#between the enemy design and the way you could just talk all the bosses into killing themselves if you wanted

[averagemrfox]

I finished act two last night and Selûne really said gay rights <3

[insertdisc5]

Possibly odd question, I'm trying to prepare to write my undergraduate thesis next year and I'm going to do it on creating battle AIs. Is there any chance I could possibly ask about how the battle system AI in 'in stars and time' works? Totally okay if not or if you're busy!

I'm just especially interested in the design decisions that go behind how especially smaller games handle enemies and creat fun/well weighted battles :D

(all the screencaps will be in JPN because I am currently working on the JPN version ok!!!)

i would love to talk about battle AI and this definitely didn't turn into a "this is how I think about random enemies for In Stars and Time which you should wishlist and play the demo of" just deal with it ok

ok so first I gotta explain how RPGMaker's AI works.

You can give skills to enemies, and you can tell them 1. Conditions, aka when to do a certain skill (always? only on certain turns? only if under a certain state? only if under 50%HP?) and 2. Ratings, aka how high that skill is on the action list.

So for example, this is a Paper Tristesse's attack patterns:

Paper Tristesse's [Paper] attack (which attacks only one target) is set to Always, so they'll always have the possibility to do this attack. [Paper (All)] (which targets the whole party) will be activated only if Tristesse's HP is under 50%, and [Does Something] (which actually just... gives a line of dialogue and nothing else) also always has the possibility to happen. BUT those Rating numbers are different- the higher the number, the more likely that skill is to be activated. So [Paper] happens pretty often, [Paper (All)] less often, and only if Tristesse's HP is under 50%, and [Does Something] is even less likely to happen than both of those.

Paper Tristesse doesn't have a whole lot of attacks, because it's easier for the player so they can keep track of what attacks the enemy has, and it's easier for me. So I don't have. To figure out a whole damn complicated AI when this works great (some other enemies have very long lists of patterns but they're spoilers ok!!!)

(sidenote: [Does Something] is here to give a tiny bit of worldbuilding (how does the Tristesse act?) and to make the enemy skip a turn, giving the player some room to breathe and plan. So sometimes instead of attacking Tristesse goes "(Tristesse is distracted.)" I'm being so nice to players)

This simple pattern of 3 attacks is used by enemies that my producer calls "Goomba enemies", which are random encounters that are supposed to be very simple and not time intensive for the player! For the demo, Tristesse enemies are Goombas, and the triplets (seen below)/Rancoeur+Amertume encounters are made to be slightly harder and ask you to think a lil bit.

(oooh what's the difference between those three lil ladies?????)

The way I'm thinking about random enemies is, they should all teach the player something. Basic Tristesse enemies are here to teach you about the basics of Rock Paper Scissors and have pretty low stakes (just one weak enemy to focus on! Not a lot of attacks to keep track of!), the triplets are here to teach you that HEY WHAT'S THE DIFFERENCE BETWEEN THOSE THREE SEEMINGLY IDENTICAL ENEMIES DO YOU GET WHAT YOU SHOULD LOOK AT YET (it's their hands, because they do different hand signs depending on their RPS type), and Rancoeur+Amertume are here to teach you about enemies with different goals/patterns (Rancoeur buffs, Amertume attacks), and also that enemies can buff themselves, and also about player priorities to a certain extent- which one to focus on first??? And learning those things are useful against bosses and midbosses!

tldr: rpgmaker's AI is pretty simple and so my enemy AI is also pretty simple but it works well so it's perfect. for me ✨

[foundry-fabrications]

Happy Halloween everyone! It is with immense pleasure and excitement that I present to you a labor of love, the long awaited rework of Flesh & Bone! Originally, I had intended to release this shortly after the absolutely stellar remake of Dead Space, but that obviously wasn't going to happen. So as to not repeat my last mistake with big projects and arbitrary deadlines, I took things nice and slow, took my time to give this work the true love and attention it deserved. Anything for my beloved Dead Space.

And I couldn't be more pleased with the result! Well, I can always be happier. There's always something I wish I could have added or done differently, but I won't dwell on that. "Don't let perfect be the enemy of done".  But it makes me so happy to see it in its full gorey glory after all this time. But that enough preamble, let's get into the changes from the original!

Being the result of a 3-week mad rush to release on time for Halloween, the original brew has a LOT of problems. I forgot a lot of details and made a lot of mistakes just by the nature of not having enough time to do it justice. Having had, what, 2 years, between now and then has given me a lot of time to hone my skills as a creator and figure out exactly what I wanted to do for the eventual rework.

The first and most obvious thing is the aesthetics. Flesh and Bone was the first time I ever tried to make a Homebrewery theme from scratch, so I had a LOT to learn in a very short timeframe. I got it most of the way there for what I wanted to do, but it still had a lot of issues, namely a lack of integrated stat blocks. Formatting was also just awful. I just couldn't get them to work quite right, and they always looked super off, so I elected for images instead. Since then, I've made my Xenomorph supplement which used that initial test as a starting point, and I was able to fix a lot of the issues I ran into. I also want to change the overall look of the theme itself. When I designed it, I was going for a design mix based on the Dead Space wiki and the holographic UI from the games themselves. The result was...not the most legible. I've taken a new approach with the rework, made everything MUCH more readable, and borrowed heavily from the aesthetics of the 2023 remake.

As for the contents themselves, turns out there were a bunch of really cool necromorph variants that I just completely forgot about like the Twitchers, those reanimator swarms from DS3, and the Ubermorph. With that last one in particular, I reworked the old Hunter into the Regenerator with Hunter and Ubermorph variants, like I have with the Slasher, Spitter, and now Twitcher. In general, most of the necromorph forms were in dire need of reworks up in one way or another, especially their descriptions. I pulled almost all of that text directly from the Dead Space wiki, and it showed real bad. Again, 3 weeks, all panic. All the descriptions have been rewritten to be more in line with my other writing.

I also removed that section at the beginning about the Markers. I originally included it to give context for the rest of the brew, and I just really wanted to talk about the Markers, but the more I looked at it that section honestly added very little to the rest of the brew that couldn't be done in other areas. And let's be real, the Markers are SO IMPORTANT to the Dead Space universe that they really need their own dedicated brew. So, I pulled that section out, and it will go in said dedicated brew another time.

And the final change is I actually included some form of boss necromorph this time! I hadn't planned to, but I started thinking more and more about it, and I was also asked by one of my lovely patrons about it, so I gave in and made stats for really the only Dead Space boss worth talking about: The Hive Mind. I actually had fun writing it, working out its abilities from both the original and the remake, as well as taking some creative liberties and giving it some fun new abilities as a result of it being a Nexus necromorph.

So that's everything! I hope this gruesome creation of mine brings you as much joy and terror as it has to me. Stay safe, stay spooky, don't forget to love each other, and m̵̧̈́ͅa̴̜͑̍ḳ̵̍ë̷͍͇́ ̶̖̾̏u̸̪̅͜s̷͙̟̓ ̷̬̩̒w̸͇͘h̶̠̳͆̽o̶̻̺͂̀l̴̛͍̦e̸̡̡͗. See you next time.

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[umbiedecoder]

hi i’m just here to gush about the omen twins (and just omens in general) from just stuff i’ve picked up on.

so first things first, let’s start with the easy stuff (that like everyone knows): their opinions of themselves/outlook on their race. morgott is clearly ashamed of being an omen, he shaves his horns, he wears rags, yadda yadda yadda. mohg is like… the exact opposite, he wears extravagant clothes, he owns real estate (mohgwyn palace), he has a polycule (the bloody fingers), etc.

time for me to talk about them individually.

Morgott:

THIS MAN’S LIFE STORY IS GUT PUNCH AFTER GUT PUNCH AND YOU DO NOT GET A BREAK. IT IS UNIVERSALLY AWFUL AND HE DOESNT DESERVE A SINGLE SECOND OF IT.

first of all, when comparing his horns to Mohg’s, they grow in an entirely different way. Morgott’s horns grow out; and they resemble a crown. when you see Morgott, you go “Wow, that is certainly an interesting looking human being.”

i think it’s very clearly implied that the erdtree decides when someone has exhausted their usefulness, and when that happens, they turn into that dust we see upon killing enemies. so let’s think for a second, how many bosses don’t do that when they die? ONE. AND ITS MORGOTT. do you know how long it keeps me up at night to know that this man had it SO BAD that LITERALLY GOD let his body sit around just long enough that he could finally hear some kind of approval from someone who loved him.

not only is he kept around, his horns are excised by the erdtree, the erdtree literally excises the omen """curse""" (i’ll get to why that’s in quotes) from him, as a final act of mercy, FUCK.

Mohg:

this guy.

this. fuckin. guy.

let me preface with this: Mohg is an animal. i don’t mean that in like a hateful way, it’s genuinely how he is portrayed.

let’s start with the horns, just like Morgott. Mohg’s doesn’t shave them, but unlike Morgott, whose unshaved horns grow out and up, Mohg’s grow in, they wrap around themselves. exhibited in rams and boars, their horns will dig into their skin as they grow, if you look at Mohg’s big ugly face for longer than two seconds you’ll notice that he is also exhibiting said phenomena.

Mohg is, by design, a monster. you see his wings, you look at his jagged teeth and twisting horns and go, “Woah, is this a new species in the lands between, is he the last of them” and when you read his lore, BAM. HES AN OMEN.

also, i think it is so telling of Morgott’s opinion of his brother in that cutscene with the thrones; Morgott lists the runebearers, except Mohg. i don’t know if there really is a reason for that beyond “Why would Mohg have a throne?” but i like to think it’s Morgott protecting(?) Mohg, or atleast keeping him hidden from us by simply not acknowledging him. Mohgwyn Dynasty and the bloody fingers are likely one of the biggest threats to the golden order, and I highly doubt that Morgott would just let that slide, he must have a reason for not searching for his brother, and i believe it’s willful ignorance.

