotions and noemata that can’t be easily waved off in that manner. There are plenty of ocean-themed games and whatnot, yet it’s this specific one I have this connection toward. I have no idea why exactly I have a hearthome in this game specifically. I couldn’t tell you why. For whatever reason, its ABZÛ that resonates with me so strongly.

The biggest thing that stands out for me is the fact the area in the game that holds the most profound feelings of familiarity and belonging is the underwater city. At one point in the game, some underwater caves open into a vast underground space where a half-submerged city exists. (My view of things through some more noemata looks a lot more like an ancient city proper because, again, ABZÛ is a game so what exists is a lot more simplified and limited.) It is a city abandoned and in ruins and yet every surface is still covered in tile and brick of beautiful blue hues. Plants like trees, flowers, and vines populate the space above the water, lily pads and other floating plants pepper the water’s surface, and below sea plants like kelp, sea grass, and so much more cover much of the floor. Sunlight shines down from high above; my noemata filling in with the idea the city resides within a long extinct volcano rising above the ocean’s surface. Animals are everywhere both above and below the water. It’s this place I gravitate towards the most.  

But what exactly do I feel?

Something about it resonates with me. It is a place that feels like home to a part of me. Something about it feels deeply right and missed despite never having lived there nor do I feel like it is a place I am “from,” in any specific way. The feelings my hearthome draw out of me can mostly be best described as comfort, relief, safety, and rightness. There is something familiar about it, even upon my first playthrough. There is maybe even a tinge of nostalgia even though I strongly feel like there isn’t anything past-life-like at play as to why I have this hearthome. It just feels so familiar and comforting to me.

Starting out, my feelings also included what I can best describe as a yearning or longing to want to be there, even if only to visit. There was a desire to know a place like it with my own eyes as much as I knew it already in my heart somehow. So, there was a bit of almost homesickness there too. All these feelings are described in the past tense because of something that happened a bit after first playing the game.

Sometime after first playing ABZÛ, a sunken city with strong similarities to the one in the game was discovered in the ocean in our system’s innerworld. It is not a perfect exact copy, but it has all the same elements and looks how my hearthome appears through the lens of the noemata I have. I know I didn’t consciously will the location in our innerworld to come into existence, no one here can make such blatant conscious changes to our innerworld; however, I’m far less certain if my discovery of the game and the emotions it elicited didn’t cause the sunken city to appear in our innerworld as an involuntary reaction. (Not long after its appearance, several other areas in the game also found their way into the ocean of our system’s innerworld.) Since its appearance and discovery, I spend much of my time in these impacted areas, especially the sunken abandoned city. Since its appearance, the location has become a much beloved place to be, not just for me but also for many other aquatics in the system. The area is aesthetically pleasing and interesting to move around in. There is a lot of wildlife so hunting instincts can be indulged and so on. When not focused on fronting it is a nice place to exist in.

I’ve been aware of my emotional connection to the setting depicted in ABZÛ since July 2018 after playing it for the first time. Since buying it on Steam, I’ve logged many hours on it and have played through its entirety several times. However, I had not labeled my feelings towards this game as a hearthome until recently. Back then, I never questioned or analyzed my feelings surrounding the environments in the game. I knew it soothed something in me to play the game, going out to the sunken city in the innerworld for a while, or even just imagine myself swimming in one of my favorite areas, but I didn’t think about why exactly that was the case.

I didn’t make the connection between my experiences with ABZÛ to the term, hearthome until August of 2024. The moment of realization came while listening to the panel, “No Place Like Home: On Hearthomes” at Othercon 2024. Upon Rani, the panel’s host, describing the meaning of the term, I realized my feelings towards ABZÛ fit perfectly within the word. It wasn’t even a particularly jarring realization, and I am not sure how I had never made the connection before. Since that realization, I’ve come to label my feelings around the game, ABZÛ as my hearthome.

On the topic of alterhuman terms, I don’t use the term hearthic to refer to my state of having a hearthome at this time, solely because the word just doesn’t feel right when I try to use it in context. That could change, but for now, that is that.

I do consider my hearthome to be a part of my alterhumanity. My hearthome certainly fits neatly into my wider alterhumanity; ocean life and all that. That being said, I don’t think my hearthome has as strong of an impact on my daily experiences as other aspects do. My feelings around my hearthome are most often closer to something in the background more than anything. It is still there, and it is still important, it is just not as blatant and impactful in my daily life compared to something like my phantom body from my theriotypes. The fact parts of the game now exist in the innerworld and are prime locations for me to go after fronting to alleviate species dysphoria is perhaps the most blatant way my hearthome impacts my greater alterhumanity.

