#but given many ME devs worked on it 'in order to get it done'

[sundogsandrainbows]

#veilguard really is a discount ME2 without ever understanding why this story structure worked there and fails miserably here

People saying that Davrin and Lucianis are really mean to each other or that Neve is an angry bitch if you help Treviso or that Taash is mean for finding Emmrich weird... Wouldnt last an hour in the asylum where they raised me or whatever:

[bogleech]

Except for the half hour I dicked around on tumblr I haven't done anything today but read the near ultimate test print of the Mortasheen book, which arrived this morning, scouring every page for any conceivable print errors or anything that looks worse on physical paper for any reason. The errors I did find will probably just take a day or two to fix, while we also slip in a couple pages of extra content we already have done; this test run is 344 pages, but we can have 350 pages without adding any significant jump in price, so may as well fill it up with content that was originally left out or even cut.

I've posted a timeline of events and work before, but I wrote a broader summary of how this book took 5 years that I'll repost here. I probably get the exact time periods and order of some things mixed up because it all overlapped so much and this is entirely from memory:

When I put up the kickstarter in 2020, I estimated I'd just be working for about one year straight. As it turned out, it would take the original development team longer than that to even compile all their final work and send it to me; a much, much larger volume of original gameplay mechanics than I realized as well as easily several books worth of their own lore contributions, though I already had a few books worth of my original lore as well. I set about trimming the sum of all our writing down to what would fit in the first book, integrating together what I felt were the best possible "book one" elements from both their content and mine, and rewriting a ton of the result to make sure it was one cohesive world with just the right atmosphere and writing style. Compiling, writing, rewriting, editing and formatting text took me roughly two and a half years before it was in an easy state to continue editing as needed, during which I also had to come up with a great deal of new artwork to fill space or convey some of the new concepts. ....There was also the fact that, while the gameplay dev side had concocted the absolute perfect system for building playable Mortasheen monsters with a MASSIVE list of modular abilities and effects, they hadn't actually built any monsters individually, and there were going to be at least 130 (eventually over 160) included in this first book. While still working on artwork and editing, I waited around a year before both sides realized that I'd be on my own with this aspect; the devs simply would not be able to make time to build monsters with me. I'd also been so busy compiling the mechanics into the book, I did not have personal time to ever actually learn them and play a session myself. Fortunately, I'd shared the progress with my friend Bonnie, and she not only began running games of her own but had begun building tons of monsters from my archives for them. I officially hired Bonnie in fall of 2023 to be in charge of monster construction, which also turned out to be an absolutely humongous project; every monster needed to feel unique and interesting to justify its inclusion in the book, many of my monster concepts demanded that we expand even further on the ruleset I was given, and a number of unexpected gaps also presented themselves - monster roles and niches I had actually severely overlooked in my many years of churning out creatures. Bonnie's playtesting, obviously, also exposed plenty of things that had to be adjusted and re-tested, or things the players overwhelmingly wanted that there simply weren't any rules for, each of which of course required I go back and re-write sections of the book again. Building monsters, drawing new art, playtesting and adjusting everything as needed took from late 2023 when Bonnie "joined the team" (of basically just us two) to nearly the end of 2024. And then....there was proofreading to do, and errors to fix, which turned into a big enough job that we wound up needing yet another additional person dedicated to that alone. It's work typically done by several dozen people in the gaming industry, but in the end, just two managed to build and polish a 350 page book with a completely new original gaming system, over 250 illustrations, and slightly smaller text than the industry standard; significantly more information is crammed into this book than in 350 pages of Dungeons and Dragons, that's for sure. Kickstarter backers get to the book over the rest of summer/early fall, while we're hoping to release it for sale to the general public by the end of this year.

(That last huge stretch of assistance, playtesting and all the monster building is by @gutsygills here on tumblr)

[blackberrysummerblog]

Hi all! I’m just out here being three weeks late with my 2024 Writing Round-Up, and thank you so much to @monbons, @forabeatofadrum, @confused-bi-queer, @rimeswithpurple, @nausikaaa, @prettygoododds, @ileadacharmedlife, @artsyunderstudy, @best--dress, @j-nipper-95, @roomwithanopenfire, @you-remind-me-of-the-babe, @imagineacoolusername, @mooncello, and @thewholelemon for tagging me! I hope I didn’t miss anyone, and thank you as well to everyone who’s been tagging me for Six Sentence Sunday and WIP Wednesday this month. Without getting too much into it, I am BURNT. OUT, and it’s making me retreat from even the things I enjoy the most, like writing and catching up on everyone’s beautiful fandom works.