FINALLY, I PRESENT A THEORY TO YOU ALL.

so, this theory was presented to me by my friend Mita, and it’s a great one. she suggests that the omens are linked to the erdtree and that Marika invented the stigma around them because that interferes with the order, and that theory is just GRAHHH it’s so good.

so fun fact, after a mistranslation of the bible, many statues of moses have him horns. if you’ve played elden ring past the intro, you’ve probably noticed all of the catholic imagery.

isn’t that INTERESTING???

isn’t that. isn’t that just so COOL????

MISTRANSLATION.

HORNS.

i personally believe that those statues of moses are the biggest inspiration for the omens, and that the curse really isn’t a curse at all.

anyways. i don’t know how to end this, if you read all of this i commend you but also i’m so sorry.

[unlimitedtrees]

nearly all of the character designs from 'UNITRES Dreams'

(once again, this post didnt have a “read more” part in da original cohost post, so im putting it here... click more if U Dare !!)

so, trying to get back into making art again, i decided to draw brand new references of all the character designs from my game, UNITRES Dreams. cus why not. anyways these references arent Perfect.. some of em ive made better reference sheets before (while for this i just wanted to draw em all together with a sort of consistent color style and their current, up-to-date designs) and also i didnt get to draw Every character as it is Too Much and i am Too Lazy to draw all of the enemies and boss designs ... so ive just included the enemy and boss sprites for now.. but ill probably draw new art for them sometime.

Anyways. let me tell ya a bit about making Character Designs for this game. as ive talked a bit about in my post about making Character Sprites , making stuff for the game is hard because i am pretty much the Only person working on the game and i have to split my time working on the sprites between working on Every Other Aspect Of The Game , meaning i dont get to spend as much time making the artwork as detailed and polished as id want to.

and the same thing goes for making the Character Designs. sadly, i didnt get to make as many Actual Characters as i wanted (you can tell which are the Actual Characters as theyre the ones i Actually Redrew Here). when the project started, i only really had the Main Three Playable Characters in mind.. in fact most of the other Actual Characters didnt even Exist until the Very Very End of development.. which is the part im sad about. i just didnt have enough time to think about adding any complex new characters or figure out how i would Make a new character design . Which leads me to the Other Characters... which includes Most (but not All) of the Bosses and Enemies. Their designs are well , Basic . their designs werent really thoughtout ;they were created to serve a single purpose: to be made quickly so that the game could Have enemies and bosses. if i were remaking this game now, id probably remove or even completely Redo a Ton of the enemy designs (except the post-UNITRES Dreams enemies ... im kind of proud of them Lol !!)

thats just how things were. i didnt have enough time to focus on making character designs, so i didnt get to make a Ton of them and i had to make them Fast . in fact, early on in development, i hadnt really had much experience making character designs (as , before UNITRES, i didnt really make too many Original Characters for my games before), so i struggled experimenting and making characters for a lot of its development. And The Designs themselves .. a lot of them (even the ones i like) are pretty simple. Most characters are comprised of simple shapes and details , making them easy to draw and animate. and a lot of the early designs used Very Few Colors , which made drawing them quicker.

Despite All Of This , However, i am actually pretty proud of a lot of the designs ive made for this game (Especially the ones with the fancy new drawings i made here ..). while theyre simple, and while i wish i couldve made More characters with more unique designs , i really like the designs i got to make for this game ,with some of em being my favorite to draw even when im bored .. and i just felt like id talk about em.

And Well , Im Gonna Talk About Em !! click da 'read more' thingy if u want to Read More ..

the Main three characterz

"trees"

so first off , let me talk about "trees". before i can get into their Actual Design , let me tell u a bit of history so u can understand why theyre designed the way they are.

So . around November 6, 2018 , before UNITRES was really a thing , i designed the very first version of Trees that u can see above. while i didnt know what the game was going to Be , i had a Basic idea of what i wanted the Character to be from the very beginning. you see, Trees (the character) ,while having the same name as me , is Technically Not a self insert , Kind Of . I designed this character near the beginning of when i started entering a Very Low Point mentally in my life (which involves some personal stuff im not going to get into , Aswell as this point happening Around when Among the Others released) and i thought Very Negatively of myself . And So , this character is sort of an exaggerated version of the negative thoughts i had about myself at the time .

the main characteristics of the character was they Did Not Show Their True Emotions , instead bottling up their feelings and showing a very Fake , happy version of themself. theyre also kind of Fucked Up in the head and try to hide it . anyways theres more stuff going on with them that you can probably extract from both the games and the old descriptions in this concept art , but i wanna leave that as a surprise for when i get to make my next game. There Are some outdated things from the descriptions in the concept art , such as an idea where Trees would be Always Facing Forward , hiding away their backside. And Also , you may notice theyre referred to as "it" and "his" in this , which has well. Changed . teehee.

as for The Design Itself , i wasnt really sure what i wanted to go for at first. this character was actually one of the Few first Actual Character Designs i made at that point , so i didnt really have any idea on what to do. One day , i thought up of a Little Bear Looking character , and i tried drawing that character .. only for it to Sort Of look like a little fox-like character. and i imagined this character emoting mainly by very subtle details , such as the Hat and Ears changing shapes based on their emotions ..

Anyways , later that month , i drew the very first sprite of Trees , which ended up being used as the Idle sprite for the UNITRES tech demo. i wont be sharing What that sprite was originally for , as im saving it for Something , but i Will show you Trees' sprite evolution:

from left-to-right , it starts with the very first Trees sprite. Then there's the first revision, which was done when UNITRES Dreams started development. Then there's the second revision , done for the Newgrounds update in 2021. And finally, there's the TREES' ADVENTURE version, which is the current version of the sprite.

with the first version, the sprite is Pretty Close to the first concept art. However , iremoved the blue part in the tail as i couldnt get it to look good in sprite form (or i just forgot to include it.. idont remember). I also removed some details , such as the little hair and the red blush, as i couldnt really include them on such a small sprite.

Anyways , so how did the design mutate into the current design ? Well , over time , i ended up drawing their ears and tail Longer , and ended up giving them longer and longer limbs (as it was Hard to animate them with the tiny limbs they had). Eventually , it got to the point where i decided to just redo the sprites to make em consistent with how i was drawing them , and thats how i got the second revision.

But Then , i started consuming media Other Than Sonic ! i think the main thing that infected my brain was Spinel from Steven Universe ... while Trees' design Did have a bit of the sort of rubberhose , silly limbs before (along with a Bit of contorting their form , as u can see with the expressions in the original concept) , when i saw the steven universe movie , i saw spinel and was Immediately like " Oh My Goodness Gracious . I Need To Make My Character As Silly As Her". And so , I leaned more into the silly , stretchy limbs . You can see this in the following sprites:

Anyways , as i kept drawing them and consuming more Non Sonic media , i ended up experimenting more with their design and adding some small elements from my inspirations .. one of the other main inspirations was Wander Over Yonder ,where i decided to draw Trees' hat to be more Silly and Big , like Wander's hat. i also ended up perfecting how i drew Trees , giving them more Sharp lines , Bigger and Sillier "hands" and "feet" , making their tail Huge , and just giving them a nice silhouette that i like . By the time of the Newgrounds update , i realized Trees' sprites were kind of Outdated , so i ended up redrawing Most of their sprites , and ended up with the version you can see in the current version of UNITRES Dreams ..

And well , Im Really Really proud of how their designed turned out . I Like to draw them a lot. and i think the way their design evolved has ended up fitting with their Actual Character really well .. the sort of Round , Soft elements such as their Big , Blobby hands/feet and their cute , silly face make them look , on the surface , cute and Silly . But then you have the more Sharp lines and elements , such as with their head and tail which i think makes their character have a bit of depth .. if that makes sense .

Idk . im not good at words or describing things . i just think their design now works really well with what i want to go for . and hey , a lot of my friends have drawn them and have drawn them Really Really Well .. i particularly like how people interpret their design .. with some people leaning into the more Soft , cute elements of their design , while some have drawn them Really Really accurately .. its really cool and im thankful for everyone whos drawn them before ..

Last Thing ill mention about their design (and i guess this goes for Most of the other designs) : Most of the characters in UNITRES aren't really supposed to be any Specific Species . Theyre all just sort of weird , ailen-like characters who do not abide to any sort of rules or reality or whatever. Trees is just Trees ; they're not supposed to be a Fox or any sort of Real animal or species or whatever, and that goes for every other character.

??????

so here's the very first designs of ?????? , who for now ill unofficially refer to as The Pink Character. When i first started development on UNITRES , i Knew i wanted there to be Three main characters: Trees, and two mysterious characters. and when i started work on UNITRES Dreams (back when it was known as UNITRES - BRAND NEW WORLD Edition) , i needed to create designs for them .. However , at this point i was still learning how to Properly Make Character Designs , and so i created the first sketch above ,and then created their first sprites , which . Well. I Ended Up Not Liking Their Design Very Much !

So . The whole point of this character is that they dont really know their own identity , with them not even having a Real Name . Their design was Supposed to be sort of Ambiguous .. However i was Not Sure what to do for their design . i wanted to make it so you couldnt really tell what their gender was (as originally , they were a girl ... but they do not have No Gender anymore) . However , when people first started testing the game , they just . thought they were a guy.

anyways . i just Did Not Like This Design . they didnt really have a Clear Silhouette .. they just didnt look like an appealing or memorable design to me. and i also i didnt like their color palette. So . when the game became UNITRES Dreams , i decided to completely redo their design . And Well ..