Bibliography

505 Games, ABZÛ. 505 Games, 2015, Microsoft Windows.

“Glossary,” Alt+H, https://alt-h.net/educate/glossary.php . Archived on 19 Apr 2020: https://web.archive.org/web/20200419100422/https://alt-h.net/educate/glossary.php

Lepidoptera Choir. “Hearthic” astrophellian on Tumblr. 9 April 2022. https://astrophellian.tumblr.com/post/681107250894503936/hearthic . Archived on 30 September 2022: https://web.archive.org/web/20220930143533/https://astrophellian.tumblr.com/post/681107250894503936/hearthic

Rani. “No Place Like Home: On Hearthomes,” Othercon 2024, 11 August 2024, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lYVF_R6v50Q

[faytelumos]

Into the Black With a Matchstick, pt5

I have no idea what the word count here is but this feels kinda long. @_@

Also, I am so sorry for all of the exposition; I am trying to make it gentle but it feels like a lot! I think we're at/almost at the hump of this story, though! :0

@c00kieknight, @hypersomnia-insomniac, @jxm-1up, @midnight--architect, @robinparravel

@thepotatoofnopes, @those-damn-snippets

@mr-orion, @tildeathiwillwrite, @thelazywitchphotographer

cw: some peril, descriptions of vertigo and vomiting

first previous

---

Ten minutes.

That was no time at all.

The Skel. What in the name of Creation were the Skel doing in this sector? Paxie was here to monitor smuggling, to discourage unlicensed vessels from flying, to report unusual star activity.

The squad of five ships were not equipped for a skirmish with them.

"All ships!" Paxie ordered across the emergency channel. "Spool FTL drives and make heading for nearest fallback position! Defensive power allocations!" Ten minutes. Ten minutes! If the ships weren't all ready in time, if the Earthlings couldn't get ready in time—

They had no FTL travel—

"Ready automated fighters to scramble!" they added hurriedly.

The Earthlings. What were they going to do about the Earthlings.

Kime was scrambling, and she clamored in a rush through the narrow hallway. Paxie got out of her way as she bumped and clawed her way to the shuttle.

"Admiral!" Klte hissed. They looked back towards the med bay to see it looking at them, its helmet already back on its head. "The Earthlings!"

"I know," Paxie barked affirmatively. They couldn't leave this ship behind. But there was no way for it to possibly travel fast enough to keep up.

"Admiral," Harrison said, stepping into the hall. His eyes were wide, and his skin was pale. Paxie worried for a moment he might faint again. "How do your faster than light engines work?" Paxie blinked. They had no idea. And why was this a question to ask? Surely there was no way for the Earthlings to make an FTL drive in ten minutes with the technology available on this ancient ship. "Do they dematerialize?" he asked. "Do you use wormholes? Is it a space deforming drive?"

"It-it warps the shape of space," Klte hissed. Harrison turned sharply to look at them. Ramirez stepped into the hall.

"Does the space around the ship remain unchanged?" Harrison asked. "Is it distorted inside of the rings?"

What was the Earthling talking about? How did he know how FTL drives worked if Earth didn't have them?

"No," Klte said, their voice almost awed. "No, it's distorted in a bubble through the rings and projectors." Harrison turned sharply to Paxie.

"Admiral, we have to move this ship onto the belly of one of your vessels," Harrison said. "If your ships have ferrous hulls, we can clamp onto you to avoid falling off. But we have to begin maneuvers now."

"That's out of the question," Paxie breathed, blanching. The risk of the ship falling out of alignment and crossing the warp barrier.... "If you fall away, your ship will be smeared across open space."

"And what are the chances of the incoming vessel killing us?" Ramirez asked. She was stoic again. The look in her eyes was... haunting. She had the focus of any Xoixe. Of any apex.

Paxie looked again to Harrison. To Klte.

"Unless you have a ship large enough to dock our vessel, we don't have time to think of another solution," Ramirez said. And Paxie didn't. This mission had been routine, and the Earthling's ship was too large and awkwardly shaped to store on any of the Xoixe craft.

They opened a channel to Captain Eme.

"Captain, prepare The Water's Kiss to align and attach to the Earthling vessel, belly-to-belly."

"A-Admiral?!" Eme choked.

Ramirez and Harrison both sprinted to a different room in the ship.

"They know the risk, Captain, and it was their idea."

"This species is completely suicidal," Eme gasped. Paxie considered the conversation Ramirez and Kime had just had.

"I'm inclined to agree," they breathed. Then they looked up to Klte. "Into the shuttle, we have to get back."

"Aye, sir," it said, already getting down on all eight and running headlong for the airlock.

Adina could hear Paxie making their massive way back to the shuttle from the gear room. John swore again, yanking on the thermal regulation layer, and Adina finally managed to get her damned cryo suit off of her body.

"What a fuckin' day," John gasped, getting the tight-fitting undersuit on and zipped up. Adina just laughed bitterly. She'd barely gotten two minutes with the damn IV before she had to yank it out of her arm again.

John shrugged the top half of his spacesuit on just as Adina heard the low-pitched thump of the outer airlock door sealing. A moment later, there was a deep clang as the alien shuttle detached. "Solstice!" Adina barked, yanking her thermal layer into place. The computer chimed. "Override collision controls and roll ship 180 degrees!"

"Right away, Doctor Adina Ramirez," the computer said in its slow, melodic, feminine voice. The ship immediately began to tilt.

"Shit," John hissed, stumbling as he stood on one leg, stepping into the bottom half of his suit.

Once John finished suiting up, he helped Adina get clamped down. They both waddled to the bridge.

"Which chair do I sit in?" Adina cried.