But, I’m determined to make this round-up post, even if it takes me a couple of days to put together. There’s a lot here! Almost all of it was from COC, which I was hellbent on finishing this year, and did! Here’s the list, in chronological order, of all published writing for 2024:

The Field Trap, 1/2 (5272, M) This has been sitting unfinished for a bit, but I do anticipate it being completed. I discovered a real love for Watford-era fics toward the end of the past year, but it probably all began for me two years ago when I wrote Field Trip of Dreams, the prequel to Field Trap. At any rate, I haven’t forgotten the fic, and Field Trap may end up with an E rating in the second chapter.

Time Will Lie Down and Be Still (26,201, M) This is the fic I’m most proud of this year. It’s the result of my COBB collab with @rimeswithpurple, and it’s been such an inspiration to work with Arianna! I highly recommend the experience :D This fic has 3/5 chapters published so far, and I’m getting there with the 4th. I’ll share that Arianna finished the art for Chapter 4 the other day and it is STUNNING, so I need to get my part done! For anyone who doesn’t know, the fic is a retelling of the movie Practical Magic (I’ve never been able to get very far in the book, for whatever reason, so I wouldn’t count on the fic lining up with it). This one is close to my heart for many reasons, but I’ve especially enjoyed building Dev’s character and his relationship with Baz.

Absolutely everything else I published was for COC, and I’ll put it below a cut due to length. Thanks to everyone who read my work this year! As always, the output of this fandom is just incredible, and I’ve enjoyed being able to take it in as well as contribute a little myself. Happy New Year, everyone!

Something Old (1146, T) Simon finds something unexpected while clearing out space in the wardrobe.

Chosen (880, G) Agatha and Simon have just begun dating and Philippa attempts to engage her in a little friendly roommate squee. Agatha isn’t quite so sure.

I Hate You, Never Leave Me (2339, M) Simon and Baz have found a new and better way to settle their differences, by getting each other off all over campus. Will it evolve into anything more, however? (I love this one, honestly. Might have to someday write a more extensive version)

Greek (1565, T) Simon has to keep a very close eye on Baz in Greek class, for reasons.

Let Me See You (1205, T) Simon is the one to find Baz draining a deer in the forest instead of Agatha. His reaction is not what either of them was expecting.

Truth or Dare (2608, T) Does what it says on the tin—the gang play a game of Truth or Dare, and the dares reveal a little more truth than anyone expected. (Definitely not a groundbreaking take on the prompt, but I never really tire of reading truth or dare fics, and hoped readers would feel the same :P)

Gently, Gently (668, M) Simon and Baz spend the morning in bed, skiving off class and not regretting it at all. (I came to realize that an embarrassing number of fics I write either start out with the boys waking up in bed or that is the entire premise of the fic. “Waking up” is a weird fetish to have, but OK me, I guess)

Looking for Knives, Looking for You (1181, T) Baz reflects on all the wounds he and Simon have given each other over the years. (Despite the vicious sounding title and depressing summary, this one was meant to be sort of cute and sweet)

Hold You Safe (1015, G) At the start of Eighth Year, Dev and Niall’s relationship is still very new as they get some bad news from home.

Dinner (Guess Who’s Coming) (3525, T) It’s half term, and Baz’s parents want to take him to dinner. They invite him to bring a friend, but unfortunately for Malcolm, he pisses Baz off first, and Baz decides his guest will be Simon—the Mage’s heir, his family’s mortal enemy, and Baz’s undying secret crush. (As with nearly all my COC offerings this year, this fic was knocked out during my lunch break the day of, and it shows. It really could have stood to be longer and more developed, so maybe I’ll revisit it one day, since I did like the premise)

Stay with Me (878, T) It’s Eighth Year and Simon gets home late and injured from a mission. Baz arrives at a resolution. (I was a little baffled to get a comment about the Mage already being dead, since this fic takes place during the school year and makes mention of a very much alive Mage in multiple places. It was more of a statement than a criticism though, I think.)

A Charmed Life (1449, E) Baz and Simon have an utterly normal morning getting frisky in bed. (Again. Huh.)

A Horse Named Jane (736, T) Simon has that song stuck in his head again. The one Baz can’t stand. They work out a (sort of) compromise.