This is the first drawing of the new design. At First , i wasnt sure about their design , with things such as them being Pink and Having A Skirt, i was worried about Some People immediately being like "Oh , Theyre A Girl !".. but you know what ? Ive grown Very Very Attached to this design .. i think theyre both Cute and Recognizable , while still fitting the sort of character i was going for . Their sillouette , while not as Recognizable as the other characters , has enough goin on to where i think it is a bit recogniable and easy to read while still giving them a sort of Mystery regarding their identity .. if that makes sense . And their more monochrome palette compared to every other character helps sell that , i think .

i think theres probably some people out there who see this character as a girl , but i think theyre a good Non Gender Having character design . just cus theyre pink doesnt mean they gotta have Gender ! anyways , i love them. theyre my silly little strange creature. i hope you love them too .. there is so much i want to explore with this character in a future game .. and i think their new design has really stuck with me.

???

So , ??? , who i will refer to unofficially as The Blue Character, is supposed to Sort Of be the opposite of Trees (the character). they're Very Tired and Chill , not really too crazy or anythin. and i wanted their design to illustrate that, and well , out of every design ive made , theirs was pretty much perfect from the very moment i created them.

I dont know if i have any old concept of them on hand, but i Do have both the original sprites ,aswell as the newer ones which are pretty much the same as the old sprites , but more polished and with redone colors..

And, well. Yea . they didnt really change much ! The only aspects that changed was that i removed like , Two details that i felt cluttered up the sprites too much , that being the little Tired Eyebag/ whatever its called line beneath their eyes, along with the little Red Dot that was on their boots. Other than that , their design was pretty much Perfect. they were also pretty easy to make , as , with them being a sort of Opposite version of Trees , theyre pretty much based off Trees' design , except with a bunch of differences to make them feel like their own character (such as different body/head shape , a big silly hat , and Actual Boots).

there's nothing much for me to say about them. they're perfect.

the really gay ones

suzy, wavey, and their little Shine Catcher

Alright . so before i can explain These characters , u need a little bit of History .

So. when UNITRES - BRAND NEW WORLD Edition was "finished" , i went on to help with RRThiel and his game, MEGA MAN PERFECT BLUE. as you can see here, i worked on various backgrounds and tilesets for the game. Anyways , at one point , ithought itd be cool to remake the Intro Stage in UNITRES , as a sort of tribute to the game and also as a little extra thing for the new update i was planning on making (which ended up becoming UNITRES Dreams).

at first, this was Just going to be two levels based off the Intro Stage from Perfect Blue , However , later in MMPB's development , one of the backgrounds I did for one of the levels ended up being Completely Redone by other people on the team ,as my background didnt really fit the game's style .. However , i still really liked this background .. so I decided to reuse it for a new level in UNITRES , with it also being a tribute to the level in MMPB (though its a lot more loose compared to the Intro Stage level , Lol).

This level ended up becoming Greenhouse Frenzy in UNITRES , and i ended up turning what once was just going to be a two level bonus into an entirely new campaign with its own story in UNITRES Dreams. and with it being a whole new campaign , i wanted there to be New Bosses and New Enemies ..

So , for Greenhouse Frenzy - Section 1 , I was planning on a new boss ... and this boss was going to be ... Mr. Sauceman !

You See , for UNITRES Dreams i wanted to go Hard with including all sorts of little tributes to my friends and the people who helped with the game . Mr. Sauceman , being one of the composers of the game , let me use his character from the game hes working on as a boss in the game , and i thought itd be nice to have him be in Greenhouse Frenzy ,since that level is pretty much a big tribute anywayz.

So , Originally , i wanted the Sauceman boss to start out with a little Fake Out . You See, the MMPB level that Greenhouse Frenzy is based off has a robot master that i asked RRThiel if i could use for the level , but he said no. So , I decided for this boss that i would create a silly character Inspired by the robot master from the MMPB as a silly little joke , but then Mr. Sauceman shows up and that character explodes . And So , I Designed Suzy , a character who , while inspired a bit by the character MMPB , was made to be a bit different and also to be used for a silly little fake-out intro and to die in 5 seconds . You can see this on the reference sheet , where she didnt even have a name and is just referred to as "GF2 Fakeboss".

However . Two Things Happened : 1) I Grew Kind Of Attached To This Little character I Designed , And 2) I Ran Out Of Time. i couldnt implement the fakeout that i had planned ... and i didnt have a boss fight for Greenhouse Frenzy - Section 1.... So. I decided to just. Make her the boss fight of GF1. it just made sense ! i Originally had planned a boss fight based on the Magik Master boss from Chaotic Carnival , but reusing the character design for the silly fakeout ended up being quicker , and so she ended up being an Actual Character in the game.

And Then There's Wavey . she is a robot. i originally designed her as an enemy for the Intro Stage tribute level (a.k.a , Perfect City) , as i wanted it to have its own enemy. Her design is also Some What inspired by one of the robot masters from MMPB , though not as much as Suzy's is.

Anyways , despite Suzy and Wavey being inspired by characters from MMPB , i wanted them to be different and have their own sort of Character . And well .. their actual Personalities are different to the ones from MMPB , at least . In UNITRES Dreams , there is a hidden "Storybook" mode , which contains various stories which add a bit of Worldbuilding into the game .. and one of the stories details Suzy and Wavey . Basically , Suzy is a lonely gardener , who lives alone on her own strange little planet , who then travels across the galaxy to the Perfect City , where she ends up meeting Wavey , a military robot who Suzy becomes fascinated with ..

Anyways . my writing aint exactly the best , and i Refuse to go and reread the stuff i wrote for the storybook mode in unitres . but i tried my best to make suzy and wavey their Own sort of characters , having their own identity compared to the characters theyre based on. Oh , and by the way , suzy and wavey are gay LOL !! and they have a little baby plant that they raise . this is also told in the storybook but i unfortuately didnt get to explore this Much outside of that in the game... though there Is a secret you can find in one of the levels.

So. what do i think of these characters and their designs ? Well. Honestly. Im Not Sure . when i designed them both , i still wasnt Totally comfortable with character designs as i am now , and honestly . theyre not my Favorite designs . Wavey in particular is just . Well . Shes Just Metal Sonic in A Hat . she has her own little differences , but i cant lie . i probably coulda done better with her design . and suzy i think hasnt aged as well either . Idk. Also. In Case You Cant Tell , I am BAD with coming up with names . I Genuinely cant do it. i came up with both of their names on a Whim . i justdidnt know what to call them and i was running out of time LOL !!

anyways. last things ill mention are : the plant is a species known as Shine Catchers, which appear as enemies in Greenhouse Frenzy. Oh , and also , here's some concept art of them Lol !!

(oh , and i also forgot to mention: originally , suzy had green dots on her "hair", but i didnt know how to properly draw them on the sprites , so i left it out)

the Silly ones (a.k.a my favorite ones)

Millie

So . Millie is the most self-indulgent design Ive created .

Here's how it went: one December day in 2020 , I was sitting around bored as hell , when all of a sudden , the Silly Brained part of me Saw an idea pop up: A Tall , Hot , Cute Clown Man . And Instantly , I KNEW I had to draw him . But I Was in the middle of a Zoom call ... So . I opened up IbisPaint on my old Android phone , and drew the First sketch with my fingers that you can see above . And Instantly I Knew : I Had Done It . I Made Perfection .

More ideas grew , and i realized : I Could Do Something With This ! So , later , I came up with a whole reference sheet for him , and started planning on something: I was going to make More characters for UNITRES Dreams . You see , at the time , I was working on the v3.0.0 update for the game. This was Very Very late in development , before i even Planned there being a Newgrounds version (and before ninjamuffin convinced me to Make the newgrounds version LOL !!). Anyways. for so long , iwas disappointed that i didnt get to make a whole lot of original characters for the game .Most of the characters were either Enemies or Bosses. there was Barely any NPCs (aside from the guest character apperances).

i Also Realized: Chaotic Carnival , one of the most Important levels in the game , needed More love . So. I decided i was going to make new NPCs just for it , so that the level could feel even More alive and lived in. And that's when i created the Silly Trio , which started with Millie.

As for Millie's design , there isn't much for me to say. he is perfect. i love him and he is one of my favorite things ive designed. Yes , it Is self indulgent . Yes , i Do Want Him Carnally . teehee. Anyways , after designing Millie , i knew i had to design more characters .. which leads me to..

Goldian and Ellie

Goldian is a tall , polygonal magician man. He is in love with Millie. They are canonically dating.

Ellie is a bunny-like clown girl. She likes to entertain people with magic. I think she might be asexual , but i wasnt very sure when i created her.

Anyways. there isnt much for me to say. i Could get into some of the Character Lore perhaps . Millie , Goldian , and Ellie are all characters with troubled pasts.. they all had to run away from their homes due to circumstances , and they managed to find the mythical Chaotic Carnival, where they all met and decided to become entertainers. It gives them purpose , to see people happy. And they work under the Magik Master , a strange magician who has the ability to bend reality at will. They're all like a sort of Found Family .

that's all ill say about them. theres so much more i want to do with them in the future... i love these characters so much. theyre my favorite designs ever.