"How many sim hours did you log?" John asked. Adina stuttered, squeezing her eyes shut, trying to remember.

"Um, uh, uh, th-three hundred and f-forty!"

"You're on comms," John said, pointing to the first chair on the left. He took the one mounted facing forward, and she thanked whatever the fuck was left of God that it wasn't up to her to fly this thing.

There was already a hail request open, and when Adina answered it, she got video of the purpley-green Xoixe.

"Earthlings, you have six minutes before the Skel arrive!" the thing boomed. John swore.

"Adina, are you buckled in?"

"N-no!"

"Get buckled, we have to move!"

Adina stumbled and grasped, her breathing coming loud and hard. The buckle was large, made to be used even with the massive spacesuit gloves, and she was able to get strapped in even as the ship kept spinning.

"I'm in!"

The ship lurched downwards, and Adina squeezed her eyes shut against the vertigo.

"Collision shield disabled!" someone in the room on the alien ship cried.

"Away vessel successfully docked!" another announced.

"FTL fully spooled! Bubble zone partially obstructed!"

"Lieutenant Harrison, you have to move faster!" the alien captain cried. Adina could barely hear them over the sound of her breathing. She kept her eyes closed, trying not to remember how close the helmet was to her face, trying not to think about what would happen if they got stuck here or sliced apart in the warp bubble, trying not to think about how it felt like she was going to throw up again.

"If I hit you too hard, I'll bounce off and lose my alignment!" John yelled back over his shoulder.

"Harrison, we don't have time, I promise you will not bounce off of our hull!" the captain yelled back. "Clear the bubble zone, now!"

John swore loudly and Adina cried out when he punched the maneuvering thrusters. It felt like they were free-falling, the entire ship rushing down faster and faster, flinging her stomach into her lungs, and then they slammed to a stop so fast that Adina's teeth cracked shut.

"Bubble zone clear!"

"Engage drive!"

The entire ship seemed to yank to the right, like some kind of twisted roller coaster and rubber band hybrid. Then everything shuddered all at once, and then there was aching, deafening stillness.

Adina could hear her panicked breathing like it was blasting through an amp right next to her face. Her head was spinning like a top but she knew in her body the cabin was unnaturally still. Her breathing picked up — she heard it more than felt it — and suddenly she was scrambling at the latch of her helmet, her gloved fingers clawing at the bottom of her visor.

She got the helmet off in time, but forgot about the seat buckle. The channel was still open in front of her as she coughed up bile. Her ears were ringing. She didn't feel any better at all.

"Adina?" John said. He held her face in his gloved hands, suddenly standing next to her. "Hey, can you stand?" Adina closed her eyes. She would have shaken her head, but even the thought made her want to wretch again.

"N, hh, n, nn-nn...."

"Stay right here, then," John uttered, letting go of her. "We seem stable, so I'm gonna grab the IV again." Adina couldn't speak, and she couldn't move her head, so she just kept trying to breathe.

---

By the time Paxie got out of their suit, The Water's Kiss was well away from where it had come across the Earth vessel. Once again in open hallways, free of the environment suit, Paxie had abandoned propriety and sprinted for the command room.

They ran full-out, their claws scraping against the decks, their blood rushing. Everything was sharp. Their scales buzzed, and they were keenly aware of how hard their muscles were pumping to move them like this. Their body was alight, electrified. Their mind was focused, the Earthling pair their only thought.

They burst into the command room and slowed, their scales itching. They scraped their claws against the deck, panting hard, eyes snapping to the front of the bridge. There was an open channel, and Captain Ramirez was slumped in the display, breathing hard as Lieutenant Harrison worked around them.

Paxie relaxed, and the weight of fatigue settled over them. They padded heavily to the captain's chair. Eme flinched when they came into view and hurriedly vacated the seat. Paxie laid down in it, their chest heaving, and laid their claws down flat.

The Earthlings survived the initial jump. Good.

"Status report," Paxie huffed.

"The Earthling vessel is secured to the bottom hull, sir," Eme explained. "Our Ghost volunteered to engineer the dampener settings to keep them stable. We've evacuated the bottom two decks to keep our personnel from getting sick, but…." Eme glanced at the screen. Ramirez was trembling, and Harrison was wiping their face with the same thing they had given him earlier.

"She'll be okay," Lieutenant Harrison said. It felt all too familiar, to have Ramirez looking close to death and Harrison dismissing the matter. Perhaps it was another quirk of the species. Another avenue of their… self-destructive attitude. "We didn't suffer any damage during the maneuvers, thankfully," Harrison added. He stooped down to look into the feed from over Ramirez's shoulder. "We didn't hurt anything, did we?"

"N-no," Eme said. He was keeping his voice very proper. "No damage was sustained during maneuvers, and we did not have to scramble any automated fighters to escape." He looked again to Paxie. "All four vessels reported clean spool and initiation. We'll arrive at the fallback position five minutes behind them."

"It's going to be a long five minutes for them," Paxie mused. Maybe it felt closer than it was, but Paxie had been terrified the new aliens were going to get The Water's Kiss killed, or die in the retreat, themselves. If it was them waiting at the fallback position for a ship to arrive, they were sure they'd be inconsolably worried.