Sour and Sweet (3060, G) It’s Baz’s birthday and Agatha has just given Simon his walking papers. Oh no :P However, the breakup does little to lift Baz’s spirits. (This one has two chapters and filled two prompts, sour and sweet, natch. Chapter two’s summary is: Simon decides he needs to make something sweet for Baz’s birthday, even though he’s two days late and doesn’t know how to bake. Well, he’s got magic at his disposal, so things are sure to turn out just fine. :P)

Punk (828, T) Baz is making Simon join him for lunch with Fiona again, but Simon figures he’ll debut a new look & attitude. Will they actually make it to the restaurant? (I really enjoyed writing this one. Simon being frustrated with Fiona’s behavior and still being silly with Baz about it was just a happy place for me)

Surprise (733, M) Simon and Baz are engaging in one of their classic Mummers’ House tiffs. What will happen? :P (I did write a little surprise into this one, but it was very much in keeping with some of my favorite themes)

Cast in Fire (791, G) Simon comes to Watford and learns about how his roommate will be chosen.

Fluff and Nonsense (1627, T) The prompt is ‘fluff’ and did I once again take the opportunity to write a light-on-plot secret relationship fic about Watford-era Simon and Baz being cozy and silly in bed? Yeah, I might have. Simon is going home with Baz over the Christmas break. Not a lot going on here, they’re just really comfy and in love.

Pieces of Me (1557, M) Baz has been having nightmares. Simon comforts him and encourages him to open up.

The World Was Open (956, T) Agatha and Niamh attend Simon and Baz’s wedding, and Agatha overhears another guest making a snide remark.

Find Me (2374, M) Eighth year at Watford was unremarkable, and Simon and Baz last saw each other when they graduated. Seven months later, Dev and Niall drag a pining and protesting Baz out to a club for a night of drinking and dancing, but there’s a familiar face behind the bar. Simon Snow is serving drinks, and worse, he’s flirting with a Baz lookalike. What will happen :P (This was yet another fic that could have been developed a little more, but I was still happy with the result overall)

Warm Spell (1795, M) Goatherd Simon has been almost-encountering a beautiful stranger for several weeks now, but one hot summer day, they finally meet.

Lost and Found (575, G) The boys go shopping together and Baz temporarily loses Simon, but it’s all pretty plot-free :P

Truce (1101, M) Simon pesters Baz while he’s trying to study, and needs to learn a lesson. Will they be able to call a truce? (This one was where the trouble began—I changed my settings to allow comments from unregistered users, because I like to fuck around and find out, I suppose. And find out I did! Luckily, the rude comment I received took aim at some writing element that didn’t even make sense for this particular fic, and I quickly realized it was a bot. Not long after, I started getting comments on other fics as well, all very nonspecific to the fandom, characters, and genre. I’m so sorry because I know it upset a few readers who were very kind to clap back and reassure me, and I changed my settings back so that it wouldn’t happen again.)

Savour (1189, T) Simon has been away on one of his missions for the Mage, and Baz has been awaiting his return by leaving out plates of food in their room every night. (Bot’s review: “the worst fic in the fandom”. It’s not even the worst fic in my own oeuvre, so joke’s on you, guy XD)

We Were Always Together (2239, T) During cotillion class, Simon is forced to dance with Baz. The horror! (I flipping loved writing this. Full on had a blast and Would Write Again)

Let It Snow (925, M) It’s almost time for Christmas break at Watford, and it may not turn out as the boys planned. However, thanks to a spell gone wrong (or very right) it may yet work out for the best :P

Always (551, G) It’s Christmas Eve and Baz has just finished putting the kids to bed. Simon is putting the finishing touches on the Christmas tree.

Something New (990, T) Simon and Baz have a little tiff near the end of eighth year, but it’s not fated to last long. I’ve written a lot of secret!relationship Watford era fics for COC this year, some that could go together and some that were in separate universes. It’s been so much fun to write about the boys sneaking around, but this is…something new. :P (In which I was very pleased with myself for how I wrapped things up in accordance with the prompt. I really, really enjoyed COC this year :D)

Thanks for reading! I’m sure most everyone has already made their own round-up posts, but consider these no-pressure tags and hellos: @valeffelees @stardustasincocaine @bookish-bogwitch @facewithoutheart @c0nsumemy5oul @jasonfunderberkerthefrogexists @tender-ministrations @basiltonbutliketheherb @ghostpepperworld @larkral @letraspal @cows4247 @fiend-for-culture @palimpsessed @hushed-chorus @shrekgogurt @raenestee @cutestkilla @drowninginships @youarenevertooold @iamamythologicalcreature @beastmonstertitan @ic3-que3n @supercutedinosaurs @stitchy-queerista @alexalexinii @asocialpessimist @shutup-andletme-go @prettygoododds @ivelovedhimthroughworse @j-nipper-95 @wellbelesbian @bookishbroadwayandblind @orange-peony @papierhaikuphoto @martsonmars

[krems-chair]

Losing my Mind over Veilguard 4/??

I think what's killing me the most is this "have your cake and eat it, too" mentality EA-as-Bioware has ushered in with this game.