Oh ! Iforgot to mention . these characters (including millie) names also suck LOL ! Im not good with coming up with names !! all their names i came up with at the last minute

All The Other Characters I Forgot To Mention

the magik master

nothing much to say about them. theyre one of the first bosses i created, and i Kind Of like their design still , though i might consider redoing it so it fits with the rest of The Silly Ones ..

vie

nothing much to say about Vie . she's a flower girl, who spreads flowers to every level in the game. she got the flowers from the Suzy's Greenhouse ..

Misc. Concept Art

[ghosts-and-glory]

Hello I'm the survey anon, I'm here to ask you some questións about cotl. First: how did you get into the game? Second: What's your favorite part of the game? And Third: If you could add or remove anything? What would it be? Thank you for your time, tumblr user Ghosts-and-Glory. (I'm not an official account or anything, just a curious guy.)

I ramble under the cut

1) I think I saw advertising for it a few years back just before it came out. I watched a few people play it (RT Game and Secret Sleepover Society) but it didn’t look like my thing. At one point I just remembered it existed and wish-listed it on steam and bought it on a whim when it went on sale in December. I have not been the same since (affectionate)

2) Tie between the music, visual style and story elements. My hot take is cotl has my favourite video game soundtrack, it’s one of the few I have on my playlist next to other music. The colour direction makes me cry tears of joy. I will never ever get over the indigo/purple and like red/magenta colour scheme of the majority of the game. The subtle and lively animation, little tiny visuals like Kallamar being the only bishop with a leviathan’s cross on his design to go along with his ocean theming. The story feels so lovingly crafted and in depth just the way it gives you little bread crumbs. Like l loose my mind digging through dialogue and tablets like a madman.

Honourable mention to the crusades and the boss fights. The only other rouge like I’ve ever played is Noita and that game kicks my ass, like at least I can progress through cotl without getting shot by goblins with shotguns. But on my first play throughout I absolutely lost my shit at the way each bishop’s boss fight takes the main elements from the area and ramps it up. The bosses reflect on that area’s enemies and it’s so well designed.

3) I really really wish the game was better optimized. I have a weak computer and I gotta turn the graphics waaayyyy down and unplug my Cintiq to play. It crashes on me if I have too many followers, too many crops, it crashed when I finished the post game, I’ve been soft locked by trying to talk to a follower, something being in their way and they can’t path find to me. Also just small things like I have SIX OUTHOUSES AND THE FUCKERS STILL SHIT IN THE CHURCH. And when my heart demon guy drops extra HEARTS OUT OF BOUNDS. I also wish there was a bit more with some of the minor npcs. Like give Plimbo as much character as Sozo you cowards. It’s also vaguely disturbing how none of Ratau’s friends react when you sacrifice him. And I wanna pet all my followers.

[tokiro07]

Once again vaguing so as to maintain my "talk no shit on what people like" policy while also being able to vent about what is, quite possibly, my least favorite game of all time

This is...the single most tedious gaming experience I've ever had. I thought at first it was just that the controls were unresponsive due to some hardware limitation on the Switch port, but even ignoring that, what the game is literally asking me to do is absurdly repetitive

The actual challenge is decent, though a lot of my deaths have been pretty cheap in my opinion, either blindsiding me due to how poorly contrasted all of the background and stage elements are or landing cheap shots because I frequently respawn on top of enemies or directly in their line of fire. If regular stage hazards didn't actually cause damage and instead just reset me, like in say Hollow Knight, I would find this a lot more bearable, but because I lose health to the platforming and not just the combat, I often don't have enough health left for the combat, which wouldn't be a tremendous issue if the enemies weren't spongey as hell!

The fact that I keep needing to redo long platforming segments because every mistake drains my extremely shallow health pool or because long-winded enemies keep getting placed along the path makes for a ludicrously slow and repetitive experience in what seems like it's meant to be quite fast-paced

The boss fights compound on this by having multiple lengthy phases that end up feeling predictable because they go the same way every time, and generally have oddly long cutscenes to load in the new movesets. I understand not letting me skip phases I've beaten before, I can't think of too many games that allow that, but the earlier phases of any given boss fight become sooo boooring after you've beaten them 50 times, and the latter phases that throw a ton of bullshit at you when, again, you're constantly fighting against the controls themselves just become super annoying!

At the very least, don't put a long, empty path between a checkpoint and the final boss! I should be able to just walk straight into the boss fight from the checkpoint, not hold down a button to carry me there with enough time to think "maybe I don't want to try again." Which is what happened, by the way! I'm writing this now because the game gave me the opportunity to say "y'know what? Literally fuck this" and throw my system down to complain about how dogshit this game is!

And people like this game! It's getting decent to great reviews from what I can find! No one has any of the problems that I do, which again, made me think that it was just the particular port I'm playing, but no, these are all structural issues with the game's design! How is no one else upset about this??? How is everyone else able to accept this??? These are practically ancient design flaws at this point, relics of arcades past, why am I still being asked to put up with this in 2024, and why doesn't anyone else care???

I see what people like about it, I really do, it's just that those elements a) have been done a thousand times better in the games that this game is clearly trying to emulate, and b) are getting bogged down by other design decisions that I don't believe would have been too costly to fix

The only reason I'm still playing this game is so I can have a complete understanding of the sorts of design decisions I should avoid if I ever make my own game, and literally every single minute I spend playing it makes me regret that line of thinking. I have never been so abjectly miserable playing a video game before when this is supposed to be a fun hobby. The only solace that I can take aside from the game being quite pretty is that at least I'm not brain-dead bored. However, in a way that makes it worse, cus if it were completely unengaging I could at least turn it off and not feel like I'm missing something. Instead though, I'm mad, and that makes me feel like if I turn it off and never look back that I let my inability to meet the game at its level beat me, like I wasn't good enough to do it. I know that's a fallacy, since again I'm at the final boss (or at least the Normal Ending final boss, I can tell there's a True Ending I haven't done the work to unlock yet), but if I can't beat it right at the end it's just going to weigh on my mind for the rest of my life like when I didn't finish Magical Vacation

The real question is whether or not I should go ahead and collect everything for the True Ending now so I can just do the final boss fight once and not worry about it, OR should I get the Normal Ending then watch the True Ending online? Both feel wrong and incomplete, but like I said, I hate this game and want it to be done so I can at least feel some semblance of catharsis

Either way, I hope to be done this game no later than tomorrow so I can delete it from my system and actually play something that brings me joy

[dreamweaved]

THE HARMONY, AND IT'S EMANATORS

2.2 spoilers below , also insane rambling sorry

so i'm really happy actually that sunday did not turn out to be an emanator. because honestly, it defeats the purpose of harmony to make a singular person an emanator. to grant their power to an individual. instead, their emanators are tools that i assume can be used by anyone who's able to attune to them. to harmonize with them...

A plural Aeon from multiple harmonious worlds. The glorious Xipe of thousand faces is chanting songs of joy and happiness. To battle the brutality of the laws of the universe, intelligent lifeforms must discard their cowardly selfishness and the differences between individuals, fusing into one singular melody — to have the strong help the weak, and to protect life with death.

tbh there's a lot to unpack about xipe, and ena, and the ways that order and harmony are similar. how order can live without harmony but harmony could not live without order. but... this is about emanators. and the thematic beauty of it's embodiments being instruments. and it isn't just xipe that this resonates with, but ena too. melody and music are important to both of them conceptually. and are actually used in a similar way by both aeons. granted, ena was absorbed by xipe... so you could argue that being why that is. but i feel it's been made very clear in lore that their similar paths are why the newly formed harmony was able to take over order. they were the same, harmony just happened to be a broader path.

now, dominicus being a conductor? don't ... don't even get me started okay like oh my GOD. conductor of hymns, of music, of wishes & dreams. with a little choir that SHARED a health bar with them-- that resonated with them. their designs too are really intentional, like every detail is so intentional.

now i'm intentionally not really talking about sunday in this. because honestly a breakdown of him deserves it's own post. and his and robin's characters were written incredibly well. touching topics i connect with a great deal honestly. and handling the concepts really maturely, and appropriately. religious trauma and horror is pretty tricky sometimes, and one note. so i'm happy it wasn't here.

in pena/cony, the instrumental designs and themes are really well chosen too. cellos, violins, organs, harps, ect ect. there's others, but these stuck out to me a lot. again i repeat, the intent was clear from the very beginning. this is an area with a lot of religious themes, and will deal with a lot of existential concepts. and the way they'd incorporated so many of these instruments into landscape, enemies, characters, and even the final boss. ... im floored. im speechless....

to finish. again. i am so happy that the emanators for each aeon are different, and they all follow the themes of their aeon. sometimes in ways that are not what you expect. the way that harmony AND order were incorporated into the theatre, and the design of the choir boss and the music and-- lordy i'm losing it.

[ashperiences]

Meant for this to just be part of talking about the first game but didn't realise how much I'd go on lol

Didn't like this one as much, on paper most things sound better and I liked a lot of those ideas but I left without much of a real impression left on me.

The stratums never really ended up feeling like a place to me, I got a little shot of excitement going into the airship but it ultimately just felt like a big bunch of yellow corridors with a knock off version of the previous final boss. The areas could be really pretty and I liked some of the level design and the bringing a specific class gimmicks that unfortunately feel more fun of an idea than actually evocative but oh well.

Therein lies a big problem I had with this, the gameplay mostly turns into spamming big damage, the enemies and levels can get really obnoxious in response and the quests routinely become pains in the ass even as they build some genuinely endearing steps and events in them that make them more than just go to A or collect 6 of B (loved the one that made me mad that finding a guy to deliver a thing to relied on an rng roll to check if he runs away over and over owning me by having the guy eventually be like why the hell are you chasing me who are you though).