"Captain Ramirez, Lieutenant Harrison," Paxie said. Harrison looked up, but Ramirez only grunted. She was clearly in bad shape. And she wasn't getting better the way Harrison had. Paxie swallowed thickly and straightened up taller. "On behalf of the Interstellar Federation of Alliance, I, Admiral Uten Paxie, offer you and your species sanctuary. Under Article six of the Orphaned Body protocol, you all will be afforded medical care, nutrition, and housing without the need to prove citizenship of the Federation."

Harrison was staring at Paxie now. He curled one side of his lips upward, and chuffed softly. Ramirez seemed to be barely lucid. Paxie flattened their ears.

"As the commanding officer of this squadron, and your current head of authority, I'm authorizing an extended rest for the two of you," they went on. Harrison's expression went back to something more neutral. "You are both excused from any further duties for the day, and are not required to check in at a specific time."

Harrison nodded his head. He looked more serious now, more focused, the way Ramirez had earlier. He kept his hand on Ramirez's shoulder the entire time.

"Will do, Admiral," he said. He then gently patted Ramirez's shoulder. "We'll… hail you when we're feeling better."

"See that you do," Paxie said. "Rest well."

Harrison nodded again. Paxie nodded to the communications officer, who cut the feed. Then they took a long, deep breath.

"Announce ship-wide rest," they exhaled. "Keep half again extra medical staff on standby."

"Yes, sir," Eme said, opening the ship-wide channel.

---

Paxie roused with a start when their door chimed. They checked the time. It had been almost seven hours since rest had been announced. They still had another hour left.

They clambered up and out of their low bed, then padded over and hit the floor control for the door. It slid open, revealing a Qomo officer.

"The Earthlings have roused," it announced in the Xoixe language. "They've requested council with you and a highly skilled xenomedic at your convenience." Paxie quirked their jaw.

"Has something gone wrong? Are they injured?"

"No, sir," it said, "Captain Ramirez seems to be fairing better, already. But they wish to discuss the lives of their crew."

That was right. Ramirez and Harrison were the only crew members who had been thawed from their cryonic sleep, but there were more Earthlings than them on board. They would all need to be awoken as soon as possible. Keeping any creature in such a state, let alone for so terribly long, was absurdly inhumane.

"Very well. Rouse Ensign Kime and Lieutenant Tapide."

"Aye, sir."

Once Paxie was refreshed and the two xenomedics were gathered, the three entered the bridge. There was an open channel, already, and the second captain stood and relinquished the chair to Paxie. Paxie nodded their head and padded over, but they watched the feed distractedly.

Nobody was in frame. They could tell they were looking at a part of the ship near the helm station, but all there was to see was metal and wiring.

"Captain Ramirez?" Paxie said. They switched on the translation protocol when their words weren't repeated. "Lieutenant Harrison?"

There was a metal clatter. One of the Earthlings said something too quiet for the translation protocol to pick up. Then Harrison came into view. He looked pinker in the face now, and his eyes seemed clearer. He bore his teeth widely.

"Admiral, hi," he said. He was very close to the screen, and the untranslated version of his voice was loud. "How did you sleep?"

Paxie huffed a laugh.

"I think I should be asking you that," they said. "Is Captain Ramirez okay?"

"She's much better now," Harrison said, looking off-screen in the direction he'd come. Then he looked back to them. "She slept like a rock and got some water in her, so now she actually looks like a scientist."

"I can hear you!" Ramirez's voice shouted from off-screen. She sounded agressive, but Harrison was laughing, baring his teeth. Paxie quirked their ears. He didn't seem to be worried about confrontation or repercussions.

"Anyway, Admiral, we have a few questions," Harrison said, hiding his teeth again. He moved, and seemed to lower himself before the screen. Perhaps resting in that odd chair design. He was serious now. "We have around two hundred people on this vessel, six of which are presumed dead."

Paxie jolted, eyes wide. "What happened?" they demanded. "How long have they been dead?"

"They failed to wake from cryo sleep."

Paxie stared. Eight creatures had been awoken from cryo sleep? And only two of them had survived? They knew cryogenic stasis was cruel, but to be so dangerous?

"What is the state of the six individuals?" Lieutenant Tapide asked. She wasn't Xoixe, but a species with long, bright green and blue feathers across her body, small, delicate hands, and a smaller, more delicate voice.

"Once they fail to wake, the system re-suspends the body," Harrison explained. "The hope there is that they'll be preserved enough to resuscitate, if it's an option."

"Then they haven't been dead long enough to degrade?" Tapide asked. She was already going through information on her tablet beside Kime.

"That's the hope," Harrison said. He lowered his voice now, looking away. "We haven't exactly… checked on them. In person. But the computer says they're still viable."

Paxie felt a pang in their gut. Harrison wasn't looking at the feed now, and he had dropped his voice. Nobody knew the body language of these creatures yet, but this was not what they had observed as Harrison's normal demeanor.

Two hundred Earthlings. And six of them were possibly dead. What may have been a small wound to the Xoixe was a great blow to the Earthlings. No planet, no bearings, no familiar species, hunted in open space, and with barely enough of them left to survive.