To try and perfectly walk the line of giving old fans what they wanted/deserved and new fans something to just jump into was a tall fucking order given that they fired so many writers, and I personally feel like they fell way short.

Part of that, I think, comes from the fact that while it's certainly helpful to play Origins and then DA2 before you reach Inquisition (I'm speaking as someone who played the games backwards), I don't think Inquisition left off as a complete story the way the first two did. We had a world on the brink and pieces on the board that had so much personal stake in staying on it until Solas was handled. We had, whether the head devs wants to accept their failures regarding it or not, an entire Keep of previous choices that could have and should have informed the world going forward. I'm not saying it was sustainable to keep raising the stakes on those choices. I am saying, however, that with the time it took to get this game to us, more than three sanitized choices deserved to matter before Bioware closed the chapter on its strongest line of storytelling and moved on to RPG Lite. To give that up, to choose a new and uncertain fan base over an already dedicated one, is disappointing.

And to that end, even if we weren't going to get the Inquisitor again (which, at this point, I'm kind of thinking we should have, even if just for parts of it), I had near-constant exhaustion finding a shred of story that connected us to the previous games and then realizing it had been done in an unsatisfying way (hi, Dorian/Isabella/MORRIGAN).

I wouldn't have cared if this had been its own standalone game. There were parts of it I enjoyed, and I'm sure I'll be here shouting about those things too, soon enough. But the fact is that for every thing I appreciate about the game there are about ten more that make me mourn the nine years I spent eager to see what was coming next.

TLDR: You cannot show me a watered-down game that stands on the shoulders of stronger writing, plot, narrative, characters, etc. and the built world and depth of three previous games and multiple supplementary written works, and then expect me to be wholly accepting of the result. Veilguard gutted the rich body of work that came before it, threw enough bone shrapnel into the mix to keep people desperate to see a conclusion to events that had been building up for in-game years hanging on, and then discarded the rest with a casual sort of "deal with it, we're making way for the new" attitude.

Welcome to the new, I guess.

I intentionally waited a few days after finishing the game to sift through everything and not just rage-post immediately, so hopefully this comes across as relatable to those on a similar page and not as me telling you that you should hate the game too if you in fact are very happy with it. (Put another way: I'm not here to change minds, I'm here to scream into the ether)

[pancake-breakfast]

So, I finished Dragon Age: Veilguard.

The short, spolier-free version of my thoughts on it are that, while the game definitely has some flaws, it's actually pretty decent and doesn't deserve the sheer amount of hate it's received. I had a lot of fun and I look forward to playing it again. Though I will note I initially wrote it was "pretty solid" and decided that wasn't accurate, as it implies a better presentation of its story than we were given. Still, I'd rate it a B, and recommend they send it through a couple more drafts before submitting it to the board.

The longer version of my thoughts (with spoilers) are below....

A few quick character notes first:

Played a Dalish elf veiljumper. Ignore the fact that she runs around in Crow outfits all the time. They looked cool.

Inquisitor romanced Solas in Inquisition. It's... a bit more complicated than that, but maybe I'll explain it another time. It was close enough and that's the point.

Saved Treviso. When the other city you can save has magical death lasers, you're within your rights to think they can handle themselves against one little dragon.

I'm going to separate these into three sections: The Good, The Bad, and Other. Items in these sections will not be in any particular order unless indicated as such.

So without further ado...

The Good

Things I loved, things that brought me joy, things I really appreciated....

The Companions: I realize that the nature of these games means that YMMV, but for me, there wasn't a single character I didn't like or find interesting. They had their own struggles and strengths and flaws, and all of them felt well-rounded, like the writers very much took the time to get to know them. I loved listening to them banter and all the many, many casual interactions Rook can have with them. Do they run out of dialog between each other? They must, but I spent about 160 hours in the game, almost never using the quick travel system, and only hit a point where a few of them stopped talking with each other... a problem easily remedied by trading one of them out for another while we were in transit.

The Companion Introduction Quests: These quests were great for helping you get a feel for each individual character's personality, and the way they (or a secondary early quest) often allowed the character to introduce you to the part of the world that was meaningful to them was beautifully done (though I admit these probably would have gone better for me if I had gone along with the secondary quests more quickly; I have a tendency to run all over the map before doing any "main" quests, so I already had a passing familiarity with the maps before I got to the area introduction quests a few times). It also made the regions feel personal by proxy. Whether or not I care about Treviso matters less than how much I care about Lucanis, since Treviso is important to him and if I care about him, then Treviso will also be important to me in some way.