I like all these ideas it has, getting to know people in town better, weird FOE gimmicks and all but a lot of the quiet imaginative space is lost, I didn't really wonder about my party, the npcs were more fleshed out and likeable but they weren't really memorable enough to make up for feeling like just some decently entertaining guys in some dlc pack levels.

So much is hampered by relation to the first game, class design is heavily built around nerfing old strategies and over empowering other ones, the story has the same structure but less interesting as an attempt at playing the hits again, we got bird people again but they're magical helpful natives now. It's all just kind of uncomplicated heroics where your attack goes up and eventually you beat up god who is mean and make friends with everyone.

Its fun enough though although similarly the gameplay made it hard to distinguish any real sense of character between my variety of big numbers damage guys. The new class concepts are fun but not tremendously well implemented and the reuse of old classes doesn't help the stale feeling.

I can't stop complaining about it but whenever I think about parts of it I think of them fondly anyway, its not charmless it's just, it's overshadowed and directionless, everything you like feels nice but overtime it kind of just eats away at itself until its a town of slightly charming people and their heroes in a world that just feels built for purpose. I can barely remember any of the actual exploring.

If etrian odyssey 1 ends with your party literally going to hell this one feels like a conscious attempt at crafting explorer heaven - nothing complicates your role, doing big damage almost always wins, everyone ends up loving you and you can live forever as a cool sword guy (suppose there's a fun little thing to think about on context of the villain speech there actually).

I think you can summarise this game with two things:

1. The pathways only open to certain classes that just give you an rpg narration of your guy doing some cool stuff that repeats exactly the same the next time you find one without any of the environment reflecting it and usually organised into some weird box room with multiple class paths like you've found some side mission level select.

2. The way the gunner just inherits a strong move from the now decimated survivalist and also functions as a superior alchemist, the way the war magus can awkwardly remove any mp consideration or how the hexer can just turn hp loss into practically instant killing everything. The game gets flattened under this stuff to the point that the struggle of it all ceases to feel real, no monster is a real threat except by just doing something annoying, every boss gets steamrolled and as if representing the shift in genre the survivalist ends up with practically no purpose.

It was fun while it lasted for sure but also super annoying and I spent most of it thinking about my previous party and looking back on it all I can imagine my party as is an endless succession of multi attack skills.

A true dlc side story 6/10 where you go oh that's a nice idea I guess oh that's a funny guy they put in here and then evaporates.

[skye-huntress]

RWBY: Arrowfell Reaction

I have not only played Arrowfell, I have completed the story, collected all the Skills Points, and earned another Platinum trophy for my collection. I just checked and it’s actually my 60th, not like I planned for it or anything.

Lets start with that then, the trophies, achievements or whatever they’re called are all fairly straightforward and easy to collect. The only missable trophy requires you to hold on to 10 Skill Points at once, which I’m glad I spotted beforehand so I could get it out of the way as soon as possible.

Grimm Eclipse was designed as a co-op game, and I no longer have people to play with. I might not be used to 2D platformers, but Arrowfell is more my kind of game. I get switch between all the girls at once, and there’s a lot more story content.

I was still a little clumsy when it came to switching characters, so sometimes I switch too slow or to the wrong character which was especially problematic during ambushes and boss fights.

Ruby naturally had the long reach with her melee and her semblance really helped to get behind enemies and avoid attacks, which makes her ideal for hit-and-run tactics. Weiss was the one I found especially useful. Ranged attacks use up energy which also serves as the team’s collective “shield”, but with her semblance, Weiss can attack at range in multiple directions at once without using energy. Blake’s clones can block projectiles and can attack enemies even after switching to other teammates, so you can attack at a safe distance, or double or triple the number of times you attack at once. Yang is the one I ended up using the least though. She has the smallest attack range which means too often I end up getting too close to enemies. That said, when I want to get the drop on enemies from above, her Semblance is handy for that.

So my recommendation for early skill allocations would be, to boost Weiss’ range damage (which includes her Semblance), Ruby and Blake’s melee attacks, and for Yang, defence might be a good idea. Also, whichever character you end up favouring the most, put a few points in the energy recharge.

As for exploration, you have a map of Solitas where you can explore locations as many times as you want. It’s something I’ve been wondering about, but there must be other locations and settlements around Solitas, supposedly. We never got to see much of the rest of the continent outside the major cities, besides that one mine. Makes me wonder what happened to those towns after Volume 8.

Some locations branch out a bit, where you can explore to find more hidden Skills Points or other items, and each Semblance is used to explore. Ruby can dash across gaps, Weiss’ glyphs can me temporary platforms to reach higher, Blake can use her clones for pressure pads, and Yang… smash.

Although I quickly found the some areas can’t be reached right away and I needed to return after one of the girls improved their Semblance. As an example, after helping Harriet, she taught Ruby how to dash further, which makes a lot of sense in canon, since we know RWBY and JNR were also training with and learning from the Ace Ops and Winter.

I was so thorough in my exploration, that I kept bumping into one particular person a lot, Penny! Her part in the story doesn’t come until later but you can still find her in a certain location in the first four chapters and talk to her.

Speaking of familiar faces, we had Pietro, Maria, Ironwood, the Ace Ops, Qrow and Winter, but we never saw Team JNR or Oscar. I suppose with everyone else working on the current crisis, they were stuck with the more mundane takes.

Seeing Team BRIR take down the Megoliath was pretty impressive, though it did feel a bit like when the Ace Ops took down that Geist. You know, like they were showing off. To be fair, Team RWBY weakened it (after I got my ass kicked multiple times, the only boss fight I really struggled with).

There was something that bothered me, after they were chased off as quickly as they appeared, we’re told they are paid mercenaries that have been extorting towns around Solitas, but it wasn’t shown in their actions. That kind of tipped me off that I should take that information with a grain of salt.

Likewise, the fact that Bram Thormane wanted to take the “Mysterious Orb” off ours hands instead of letting us personally deliver it to Ironwood put him on my suspect list. Not just him, but also the person he told Team RWBY to meet.

You know, I was more than happy to mock the Ace Ops when Elm mentioned that a group like Team BRIR would definitely be on their radar. Now that I have the full context, I’ll forgive them for their ignorance, especially since we were given misleading information about BRIR. In retrospect, that should have been another hint, of course if there were a group of mercenaries running around shaking towns for money that even the Atlas Military would have heard about them.

I find it funny that Ruby was ready to point that finger at Jacques for arming criminals. I actually agree with Weiss, the man may be unscrupulous but he’s not the type to spend his money to arm someone else.

Also, nice little tidbit about Weiss needing to get the materials for Myrtenaster herself. I’m not surprised, Jacques never wanted her to become a Huntress, especially after Winter ran off to join the military.

So first mention of “Arrowfell” in the game, and the person who is already on the suspect list is quick to downplay the possibility it is connected.

As it goes, Arrowfell is a military facility developing military tech that according to Ironwood was shut down and sealed off years ago. And immediately, I could not help but think about Ironwood track record of keeping places secure or making sure his military tech isn’t stolen. I would never take Ironwood’s word when he says a place is unaccessible.

Amoncio Glass was something of a treat. Liked to talk big but a bit of a coward. He said something about how even the Ace Ops know not to mess with him. Now, anyone who knows me knows that I enjoy taking the piss out of the Ace Ops every chance I get, but in this case, I have to say it’s more likely that they consider dealing with Amoncio as beneath their pay grade.

Amoncio: dOn’T yOu KnOw WhO i Am?!

Ruby: Nope! 😁

That little cutscene before the fight might be my favourite.

I cannot believe Qrow stole Winter’s Saber*. I see sobriety didn’t make him any less of an asshole. *Side note, we still don’t have a name for it, do we?

The Faunus in Mantle, Mikado, is adorable.

One thing I liked in particular about talking with Winter is Weiss finally calling her sister out. Don’t just criticise her, give her actionable feedback so she can actually improve. When Weiss said it, I was like “YAS, Ice Queen!”

Don’t you just hate it when you beat the bad guy and in their defeat they decide to spite you by setting off whatever doomsday plan they had in place. Usually it’s something like blowing up their hideout so you have to escape, though that was fortunately not the case this time.

Did Ruby just accuse Weiss of being at fault for the cookie shortage? More surprising was Weiss saying “Cookies are more your thing! I sure didn’t eat them all!” Weiss didn’t deny eating any cookies, that last line implies that she definitely has eaten some!

There’s something about train levels that makes them so satisfying to play. Also, we finally got to see that footage from one of the earlier trailers and I could finally confirm what I suspected, that there was a rogue faction within the Altas military. Not surprising, Ironwood’s leadership left much to be desired.

So it seems like the whole Arrowfell mess for once is not Ironwood’s fault. Seems his predecessor dropped the ball and didn’t pass on information that their successor should have known, like the identities of the Keepers of Arrowfell. I guess the Atlas Military suffered with incompetent leadership long before Ironwood took charge.

And now we finally get to learn what Penny was doing the whole time and what those weird doors were about. Also love to see more of her even in this format.

The banter between Weiss and Penny was… particularly interesting. I suppose we never did see how they would normally interact before things got a bit serious. I felt like some of Weiss’ comments could be toned down a bit, though I don’t think she meant any real harm or disrespect. Penny can be a bit of dolt at times.

And now we’re friends with Team BRIR. After this incident I wonder what they went on to do. I’m sure even Ironwood knew better to just destroy what was inside Arrowfell so it would no longer need Keepers. If I had to guess, either BRIR went to help out with the other settlements, or they would have been among the Huntsmen that were protecting Mantle offscreen during the invasions and evacuations. Maybe they’ll show up in the main show, probably in the background chatting with Team SAFR and Shion Zaiden.