Paxie rested their weight further back, dizzied with the idea. They could have very possibly witnessed an extinction event had the Earth ship not made it away with The Water's Kiss, had they not made such a risky and unsound exit plan. Not just the death of intelligent life, but the death of an intelligent species.

It was a difficult prospect to swallow.

"We're unable to dispatch a medpod to you during our jump," Tapide said. Paxie looked to her. She was especially unflappable among her people, they knew this, but it always took Paxie off-guard. "How accessible are your cryogenic compatriots?"

"Uh, well," Harrison said, glancing between Paxie, Kime, and Tapide. Paxie already knew Tapide would fit in the Earthling ship better than they did, but still not as well as the Earthlings. And since their spaces seemed to be made compact on purpose, they could only imagine what the stasis array looked like. "We would probably want to remove the pods from our stasis chamber. We can take them wherever you need to work on them once we've… landed?" Harrison raised his shoulders and twisted his hands to be downside-up, then relaxed again. "I don't know how it works."

"Once our jump is concluded, we can dock properly and shuttle your pods aboard," Paxie explained. "The Water's Kiss should have plenty of resources to evaluate your kin, and determine their revivability."

Harrison nodded, looking down. "Okay," he said. "How long until the jump is over?" Paxie turned and looked to the engineering station, manned by the off-rotation crew member. Eme knew their name, but Paxie didn't.

"We have another six hours," the engineer announced. Paxie didn't let it show how disappointed they were to hear that. They couldn't send or receive any messages while jumping, which meant they weren't going to get any further answers, and couldn't even consult command.

This was probably the worst First Contact in recorded history.

"Alright," Harrison said. He got to his feet again. "I guess we'll see you in six hours, then."

"Very well," Paxie said. "If you have further needs, do not hesitate to hail us again."

"Thanks," Harrison said, and he bore his teeth. He reached for the screen, but then stopped suddenly. "Oh, and before I forget," he said. "Thank you for sending the-the Ghost over."

Paxie tilted their head.

"The Ghost is there?"

Harrison raised the fur patches over his eyes.

"Oh," he said, turning to where he had come onscreen from. "Uh…." He glanced to the screen again.

Paxie heaved a long sigh. They hadn't cleared the Ghost to go aboard the Earthling vessel, but they supposed they hadn't specifically barred it, either. This Ghost wriggled through regulations like water through a leash.

The video feed blurred briefly, and then Harrison moved aside. A transparent, blue-gray mass waved into frame, seeming briefly to obscur the video with a sparse star field.

"Greetings, Admiral," the translation protocol said. Paxie withheld a laugh.

"Hello, Weak Force. You were supposed to wait to be introduced." Paxie couldn't help but notice their words weren't translated to the Earthling language, despite the translation protocol still being active.

"These creatures took my appearance with great grace," the automated voice said. "They understand better than we expected, and did not require coaching to comprehend me."

"Oh, that's good," Paxie said. When Harrison had… fainted, well…. Paxie wasn't worried now, because he seemed fine. But he would have been if Ramirez had been the one on screen, and Harrison remained hidden.

"Admiral," the voice said again. The blur on the video solidified somewhat, obscuring much of the background in a faint haze. "I have been searching through the data on this vessel, and I have discovered two important things." Paxie nodded for it to continue. "Number One: The Earthling vessel, The Solstice, had its course artificially altered, beyond the influence of celestial bodies or the intention of the crew." Paxie blinked, but before they could ask about it— "Number Two: These Earthlings are the species self-designated as Human, currently known as the Five-Fingered Ones, from the planet Areterra."

Areterra? Paxie knew that planet.

"They're from the same planet as the Mauilen," Kime gasped.

Paxie's eyes widened.

"That's excellent news," Paxie said. They looked to Tapide and Kime. "We'll need to adjust for environmental shift, but this should mean we know their chemical biology already."

"Correct, sir," Kime said, typing eagerly on her tablet. "We'll want to run tests first, but we should know then what medicines and foods will work for them."

"Admiral," the voice said. Paxie looked to the screen again. "It would be prudent for the Federation to treat the route alteration of this vessel as sabotage."

Paxie felt almost cold to hear those words. Sabotage. But it seemed as likely as anything else. But if these Humans were from Areterra, then there was more to know here.

Areterra's biological lexicon had no example of a species like the Humans. So there was less hope that their twenty-six million year mission clock was a malfunction. And it would cause some unprecedented administrative strife, assuming it was accurate. Did it mean they were truly an orphaned species then? Perhaps it was up to if they could survive the current climate of their planet? If it truly had been so long as that? Would the Mauilen have any responsibility over them, or would these two species be treated as entirely independent? Did the Maulien have any responsibility to home the remaining Humans and the method by which they rehabilitated their numbers, or was that weight solely on the Federation?

Paxie shook their head subtly. These were not questions for a patrol admiral.

"Thank you, Weak Force," Paxie said.

"Signing off," the voice said. The feed cut, then, leaving the bridge in silence.

"This is exciting," Kime uttered. Paxie wasn't so sure. And they couldn't help but wonder how old the Skel were, and if they were or had ever been capable of sabotage like this.