The Companion Story Quests: In particular, I appreciated how (nearly) all of them tied into the turmoil at the time. In Mass Effect 2, the companion quests are tangentially related to the plot at best, but in Veilguard, it's easy to draw a line from (most of) the companion quests to the primary turmoil going on in the world. For some of these, it even goes far enough to actually influence your endgame, and I love that they put that kind of thought into them.

The End Game (sans Prison of Regret, Elgar'nan Fight, and a handful of smaller things): Very early in my playthrough, I told my friend who I was streaming for that it felt very much like the devs knew exactly where they wanted to take the game from the very beginning. Boy, was I right. While I had been told it was long, I wasn't expecting it to take around 10 hours and be broken up into several parts. They clearly put a ton of work into that whole sequence. It's like they took everything that anyone had liked or complained about in any of their previous games to heart and used it to build out this absolute epic where you can definitely see your choices play out. It's also got a good balance of tension and release (despite the lingering threat the whole time) and of story and action, so it allows you to breathe and indulge at a more reasonable pace than, say, the end sequence of Mass Effect from Priority: Earth on.

The Scenery: Oh my gosh, this game is so beautiful. Arlathan was my personal favorite (with Treviso a close second), but every landscape they did had its own charms. They each have their own tone and uniqueness, and that allows them to display different kinds of beauty or harshness or the place where those two meet. I could absolutely spend a bunch of time just camera roaming for lovely screenshots.

The Use of Vertical Space in Maps: Because a decent amount of the game takes place in cities, it really gives them extra depth (lol) to have the maps literally work on multiple levels. It also makes the wild outdoor areas feel more outdoor, as they're not just flat places where you have to traverse from point A to point B. I know I'm not really doing it justice in calling it out here, but it's good enough to be worth calling out.

Payout from Previous Games: I'm sure some people would debate me on this, but I loved seeing several of the little side items from Inquisition show up in Veilguard. I definitely don't remember all of them, but I did enjoy getting to actually meet characters who we only heard about in text in previous games. Related to this...

The Deeper Dive into the Grey Wardens: I know some people have kind of hated the Grey Wardens in every game except Origins, but I could (and maybe will) write a whole essay on why it's not a great idea to judge the Wardens as an organization on how they seem in Origins. Personally, I loved that I finally got some questions answered that I've had about the Wardens since Origins, that they actually bothered to explore those venues. And maybe it's the Elder Millennial Who Has Been in Varying Levels of the Workforce Over 20 Years in me, but I don't mind them having some level of organizational incompetence. That's just part of life.

Gryphons: How can I not put gryphons here? I love gryphons, and I love how they handle their arc overall in this game.

Making All the Male Companions Dads: It was fun to watch each of them take a different parenting approach to their various children.

Taash's Relationship with Their Mother: It just felt very realistic to me. Like, there's a lot of love and genuine care between the two, but they both suck at expressing themselves and have never quite figured out how to communicate to each other, so they have a tendency to inadvertently talk around each other and not realize they're saying similar things, and this causes conflict. I appreciate the complexity that comes with that dynamic.

The Crows as a Mob Family: Maybe not every branch of the Crows is quite like they are in Treviso, but the ones we get to see? Absolutely a family, even when they aren't blood-related. Excuses are made for So-and-So because they're a favorite or a close relative of someone in power. People have messy back-and-forth dynamics where they've hurt each other and healed over enough times that it's practically a joke. The young ones all fear That One Aunt. The nurturers are aware enough of the family drama that they already have plans for how to mitigate certain damages that come up. It's just a lot of fun/frustrating dynamics that simultaneously make them feel much more real for me and make me want to grab several characters and shake some sense into them. In a good way.

Lucanis's Inner Demons Quest: I loved getting to explore Lucanis's trauma. There was a lot I suspected about his character, how he really seems to love and care about people, but at the same time tends to keep them at arm's length, and this quest really lets you explore that in a way Lucanis himself would probably struggle to voice. It also gives us a different view of Spite, who is often presented by Lucanis as a petulant child. But here, Spite isn't trying to do things to muck with Lucanis or chase his own will, but because he has a deal with Lucanis. This is another thing I think I'm gonna tag to maybe write an essay about later....

Emmrich Volkarin: I may have romanced Lucanis, but I love Emmrich. I love how he steps in to be your second-in-command any time the need arises. I love his kind guiding wisdom. I love his absolute awkwardness. He's a very good character and I get why a decent number of people want to call him "daddy." In more ways than one.