So Bram Thornmane’s motive was because he was passed over for a spot in the Ace Ops. How many villains are just people that Jimmy has personally pissed off? He also had a hero complex, something he actually shares with the man he despises so much.

And the reason he was passed over for the position? “I’m afriad there’s no fit for your Semblance.” I mean, wow. That actually confirms something I only suspected about how Ironwood picks the Ace Ops. He picks members based on whether they have complementary Semblances, not based on merit and more importantly, how they complement the team as individuals. On the one hand, I get the importance of having a diversity of skills for any situation, but perhaps Ironwood may have prioritised the wrong criteria.

After all that, I do have to say, Bram may have had a point. His methods were unforgivable, no argument there, but I don’t think he’s necessarily wrong about Ironwood. I’ve been saying it is a wonder Ironwood wasn’t forced to step down after his disastrous and embarrassing failure at the Vytal Festival. That is to say nothing of his actions since the Fall of Beacon. It is the most believable thing in the world that there was another conspiracy to have Ironwood removed from his position.

I think that’s it. A nice little game I enjoyed playing, and at the end of the day that’s all that matters.

[risu5waffles]

TENsion and Chills

So.... the servers are fucked at the moment, which is... not good. Folx getting folx banned (including the Community Manager), and the online has been shut down "for maintenance," and we can just cross fingers they come back up at all, let alone reasonably soon. i'm lucky i'm backlogged to the 25th, but i'd rather my last Archive episode not be 390 (the level is, to be fair and honest, kinda pants. Spoilers).

At least it gives me a little time for some administrata.

A bright and stickertastic homage to The Gardens, which (generally) manages to maintain a decent pace throughout the race. Like a lot of these kinds of levels, it felt like it would have been a lot more fun wiv friends, but i still managed to have a good time. Except for the spinny-grabby bits. Gods but do i ever suck at the spinny-grabbies.

We talked about this one on LittleBite-sizedPlanet episode 287, but the short version is it sucks? Just a troll level for the lulz? Tho', to its credit, it is a level; like, beginning, end, gameplay in the middle, some work to present an environment. So... i guess i mean a troll level in the sense that the creator is clearly capable of more, and just decided to shitpost? So... not a troll level, a shitpost level.

This is the level that inspired Tin_Boy551's Cardboard Castle a couple videos up, and even tho' it's not my favourite of five-ate-five's work, you can see the jump in quality over The Garden in 1 Hour. This one definitely would have been more fun wiv friends; there's just so much going on, and i can imagine players on different paths and getting into each other's way. i bet it was a hoot. There's also a fair amount of working in the secondary characters. We do run into levels from time to time that give you the chance to play as every character, but generally it's more of a frustrating toss-in.

Now this is some quality stuff. Some real inventive playing around wiv LBP1 mechanics, a fun well-realized theme, good puppet work, enjoyable gameplay. See, i told you five-ate-five could produce quality.

A big, chonky, proto-Adventure here. All the levels are pretty great, tho' the second is the one that initially caught my eye. It's funny, because i'd worked in a similar conceit for an enemy/obstacle in my abortive Archives level, but it's handled so much better here (the benefit of planning an entire level around the concept, instead of throwing it in as a one-off fairly late in planning... also that five-ate-five is just a better creator). Shame how over-bright it is, but that might just be a combination of lighting changes between LBP2 and 3 and my telly's contrast being a touch wonky.

It's interesting, but it feels like there was a period in LBP2 where you ran into a bunch of levels working in the meta of community creations, and directly, openly breaking the fourth wall to address player expectations the way we see in Huge Inspiration Stealing Lazors. It... kinda works? Like, as a bit of community history, seeing it and remembering "oh yeah, players demanding boss fights was totally a thing for a bit." But it also feels a bit like a "you had to be there" kinda deal, and that the creator wasn't confident enough in their ability to craft their own narrative. i feel like a good example is in Over There and Back Here Again by scuzzy1973 that we featured way back in LittleBite-sizedArchive 061. Like, it just sticks out like a sore thumb, and comes off a touch mean-spirited? Here it mostly kinda works, but i think a lot of that is that it manages to stick the landing pretty well. Also that bitchin' falling castle platforming bit after the fight.

i just loved this one. The environmental design just hits all of my good buttons, and you can see how it was a clear inspiration for how i presented the city in A Totally Reasonable Response. Gameplay stays pretty fast moving once you know the level layout, tho' the first time through i can see it being easy to get yourself stuck in a couple of places. Not, like, softlocking the level or anything like that, just not quite realizing where you're supposed to go next. Still, i had a lot of fun going through this one multiple times to get a really good run for the Archives, and that's not something i can say about a lot of levels.

These are both fine levels, tho' i feel like almost anything would have come off as a bit of a step down after a week of some of five-ate-five's best stuff.

corysix6 made these after a hiatus, and it's always nice to see a creator get their inspiration back. i wish i'd had the chance to take a look at some of their older work on stream to get a feel for how these meshed in, and if they were indicative of cory's style, or just a shaking off the rust exercise, 'cause they are a lil scanty. Even so, the gameplay is fun, and the presentation may be sparse, but it is clear, and clearly thought-out.

-----------------------------------------------

Right. That's another TENspot done and in the can. Depending on how Sumo reacts to this latest clownfoolery, we might only have three more of these before we put a bow on the whole endevour, and that has me feeling all sorts of ways.

i know one of my biggest complaints has been time, and the lack of it in my life; and i know one of the biggest timesinks aside from work-work is my video work. It might only be a couple of hours every day or every couple days, but those are still a couple hours out of a very short stock of usable ones. i don't know what i would do if i suddenly had those hours back, but it would be something.

But on the other hand, i do all this because it is, in fact, fulfilling. Seeing and sharing other creators' work, sometimes creators who may not have had any eyes on them aside from a friend or two; the recording and simple editing. The time i spent getting those title cards laid out just right. All the work that goes into the LittleBite-sizedPlanet reviews. Getting a video together and uploaded, and being able to say "i did that." It's never been about getting big on YouTube, or step-stoning into some career. It's just been a little thing i've done for myself that's helped me get through some really, really rough patches just by being a continuous process that has a tangible end... product isn't the word i want, but it colocates wiv end, you know? The fact that i've met a lot of good people through this, some of whom i now consider close and important friends, was an unexpected, but deeply, deeply appreciated cherry on top.

And that, after so many years, i've finally had a spark of wanting to create my own (non-video) stuff; i wasn't thinking that would happen at all. But i look at Craftworld by Rail and A Totally Reasonable Response, and i am a little proud of them. i'm glad, especially wiv Response and it being very much a loveletter to the other queer players in LBP, that they resonated wiv so many people.

So this server shutdown has me feeling some kinds of ways, let me tell you what. i've known for years that LBP (in the company-supported online sense) has been living on borrowed time, 15years is very long in the tooth for something like this. We still can't say that this is the straw that breaks the camel's back, but it's clear that Sumo and Sony don't put a particularly high stock in keeping the ship afloat, and the last time things were pushed sideways (thanks Jon, you fucking fuck) it cost us lbp.me and the PS3 servers. If corpo says "yup, we're done here," i'm not going to be shocked. But it is going to hurt a little. Like watching your meemaw who's being treated for latestage cancer get hit by a bus. You knew the end was in the post, but you weren't really prepared for it to be right now.

[spinningbuster98]

Mission 6 is purely a fight against Gilgamesh

I've seen fans criticize this fight for being bad and...well it's not the most exiting thing in the world, you're just wailing on a giant brain while trying your best to keep from getting knocked off of the beast's shoulders

But y'know when compared to other questionable bosses throughout the series I'd say this guy ain't that bad. He sure beats the fucking Gigapede from DMC3

In facr this is another thing I previously mentioned: people often say that DMC3 has the best bosses in the series but honestly that's honestly only half true

Yeah battles like those against Cerberus, Agni & Rudra, Nevan, Beowulf and the 3 Vergil bosses are fantastic

But the game also has the Gigapede, the Leviathan's heart, the Doppelganger, Geryon and Lady are kinda borderline and Arkham is fucking broken

By comparison DMC5 doesn't always hit the same highs as the best DMC3 bosses but it sure as shit never hits its lowest points

Mission 7 is interesting as it's one of two missions in the game that allow you to choose which character you wanna play as between Nero or V! Not only that but each of them goes through a completely different pathway throughout most of the level, making it more of a unique experience

...I mean it's been ages since I last played this as V so I don't remember how it was but it's a nice touch

It can be a pretty tough level, very tight spaces and very agile and strong enemies, complete with demon generators that you have to smash unless you want them to infinitely spawn in enemies

This all ends with a giant epic, no holds barred brawl against you and a group of demonic knights while on a crumbling piece of building

What's pretty cool is that whatever character you didn't choose at the start will assist you here!

Granted in my case it's V and this is DMD meaning he dies 3 minutes in and I have to do the rest alone but it's the thought that counts buddy!