"Notify Gunnery Sergeant Appi," Paxie said. "When rest is concluded, she will be to meet me in my office."

[satoshi-mochida]

Dragon Quest Monsters: The Dark Prince coming to PC on September 11 - Gematsu

Square Enix will release Dragon Quest Monsters: The Dark Prince for PC via Steam on September 11, the company announced.

Dragon Quest Monsters: The Dark Prince first launched for Switch on December 1, 2023.

The PC version will include all the downloadable content from the Switch version, but will not include the network mode “Online Battles.”

Here is an overview of the PC version, via its Steam page:

About

Dragon Quest Monsters: The Dark Prince comes to Steam! Compose your very own team of monsters from across the Dragon Quest series and engage in thrilling battles against your foes. Recruit monsters from the wild world around you and combine them to synthesize new creatures as you see fit. With over 500 monsters to choose from and a revamped synthesis system to explore, you can mix and match to you heart’s content to create your favorite cute critters and dastardly supervillains, as well as brand-new additions to the monstrous roll call. Your quest to become the greatest monster wrangler of all time starts here!

Story

Psaro is cursed and is unable to harm anything with monster blood. Now, he must become a Monster Wrangler to create an army for battle. The hunt for high-ranked monsters takes Psaro through the ever-changing seasons of Nadiria and its unique environments, with rivers of bubbling lava, mysterious ancient ruins, and soaring towers of cake. Along the way, Psaro meets the kind-hearted elf, Rose, who joins his adventure to seek out ever-stronger monsters. The key to Psaro’s success lies with synthesis: the ability to combine two monsters and create a stronger offspring. Each new creation brings Psaro one step closer to his goal of becoming the Master of Monsterkind.

(The network mode Online Battles from the console version, where players battle one another in real time, is not included.)

Key Features

A Wondrous World Awaits – As time passes in Nadiria, so too do the seasons change, with different weather conditions tempting new monsters out of hiding and revealing paths to undiscovered areas. The Circles of Nadiria are sure to provide a fresh experience every time you visit.

Over 500 Unique Monsters – With such varied environments to explore, you can expect them to be inhabited by a plethora of monsters. While many can be recruited in battle, occasionally a defeated monster will ask to join your team of its own accord. Befriend as many monsters as you can, then combine them to synthesize new creatures and build a unique party to your exact liking.

Enjoy All the Downloadable Content from the Console Version – The Steam version includes the downloadable content packs from the console version: the Mole Hole, Coach Joe’s Dungeon Gym, and Treasure Trunks. Make the most of their unique features to enhance your adventure.

Test Your Might in Quickfire Contests – Register your team for the network mode Quickfire Contests to participate in automated battles against the party data of 30 other players. Once a day you can earn stat-boosting items as a prize, and the monsters from any team you defeat will be added to your roster (up to rank B monsters only).

Watch a new trailer below.

PC Announce Trailer

[ellraiser]

Year In Review

Hey friends, and happy new year <3 I hope you all had a lovely break and are ready for the 2025!

Here's a little recap of what I've been up to this past year:

Personal

2024 was the first year of me doing gamedev full-time, for the whole year! It's certainly different to back when I was making APICO on the side of a full-time job (and later freelance work). I feel a lot more pressure that what I make has to be 'good', and by 'good' I mean good enough to pay the rent.

With a lot of APICO's gameplay, I just did what I personally thought would be fun, and the end result is a weird combination of things but those who get it, love it. With Mudborne I've been trying to do the same thing, but I have a lot more worries about certain mechanics or moments that I wouldn't have if it wasn't tied to keeping the lights on.

I can't say I'd ever go back to my old job all the time I can sustain myself making games (the big red date on my whiteboard tells me I have until October 2026 until I run out of money!), but it definitely has been a noticeable change doing art for money instead of hobby.

With APICO done, all the games I'm making are all in my own engine built on top of the LÖVE framework, and it's made things so much quicker to create. At the time of writing Mudborne is very nearly finished up, and it's taken only 8 months in total working full-time on it. I'd love to get into a place where I can comfortably making a game every year or so, without feeling rushed. I have so many different ideas I'd love to make, and only so much time!

APICO

APICO had it's 3rd and final (sorry) content update, "A Hive Of Industry". This update added a bunch of automation machines, plus a lot of stuff you all asked for, including pets, decoration and a butt-tonne of QoL tweaks.

I've also done a few little bug fix patches here and there which I'm sure gave you all a bit of false hope on new content when the download queued! It was nice to finally 'finish' up APICO - sometimes I wish I never did any of the content updates but I think looking at it now I'm happy with where it ended up, even if it's still a lil janky and bloated and I think all the art looks wack.

I'd love to come back to it one day, in a seperate game. When I drew up the new credit postcards (above) I had fun invisioning a game where you do go to the mainland and help clean up the environment using your bees. I think it'd be nice to take the same APICO gameplay, streamline some of it and make it all fit better (especially the money making side), and then expand the bees to all have functions in restoring nature.

However I think that'll need to wait a while as I have 2 game children screaming at me to finish, and a bunch of other ideas I want to get started on!