Solas's Arc: Mostly. Full disclosure, I romanced him in Inquisition, and he's one of my favorite characters even when I want to slap him for being an idiot. I loved how this game explored his character and his history, and I appreciated getting to approach him from a different angle, not as the Inquisitor getting to know a friend, but (since I played a Dalish Veil Jumper) as an elf confronting her religion literally face to face. It's interesting to have Rook's anger at Solas live in my brain at the same time it holds Solavellan. I definitely have some issues with his characterization in a couple places (mainly around any time he screams about being a god, since he's always otherwise shown to hate the term in reference to himself in particular), but overall, I enjoyed the scenes with him. It's always interesting for me to watch his pride clash with his wisdom.

Gentle Approach to Neurodivergence: I mentioned before that none of your companion characters quite have their heads on straight. It took me about two seconds to realize Bellara has ADHD, and about two conversations to realize Lucanis is fighting his way through a shit-ton of trauma (and related regrets) he's pretending not to have. As I was talking to a friend about all of this, she noted "like recognizes like," and sure enough, if you bring characters with similar brain messies out together, eventually they'll start comparing brain messies. Lucanis reminds Neve that not everything is a fight. Bellara gives Taash some suggestions for how to focus when your brain is full of bees. Rook talks with Harding about the struggle of being a people-pleaser. (Not that Rook is innately a people-pleaser, but the nature of a game where the player might be worried about making the "right" decisions to get the Path of Approval from the game is... something someone should write an essay on.) This isn't a world that has the words "ADHD" and "Autism." It isn't a world brimming with therapists and a movement within the culture to try and get therapy for past traumas. And yet the game finds ways to identify them, bring them up to the player, and talk about them in a way that might actually provide them with some help, and at the very least make them feel less alone.

The Bad

Things I found frustrating enough to be worth complaining about....

Varric's Relationship with Rook: Ok, I know I said most of this wasn't in any particular order, but I'm purposely listing this one first because I honestly think if the game had brought this closer to the center of their focus, it would have solved a LOT of the other story issues I have with the game. As it is, they seemed to be banking more on the player's relationship with Varric over the course of the two previous games than on any dynamic we're actually shown between Rook and Varric. Don't get me wrong; I loved the rare moments where he plays mentor to Rook, but the only reason the Big Reveal with them didn't feel like it came out of nowhere to me is because I had already been complaining about how irrelevant he seemed in the scenes with the other companions. If they had built in more scenes where Rook is coming to Varric for advice or with concerns or regrets or whatever, it would have given Rook and Varric a chance to reminisce, to build the relationship through flashbacks and past shared stories. That would have also allowed them to pull their stated theme of regret more front and center, which is something I'm not sure they really did in a meaningful way for Rook specifically, even if they manage it for some other characters.

PG-13-Ass Game: Yes, yes, I know the game is rated Mature, and I'm not saying it has to have as many dongs and tits and all as Baldur's Gate 3, but it still feels like a PG-13 movie. This is most obvious in how the minor bad guys in the character quests don't get to die by the hands of the Good Guys. Even the Gloom Howler, arguably someone closer to undeath than humanity and obviously a monstrosity, just kind of keels over at the end for no apparent reason. She was just overpowering a gryphon, and you want me to believe she just... died? Not buying it. But it's not just in that aspect where it feels PG-13. The side stories routinely don't get dark enough. Again, this doesn't have to be a gloomfest, but the game fails to establish just how dangerous blood magic is (or that there's blood magic and Blood Magic, with a demon contract and all), which in turn fails to establish the Venatori as anything more than a bunch of (mostly) faceless enemies, and that takes away from the depth of the story. I could give similar examples around the Blight, and how it's very gross in this game, but we never really get to see firsthand just how bad its corruption is. (It gave my companion glowy eyes? Cool!) This is just one of a myriad of frustrations I have that really feel like some exec told them they had to do the thing this way to appeal to a younger audience, and it just ends up hurting the story rather than helping it. Someone needs to remind these execs that teenagers LOVE stuff that's darker than they're supposed to be allowed to watch/play/read/whatever.

Not Beginner-Friendly Beginner-Friendly Game: So, yeah, like I said in the last point, it feels like an exec told them to make the game in a way that the exec thought would appeal to a younger audience (specifically Fortnite IMO, but I digress). Given that, it almost feels like the devs knew that exec wouldn't look twice at the story elements and so proceeded to make them pretty reliant on lore from the previous games. You want to know about lyrium (red OR blue) or the Blight or Harding's relationship with Solas? Go play a previous game, because Veilguard's not gonna tell you. I genuinely don't mind them not rehashing all of that, and I don't think all sequels need to be beginner-friendly, but since Rook is a new character, getting into these details even a little bit outside of the codex (which not everyone is going to read top-to-bottom the way I do, and even fewer people are going to find the majority of the entries for) helps establish what Rook knows. Having all these elements that seem like they're made to cater to a beginner audience (change in gameplay, change in character designs, simpler storytelling) contrasted with the sheer amount of lore the game seems to expect you to know already creates a discordance that makes it feel like the story doesn't fully know its audience. Or, more likely, that the storytelling team was caught between two different ideas of what that audience was.