About those knights they're basically nerfed versions of a similar enemy from DMC4 (and also a homage to Nelo Angelo from DMC1): in that game they could fly, were way faster and couldn't be snatched towards you by Nero

Here they can't fly, they're much slower and can be freely snatched with the exception of the Alto Angelo, that bad boy (more on him later)

I...am not a fan of this. Yeah in DMC4 they could get annoying (especially as Dante but you know why) but mostly due to the game spamming them relentlessly, there was nothing wrong with them design wise

With these weaker variations you'll notice that they're only a threat while they're in a group. Once you start widdling down their numbers you'll notice that they're nothing more than really tanky ragdolls, making this fight start all awesome and stuff but end with a bit of a whimper

The Alto Angelos are probably the most hated enemies by some, because on DMD these asholes have as much health as a boss! A BOSS! They may just be the tankiest enemies in DMC history and combined with their basic attacks and relatively slow speed they can be an absolute grind to take down once it's just you and one of them

Tbf if you know what you're doind you can speed up the process (especially as Dante): with Nero I recommend using the fully charged Buster Devil Breaker, which is one of the most powerful moves in the game. I used it twice on this bastard and depleted most of its gargantuan health

To conclude this let's talk about level design

The past games had this sort of pseudo metroidvania kind of design, where you went back and forth through a Castle or Tower or similar collecting stuff to access other places. However there was also a level based structure mixed in which allowed you to mostly just go where the game wanted you to, essentially like a more restricted Metroid Fusion.

DMC5 decides to drop all of this in favor of a more traditional level structure: now levels are completely standalone, pure straight lines with little to no nacktracking

They still have some exploratory value as you can still find stuff like health upgrades etc. But the general design has received much streamlining and not only structurally: the game has absolutely no gimmicks, nor do they have much in the way of platforming, they're pretty basic all around

I don't really mind this on the one hand, since the main appeal of DMC has always been its combat and this approach to level design allows you to purely focus on that since now levels basically only serve to space away battle scenarios

On the other hand though this seems to me like an overreaction to criticisms thrown at past games, especially DMC4: That game had too many annoying gimmicks? Well let's not have any at all! The levels feel like they're more suited to an adventure game rather than a hack and slash? Well let's make them little more than straight lines!

Again I don't mind this but I honestly wouldn't mind a return to the previous games' style of level structure...provided that it's done nicely and not like the latter half of DMC4

[angelofthepage]

Reacting to BATDR Part 4

Following SuperHorrorBro’s Bendy and the Dark Revival Playthrough, we got through Chapter 3 of the game today and BOY HOWDY, did not see that coming! Finally, we get to talk a little more about returning characters.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8Tzp9if6SiQ If you’d like to follow along, here’s the video.

So the chapter opens with a BOSS?! And it’s a creepy spidery orb thing? I’m very lost, is that thing supposed to be a Keeper? It didn’t really speak, so I’m unsure. They just kind of introduced the concept of keepers and didn’t really give us any details. But the boss was cool, if not a bit confusing, I’m sure I wouldn’t have done much better in Mike’s shoes, that looked stressful. X’‘‘D Also love that this started with an elevator drop, very nice callback. Either way, spider thing is dead, let’s move on.

And what do we move onto? JOEY FREAKING DREW HELLO?! Okay, pause, I saw the thumbnail so I knew Joey was there (and then I saw the lost one with horns and went ‘oh that BETTER not be Sammy’, spoiler alert it thankfully was not), but I still wasn’t expecting this for implementation. So ghosts are a thing in this world now, and that’s really interesting. We keep circling back to the idea of ghosts, still waiting to see that enemy time that’s kind of between life and death, and obviously we have Carley (who while I still don’t like as an enemy, she’s grown on me a little, just a little). But an apparition that’s a memory of Joey Drew? DID NOT SEE THAT COMING.

Like, I suspected Joey would show up somewhere in some fashion, it makes too much sense for him not to, but this was honestly a really good way to bring him in. I think I like this better than him or Henry being Bendy (though that’s still a small possibility, since like, he does say he’s just the memory, his soul could be somewhere else). Either way, this was a good conversation, it had elements of our young Joey from the 30s and 40s while also showing maturity in from beyond the 60s, and he looked like a mix of both designs, which I liked. Audrey’s question of “why can’t you fix this” really hit me, the LOOK on his FACE- and the whole thing about if this was “revenge or regret, that’s my riddle to solve” OH THAT HIT HARD?! Joey Drew, being regretful?! It’s more likely than you’d think. Wow, I really like that, I did not expect this, I may steal this for a fic. I’m really curious how much of Joey is really him vs someone else controlling this supposed memory. Like it feels like it could be a ruse, though I hope it’s not. I just, wanna know what Audrey’s purpose for being here is, we haven’t gotten any expansion on this plot point and it’s three chapters in. Like why can the ink demon talk to her, why would Joey know anything about her, why did Wilson suck her into this, what is the purpose for it all? I’m left with more questions than answers. Also THANK YOU FOR ACKNOWLEDGING THE CYCLE! This gives me SO MUCH to think about!

Speaking of character implementation, FUCK YEAH JACK FAIN IS BACK! JACK JACK JACK JACK JACK- Okay, okay I’m calm, I swear.We haven’t gotten a single audio log from any of our old cast until now, and we start with JACK and how he needs the sewer smell to make music? Oh my GOSH! And we find his desk?! Hello?! And his HAT?! MAN!!!!!

I’m just, surprised we’re three chapters in and this is the most we’ve heard of the old cast, and of all characters, it’s the one they retroactively added back into Chapter 2 during BATIM Chapter 4′s development process. It feels like they were focused on expanding the story with new characters rather than revisiting the old, which is a little disappointing, but I get why, there’s so many ways to get tangled with lore there. But like, Malice is back SOMEWHERE in this game, sooooo where is she? How have we not run into her yet? Or the massive blob monster? I thought they’d show up sooner. I’m still holding out hope for Sammy. Please, he HAS to be somewhere in this game, I need my man back for a bit! Also Norman, oh my gosh Grace’s tape mentioning Norman was great, PLEASE let the projectionist show up?!

Onwards, the Lord Amok thing, did not see that coming. One, thank you horned Lost One for not being Sammy, I’m sorry I just would not have vibed with this. Two, Lost Ones with mohawks, didn’t see that coming either, but I appreciate that they’re there. I wish they had like, leather jackets or something. I think they deserve to be fully punk. Also love that we’re now Lord Amok, though I do wish Audrey had had some sort of dialogue or reaction to it, that was a little lacking. Like girl you’re the queen now, you should have some feelings about it, likely feelings of discomfort but hey, I could be wrong.

And then we get to Baby Benders and making up with him. MY HEART?! Thank you baby, I wanna hold you and love you and protect you, bless you you sweet little demon child. The fact that he’s scared of Gent hurts me so much, like sir WHAT DO YOU KNOW?! WHO HURT YOU?! My mind immediately jumps to Tom in the books talking about how the machine is a miracle, and you don’t give up on a miracle, and something about still being kind of children when they make mistakes, and just, my desire to see Tom as the father figure to this little guy only increases. Like Tom was the only Gent worker that cared about Bendy and treated him with dignity, and he wants to protect that from the wrong hands, and somehow the machine is tied to that. Not expecting that to happen, but every time I see this toon I go “SIR WHERE ARE YOUR PARENTS?!” Also Allison said she was gonna get us this chapter, girl you are taking forever, where are you? X’‘‘D Audrey you could’ve at least told her you fell down the elevator, that would have helped.

Just, MAN, okay now I’m excited again. Joey Drew fueled me, I did not expect that to be the case. XD Looking forward to the next part. I have a dental filling this afternoon, so hopefully that’ll be a nice treat to watch once I’m out (or before, depending on the timing).

[swiftcola]

okay so i like m3. love it even. the story, the characters, the setting. but obviously it suffers massively from the repetitive uninspired gameplay replacing what could've been a story-rich experience. i've made a few posts before about how i wish it had been and like m3 i like repeating myself so. here's more

the game starts out like any other mafia game. lincoln spends maybe five chapter's worth of time with sammy and ellis before they die. then he recruits cassandra, vito, burke, by helping them kill certain people & establish home territory. there's the sit down, and then the main story splits into 3 separate storylines you can play anytime and in any order. still free roam, so you can explore the map and do whatever, and the missions would appear as icons, like in gta for example. the gameplay is completely different, there's no missions that require hours running around repeating the same 3 tasks. instead you go on missions with the bosses or their seconds (nicki, emmanuel, alma). all of the 3 routes have a set story, enemy rackets, and enemy lieutenants, etc. that each of your 3 bosses wants to take over: for business or personal reasons. missions will be as diverse as they were in mde and m2. after completing a mission, a stronghold will appear on the map (the racket warehouses). but instead of all that prep work you usually have to do, you can just go in and take these over in one go. taking the strongholds isn't required, but doing so bolsters your income and changes ally attitudes towards you: from distrusting but co-operative to appreciative and even loyal. after taking them, lincoln can also make decisions for the better or worse of the city. keep running things this way for a quick payout, or work hard and improve things, invest, for a better city in the long-run.

burke is in a bad way, and about a third of the way into his storyline, he's hospitalised and nicki has to step up. vito dies, passing the mafia franchise baton onto lincoln, just as tommy's death secured vito as the new protagonist. i think it would be a fitting death for him to go out on his own terms after all the shit he's been through. go out taking someone down, finally making a change for the better, sticking it to the mob. i think he would sacrifice himself during the final mission in his storyline, the fight against his designated enemy capo, to ensure lincoln & alma can escape.