===

Synthesis

I don't often join gamejams, mostly because of the time limits they have, or I just don't personally have any time - but in 2024 I joined the LÖVE Jam, for games made with the framework.

I was still learning the framework at the time and tinkering with the engine I'd made to create the Snacktorio demo, so I thought it'd be a good opportunity to have a break from the APICO stuff that was getting me down at the time, and learn a bit more of the framework.

I was really happy with the end result - 'Synthesis'. I wanted to make a puzzle game with different modules like what you get with old patch synthesisers. As you mess with the different modules it changes the patterns drawn until you eventually come across the combination needed to match the required shape.

I also made a point not to ever explain any module's function - you just learn through doing very basic levels and then the rest you just learn overtime by doing. I wanted it to feel very experimenty for the player.

It was really fun to put this together! I had 10 days and pretty much used them all. I also did the music for it because I wanted to start practicing music creation for Mudborne, and was interesting in having the music 'evolve' with the puzzle progress.

I think it'd be cool to revisit one day as a 'full' game, as you could have lots of different module types and interactions, and let players connect modules themselves in different orders which then affects the outcome.

If you want to check out the game you can get it over on itch.io here: https://ellraiser.itch.io/synthesis

===

Mudborne

Ah Mudborne, my beloved. I've spent what feels like an eternity working on this game, when it's only been 8 months. I think I've stared at frogs more than I have the real world, but I've enjoyed pretty much every part of it.

It's been an interesting process, first I did like concept art for the rough game, and worked on all the individual mechanics - then I worked on the actual world development and story and tied it all together.

After the new demo was finished up, I spent a long time just designing the entire world and how everything connects, then piecing together the story. The writing in this one was definitely a killer as I've never written like a proper big story, let alone one with a few twists and turns. 

I wanted something players could piece together themselves, and get clues from all over the place to work out certain things, so there was a lot involved in making sure it all fit together nicely. At the time of writing this I've just finished up all the final dialogue lines, and now it's just a lot of drawing and polish left to go.

I'm planning to do a private playtest this month for the first time, so I can try and streamline any tutorialisation stuff and see if I've made things a bit _too_ difficult. I'm pretty confident it's a fun game but it's weird how hard it gets to judge that the longer you work on making the game.

Once the playtest is over it'll just be some last little bits to tweak and any changes to make and it'll be ready to release! Crazy to think it'll be my second published game.

===

As for 2025, I'm not sure yet what I'll be doing! The only thing I do know is Mudborne will be released this year, which is very exciting, I just can't say when yet. After that, I'm not sure - I'll need a long break that's for certain. I'd like to start working on Snacktorio proper and get that finished, but it depends on my brothers workload  (he still has a 'real' job). He did a lot of the work on the game design of Snacktorio and has a good idea for the levels, so I wouldn't want to really do it without him.

If he is free, then I imagine Snacktorio will get polished off this year, maybe an early 2026 release! If not then I'll just have to work down the list to the next game idea and get started...

A big thank you to everyone who played any of my games in 2024, all of the new APICO players, returning players for the 4.0 update, froggy friends excited for mudborne - without all of you I wouldn't be able to do this and I'm extremely grateful. Here's to 2025! ~ Ell

[peggycatrerr]

i think it’s really really important that we keep reminding people that what we’re calling ai isn’t even close to intelligent and that its name is pure marketing. the silicon valley tech bros and hollywood executives call it ai because they either want it to seem all-powerful or they believe it is and use that to justify their use of it to exploit and replace people.

chat-gpt and things along those lines are not intelligent, they are predictive text generators that simply have more data to draw on than previous ones like, you know, your phone’s autocorrect. they are designed to pass the turing test by having human-passing speech patterns and syntax. they cannot come up with anything new, because they are machines programmed on data sets. they can’t even distinguish fact from fiction, because all they are actually capable of is figuring out how to construct a human-sounding response using applicable data to a question asked by a human. you know how people who use chat-gpt to cheat on essays will ask it for reference lists and get a list of texts that don’t exist? it’s because all chat-gpt is doing is figuring out what types of words typically appear in response to questions like that, and then stringing them together.

midjourney and things along those lines are not intelligent, they are image generators that have just been really heavily fine-tuned. you know how they used to do janky fingers and teeth and then they overcame that pretty quickly? that’s not because of growing intelligence, it’s because even more photographs got added to their data sets and were programmed in such a way that they were able to more accurately identify patterns in the average amount of fingers and teeth across all those photos. and it too isn’t capable of creation. it is placing pixels in spots to create an amalgamation of images tagged with metadata that matches the words in your request. you ask for a tree and it spits out something a little quirky? it’s not because it’s creating something, it’s because it gathered all of its data on trees and then averaged it out. you know that “the rest of the mona lisa” tweet and how it looks like shit? the fact that there is no “rest” of the mona lisa aside, it’s because the generator does not have the intelligence required to identify what’s what in the background of such a painting and extend it with any degree of accuracy, it looked at the colours and approximate shapes and went “oho i know what this is maybe” and spat out an ugly landscape that doesn’t actually make any kind of physical or compositional sense, because it isn’t intelligent.