Pacing Issues: As noted above, very early in my playthrough I told the friend I was streaming for that it felt like they had a very good feel for where they wanted to take the game in the end. One thing I didn't note above is that I followed that statement by saying it felt like they'd had a strong start, as well, but the items in the middle didn't feel fully fleshed out. Like, they had the bones of it, but not enough resources (whatever those might be) to really bring it all together. So you have what should have been a heavy decision happen too early, and you have issues where things that should be told to you are shown, and issues where things are shown to you that should be told. They slow down in places where they should speed up and speed up in places where they needed to slow down. It's... manageable if you have enough of a base understanding of the Dragon Age world, but I don't know how it wouldn't be incredibly jarring for a new player.

Powerscaling: I was originally going to title this as specifically the Elgar'nan fight, but it's kind of an issue with the dragon fights, too. I'll get there. Basically, there's no reason whatsoever to think Rook & Co. would EVER be able to take on Elgar'nan in a fight. Ghilan'ain would also be rough, but I'm willing to let that slide just because we don't really know where she sits in the pantheon in terms of strength, and it's reasonable to believe that she, more than any other Evanuris, manifests her strength more in her creations than in herself. Meanwhile, in Inquisition's Trespasser, Solas is literally turning people to stone with a thought, and supposedly Elgar'nan outranks him. Even if Solas is now stronger than him due to 1) having been awake for longer and 2) having added a fragment of Mythal's essence to his own, it can't be by that much. Solas is absolutely exhausted after his fight with the archdemon, sure, but as best we can tell, Elgar'nan is blighted, but otherwise fresh as a fiddle when Rook shows up. He should literally wipe up the floor with us. Powerscaling-wise, it would have been better for Rook to take out Ghilan'ain, Solas to take out Elgar'nan, and the forces to lend help in either of those places and with the archdemon as needed. Which leads me to the dragons. You don't even get the chance to finish the first dragon because it's "too hard" at that time or some such. Then you fight two dragons in the Hossberg Wetlands, but it's framed to imply that Rook needed the help of both the Wardens and a secondary faction to successfully do that (even if your Rook is kicking its ass). Then you just... take out the level 50 blighted dragon on your own? Ok, Mythal can help a little, but I'm not sure I buy it. Like, I didn't hate the fight, but this really seemed like it was put in so people could have a badass dragon fight instead of because it actually fit with the powerscaling as told by the story.

Prison of Regret: I don't really want to go into too much detail here because 1) it's been talked about to death, I'm sure, and 2) I think a lot of my issues with it are better summed up in my first point in this section, but I'll say a little bit. Rook's relationship with Varric and regret overall aside, this game does nothing to convince me that the prison would hold either of the Evanuris it's presumably for. Also, can it only hold one person? It probably would have been better for it to play on one's insecurities, as even Elgar'nan and Ghilan'ain are shown to have those. I think it's a great idea in concept, but its functionality is only supported in the narrative such that Solas himself would be trapped by it.

Action and Consequence Notifications: I like games where choices matter, so BioWare games are hardly the only ones I've played that have that sort of mechanic. This also means I can easily think of several better ways to handle this than, say, making you read about the payout of your choices during a dramatic cutscene. Also, the beauty of NOT having these things marked is that it builds community, as different players will ask each other about their different outcomes and choices to figure out what caused what. Just telling us outright negates the need for that entirely.

The Lyrium Dagger: Having them claim this was the thing that the lyrium idol from DA2 became seems like a bit of a stretch even with Meredith having it reforged into a sword, but what really bothers me about it is how we can use it to access the companion abilities. Like, sure, I get that there are some gameplay elements going on here, but I feel like it would be better to have each of the companions give you a little trinket or teach you a trick that you can use to do these things. Maybe have Emmrich give you some perfume made from a scent known to pacify spirits, and have Davrin teach you the Assan whistle, and so on. Or even have Bellara craft a more different kind of rune that you added to the dagger (while allowing you to add the actual runes to your weapons like in all previous games) to allow it to do the companion stuff. Having it just able to do that automatically for no reason makes it feel more like the macguffin it is.