sorry, but there's no john donovan. a change of gameplay would make him pretty useless. and imo the initial dossiers he produces for lincoln are just so redundant. the game establishes connections between lincoln and the haitians, burke & vito, before john even arrives. and honestly i don't think there's anything donovan can tell us that we couldn't learn from our local allies. instead, he's replaced with a solider. the only other guy lincoln shipped out with who survived. they say goodbye to each other just before ellis picks lincoln up. drifting in and out of consciousness, lincoln asks father james to find him. his last brother. lincoln swears up and down that they're equals but the two naturally fall into a kind of military hierarchy. lincoln orders him around and he's more than willing to help. perhaps he's also been struggling to return to civilian life, and despite being traumatised by war, he welcomes the structure & purpose lincoln gives him. this man becomes lincoln's second, handles things for him, gathers recon. he approaches lincoln a few times, wanting to talk about his feelings and what happened in vietnam. lincoln can either choose to ignore him ("i don't want to talk about it.") or listen, comfort, and connect with him. if lincoln ignores him too many times, he ends up dying somehow.

i haven't put much thought into who gets which rackets/enemies specifically, but i know cassandra would want to take out the southern union. this gets her frisco fields if i remember correctly, and i think this could introduce a very interesting series of side quests in which you help the voice (or possibly roxy) bring about serious change in this district. i've thought about them helping Black folks move in, protecting them. those first few people will be met with serious resistance, but lincoln helping them to stand their ground will pave the way for more to come. eventually you get cassandra-protected Black businesses, and lincoln can now enter buildings and stores that were previously segregated, opening up more of the map. i know segregation doesn't work that simply, but i'm thinking in terms of expanding gameplay while still keeping m3's discussion of important issues. father james gets his own sidequests too, which help to bring lincoln back down to earth and shine more light on his background, motivations etc. (actually fleshed out with cutscenes and action etc. instead of just going over to talk to him and swiftly moving on) and of course our solider would get his own sidequests. that means the 3 sidequest givers, the voice, father james, and the soldier, each illuminate some different struggle lincoln is going through.

following the death of sal's capos, the storylines reconnect, your 3 bosses reunite (now cassandra, nicki, and alma (i think this would have to depend on your loyalty level with vito and alma. low loyalty alma could possibly turn against lincoln for getting vito killed): who get along much better), and the last few missions are about taking the fight directly to sal. lincoln is not in this alone, he has a lot of allies now who help him push into the casino and up the levels. how much care lincoln gives to others and to the city will be reflected back on him at the end. if he took over ruthlessly and used people carelessly, you get a bad ending. if he helped others and tried to change things for the better, he gets a good ending, etc.

misc stuff: vehicle stores (cars, boats, bikes), purchasing property (businesses, safe houses, garages, boat storehouses), clothing stores, and recreational activities PLEASE

[krafterwrites]

Alright, all my thoughts about Sonic Frontiers are right below the cut. I’m not really going to structure it, so it’s probably going to be pretty long and rambly (Spoilers under the cut, obviously)

Overall, this game is REALLY good, in fact I think it might be the best Sonic game ever. It’s very unique, since obviously we’ve never gotten an open world Sonic game before, but they executed it super well. The way that they spaced out smaller and larger areas of platforming across a giant open map is really enjoyable, it makes exploring the area very fun. The collectibles are also placed well and nice to seek out. Another thing I love that adds to the exploring being so fun is the way you fill out the map. To scan an area of the map, you have to complete a fun little game, and there’s a lot of different ones. They’re all pretty easy and typically take less than a minute to complete, but it’s still a lot better and more engaging than just clicking on something to scan the area. Still talking about the areas, this game is BEAUTIFUL. All of the environments and structures looks so nice, it’s amazing. The combat is also really great, it’s fun and satisfying while also being suitably fast paced and smooth. The enemies, especially the guardians and especially especially the titans, have super cool designs and movesets, they’re all a blast to fight against. Speaking of the boss fights, all of the boss fights are Super Sonic boss fights, which makes them even cooler and more epic. They also have awesome vocal tracks in the background as well, one of which I’m 99% sure is a remix of Infinite’s theme. The characters are all written really well, and there’s a good amount of genuinely emotional moments between all of them (And a good deal of funny moments too). The story is really interesting, it expands on a lot of the awesome lore from Sonic Adventure and makes the whole tale even more interesting. I admittedly had to look up the ending because it confused me a bit, but that was more my fault than the game’s, I probably would’ve been able to piece everything together and understand it if I wasn’t sleep deprived from start to finish. Lastly, the Koko are cute and the fishing minigame is great. I think that’s everything I have to say, I’m very glad I could play the game, and I’m very glad I’m finally back here. I can’t wait to see what Sonic Team has in store next!

[wykwryt]

ok things i know they have to preserve in the new game

the rougelike genre obv and with it the boons system (we straight up saw nova strike in there and dash, attack, special, and cast magick are still here as are status effects and basically just all of that stuff) edit 2: okay wait actually upon reevaluating casts and magick are not the same thing, cast is still a thing we just also have magick. so all the same stuff plus being a witch!!!!!!!!! i wonder what we can do with that... what buttons would we even press.... wait maybe it's more like a god gauge. yeah that'd make sense. maybe we don't quite get godly summons like zagreus did because we're a disciple of hecate but there's something else we can do as a result?????? gah too many theories.

some kind of home base with plot progression and stuff after death

probably a three tiered + bonus level design. i wonder if the bonus will operate differently than the temple, that’s totally a thing they could completely change

keepsakes????????????????????? there must be something like them but they’re such a zag thing to have what with his whole god of bonds and blood thing (god i fucking loved that i love this game so much)

i wonder about the mirror. i think mel in the myths is one of nyx’s kids although obv not here. i think a canon aspect of zag was always tied with hades but i don’t think that’s the case for mel. man that’s funny, he thought he was nyx’s kid but actually wasn’t and she’s not but actually is. idk ignore me i’m babbling. anyways the mirror. i hope nyx is there actually she seems like a good character to keep her role as it was. i really hope we see chaos too i love them. they also provided such a unique boon service, they must come back as is.

FISHING MINI GAME HELLO

oh hey what about the house upgrades? home base will need to be important enough to have that kind of customization make sense. at this point i’m thinking we’re simply going to be in the house of hades for all this. maybe we’re doing repairs again from the damage of whatever kidnapped hades (ha). or maybe they do get rid of this entirely? it’d be a loss of a whole way to spend currency though.

the codex. bet hecate gives it to her maybe. see this is the weird thing to be because it seems like she is to mel as achilles is to zag but unlike him she’s an important character to the main plot.

different weapons for different play styles. we saw her blades already what else? (please give her a sword swords are cool. i feel like her daggers will prolly operate a lil bit like the fists. fists and sword are my faves <3) something to strengthen the weapons too like the aspects (i hope there’s one like the shield of chaos that talks to you but that’s just me) edit 3: ok the trailer shows just the daggers and what seems like a magic staff. i'd say the magic staff could be comparable to the spear but the spear doesn't do magic. there's a lil thrust action but it's all obviously spells. realllly wondering how the magick works because there's way more than just an attack and special here, she's got so many spells. too little here to really tell but it looks like the big difference between the daggers and the staff is the daggers involve more mobile magic and attacks while the staff seems more stationary but with bigger magic effects not to mention all the area attacks. there's no way we can't do magic without the staff so maybe the spells in our inventory are different depending on what weapon we choose. so far the staff looks significantly more powerful than the daggers, i wonder how they'll balance this stuff out. and other weapons???? oh hey wait i bet the spells are dependent on the weapon aspects or whatever they'll be called in this game. yeah okay that seems like it lines up.

bosses. i know this is obvious but i’m giving it a bullet because now i’m wondering who they are. they wouldn’t be any of the underworld staff probably so. wait actually who are the enemies we’re fighting in the first place if not dad’s employees?? so much of this hinges on whether we’re actually in the underworld or not. if we’re dealing with kronos then maybe we’re fighting to go down deeper into tartarus rather than up and out? the game reveal still makes it look like we’re above ground though…

replayability!!! for the three dozenth time idk what to think about this because i have no idea what the story will be like. i repeat, family or fight? and what would keep mel continuously doing the dungeons past the end of the main plot the way zag does it as official head of security?

ayo wait can we have skelly back? please he has to, we need a practice dummy room and there’s no reason to invent a new character when he’s right there. yeah no way they’re gonna get rid of skelly.

speaking of iconic characters… eurydice? need a new iconic ashley barrett song (as well as both her and darren korb song?) yeah ok whatever songs there are they’ll probably be attributed to eurydice and orpheus in game even if the characters themselves aren’t in there. wonder if we’ll be able to buy and collect the soundtrack… OH MY GOD A NEW SOUNDTRACK HOLY SHIT. I MEAN THEY’LL PROBABLY KEEP SOME ICONIC SOUNDS LIKE WHAT WAS IN THE REVEAL TRAILER BUT HOT DAMN NEW MUSIC WOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO

bonds and something to forge them with. she may not be zag but nectar and the like must still be a thing. (heyyyy any romancable characters?? the dora shade looked interested)

ok the more i keep thinking about this and trying to discern the shape of the new game and add more bullets the more i just end up tracing the original so things that could be different? :

like previously stated, the mechanics of the final level (the temple of styx in the original) edit 4: ok it would be so sick if the bonus level is zagreus boss fight where they slowly bond and then eventually zagreus trusts her and they get along and then they keep doing the fights for fun like in the og after the main plot is over

something is probably going to replace keepsakes. idk how but it’s such a specific thing and very specifically relevant to zagreus’s characterization, this’ll prolly change

the currencies

special rooms like shops and characters. moros and dora’s rooms looked like these although who knows how they function. also the timed rooms and than rooms (very curious if he’ll show up what with the whole time and death thing being the big things in this game edit 1.5: ZAG THAN ROOM).

EDIT: CERBERUS PETS??? where would i be without giving cerberus pets every run? absolutely wild that petting him 10 times was a rare achievement, you guys suck at playing this game.