and all those ai-generated voices? also not intelligent, literally just the same vocal synth we’ve been able to do since daisy bell but more advanced. you get a sample of a voice, break it down into the various vowel and consonant sounds, and then when you type in the text you want it to say, it plays those vowel and consonant sounds in the order displayed in that text. the only difference now is that the breaking it down process can be automated to some extent (still not intelligence, just data analysis) and the synthesising software can recognise grammar a bit more and add appropriate inflections to synthesised voices to create a more natural flow.

if you took the exact same technology that powers midjourney or chat-gpt and removed a chunk of its dataset, the stuff it produces would noticeably worsen because it only works with a very very large amount of data. these programs are not intelligent. they are programs that analyse and store data and then string it together upon request. and if you want evidence that the term ai is just being used for marketing, look at the sheer amount of software that’s added “ai tools” that are either just things that already existed within the software, using the same exact tech they always did but slightly refined (a lot of film editing software are renaming things like their chromakey tools to have “ai” in the name, for example) or are actually worse than the things they’re overhauling (like the grammar editor in office 365 compared to the classic office spellcheck).

but you wanna real nifty lil secret about the way “ai” is developing? it’s all neural nets and machine learning, and the thing about neural nets and machine learning is that in order to continue growing in power it needs new data. so yeah, currently, as more and more data gets added to them, they seem to be evolving really quickly. but at some point soon after we run out of data to add to them because people decided they were complete or because corporations replaced all new things with generated bullshit, they’re going to stop evolving and start getting really, really, REALLY repetitive. because machine learning isn’t intelligent or capable of being inspired to create new things independently. no, it’s actually self-reinforcing. it gets caught in loops. "ai” isn’t the future of art, it’s a data analysis machine that’ll start sounding even more like a broken record than it already does the moment its data sets stop having really large amounts of unique things added to it.

[generouslywanderingpriest]

Video Agent: The Future of AI-Powered Content Creation

The rise of AI-generated content has transformed how businesses and creators produce videos. Among the most innovative tools is the video agent, an AI-driven solution that automates video creation, editing, and optimization. Whether for marketing, education, or entertainment, video agents are redefining efficiency and creativity in digital media.

In this article, we explore how AI-powered video agents work, their benefits, and their impact on content creation.

What Is a Video Agent?

A video agent is an AI-based system designed to assist in video production. Unlike traditional editing software, it leverages machine learning and natural language processing (NLP) to automate tasks such as:

Scriptwriting – Generates engaging scripts based on keywords.

Voiceovers – Converts text to lifelike speech in multiple languages.

Editing – Automatically cuts, transitions, and enhances footage.

Personalization – Tailors videos for different audiences.

These capabilities make video agents indispensable for creators who need high-quality content at scale.

How AI Video Generators Work

The core of a video agent lies in its AI algorithms. Here’s a breakdown of the process:

1. Input & Analysis

Users provide a prompt (e.g., "Create a 1-minute explainer video about AI trends"). The AI video generator analyzes the request and gathers relevant data.

2. Content Generation

Using GPT-based models, the system drafts a script, selects stock footage (or generates synthetic visuals), and adds background music.

3. Editing & Enhancement

The video agent refines the video by:

Adjusting pacing and transitions.

Applying color correction.

Syncing voiceovers with visuals.

4. Output & Optimization

The final video is rendered in various formats, optimized for platforms like YouTube, TikTok, or LinkedIn.

Benefits of Using a Video Agent

Adopting an AI-powered video generator offers several advantages:

1. Time Efficiency

Traditional video production takes hours or days. A video agent reduces this to minutes, allowing rapid content deployment.

2. Cost Savings

Hiring editors, voice actors, and scriptwriters is expensive. AI eliminates these costs while maintaining quality.

3. Scalability

Businesses can generate hundreds of personalized videos for marketing campaigns without extra effort.

4. Consistency

AI ensures brand voice and style remain uniform across all videos.

5. Accessibility

Even non-experts can create professional videos without technical skills.

Top Use Cases for Video Agents

From marketing to education, AI video generators are versatile tools. Key applications include:

1. Marketing & Advertising

Personalized ads – AI tailors videos to user preferences.

Social media content – Quickly generates clips for Instagram, Facebook, etc.

2. E-Learning & Training

Automated tutorials – Simplifies complex topics with visuals.

Corporate training – Creates onboarding videos for employees.

3. News & Journalism

AI-generated news clips – Converts articles into video summaries.

4. Entertainment & Influencers

YouTube automation – Helps creators maintain consistent uploads.

Challenges & Limitations

Despite their advantages, video agents face some hurdles:

1. Lack of Human Touch

AI may struggle with emotional nuance, making some videos feel robotic.

2. Copyright Issues

Using stock footage or AI-generated voices may raise legal concerns.

3. Over-Reliance on Automation

Excessive AI use could reduce creativity in content creation.

The Future of Video Agents

As AI video generation improves, we can expect:

Hyper-realistic avatars – AI-generated presenters indistinguishable from humans.

Real-time video editing – Instant adjustments during live streams.

Advanced personalization – AI predicting viewer preferences before creation.