Harding's Companion Quest: I want to make one thing clear: I love Harding. I think it speaks monuments that she's such an enjoyable character despite her companion quest being mediocre and fairly disconnected from the main storyline. I mean, sure, she's got extra reason to be mad at Solas now, but even she notes she wasn't exactly close to him during her time in Inquisition. The dwarves, lyrium, and the titans aren't established well enough to allow us to fully grasp the level of exploitation that's been ongoing with them, an exploitation that presumably has been ongoing since the elves established it. Of all the companion quests, this one feels the most side quest-y, and I think it is less for that.

Trying to Do Too Much with Taash: I also like Taash, but it feels like they put a LOT on their plate. Taash is neurodivergent. Taash is going through a gender identity crisis. Taash is a third-culture kid struggling between the culture she was raised in and the culture of her mother. Taash hasn't yet figured out her place in the world. I get that some people absolutely go through all of these things, but it feels like they either needed to spend more time on Taash or they needed to drop a couple in order to let these arcs breathe. Yeah, they kinda gutted a few of those to the point that they're missable if you don't know what you're looking at, but Taash's story is worse for that choice. It would have been better for them to not be there at all than to be there and half-assed.

Every Enemy Targeting Rook: Ok, I get that they brought over a bunch of people from Mass Effect, and while I miss having a third companion around, I'm actually cool with the combat overall. Except for this one point. I play rogues. And occasionally mages. I HATE playing tanks. But when every enemy is constantly beelining for you and only you, figuring out how to NOT DIE in combat can be a trick if you aren't playing a tank. There were several fights (especially near the beginning of the game) where it seemed like I just spent the whole time focused on dodging, waiting for the cooldown on the immunity rune to pop so I could try and build up some momentum to actually kill the enemies my companions were apparently tickling. This is made worse by the fact that the tank companions are on the latter side of the recruitment missions. I'm adaptable. I actually like learning new and different combat systems (even though I'll probably complain the whole time). But them working in this aspect? I absolutely hate it. Please send it back.

Creature Redesign (Darkspawn and Demons): Here's where the "make it appeal to the Fortnite crowd" really seems to show the most. I get that Ghilan'ain is a fleshcrafter type, but assuming she's responsible for the design change of the darkspawn, she didn't make them more scary. She made them look unrefined, like someone started a character model but wasn't able to refine it with enough detail to make it match the previous lore. (Which really feels like a good metaphor for the story overall, but I digress.) That still fails to explain the changes to the demons. Sure, they feel otherworldly... like they were dropped in from another game. Both darkspawn and demons feel too bright and colorful and glowy for DA's traditionally more gritty feel, and it's jarring if you've played the other games. Even in Origins, they felt gritty and/or grounded, and they were made of like 15 polygons total.

Other

A collection of thoughts and observations on things that were both good and bad, or that really don't fit in either category....

The Theme of Regret: In general, I like the idea of this theme a lot, but setting aside that they only really succeeded in making it central to Solas's storyline (and also Neve's, I guess), it's a really difficult one to build up for the player. I think their best bet would have been to throw a very broad net using the initial foundation of, "You let the Evanuris out and whether or not you feel bad about that, it does make a lot of this fallout indirectly your fault." If they built the companion stories so that, even on a success, there's something potentially worth regretting (for instance, still being indirectly responsible for Bellara's brother being corrupted and dying again), then there's a better chance that something would resonate with the player. Even if nothing does, they could use these moments to build the sense that Rook has regrets separate from what the player might feel, much the way they built the wear and tear that happens to Shepard over Mass Effect 3. I think regret is a great theme, especially because BioWare is absolutely the kind of storyteller who can get into it in a way that rings with certain people and gently points them to a potential path out... but I think the execution of the theme was generally terrible. I didn't even realize it was meant to be a major theme until the Prison (I didn't follow any of the marketing or pre-game hype), and I think that it could be so easily missed speaks monuments. It might have been better for them to focus on something a bit easier to execute, like feelings of isolation.

The Soundtrack: I like the soundtrack overall. I think it would be fine if there weren't previous games in this series with previous soundtracks. Zimmer tends to lean pretty heavily into the synth elements, and that clashes heavily with the full orchestra that they used for the Inquisition soundtrack. (I've seen people complain that they probably spent too much money on Zimmer, but an orchestra would cost more than two guys with a computer and some music synthesizing software, even if one of those guys is Zimmer.)

D'meta's Crossing: Technically, this should be in The Good. It's not because this, as one of your early quests, should have been tone-setting, and the game never quite manages to get this dark again. Ok, not never. It kinda toys around the edges of it in the end sequence. But it should be hitting points like this far more frequently to create a consistent tone at least around the Blight and the Elven Gods. Those two things should be terrifying, not simply gross and somewhat intimidating.

Tying Everything to A Few People: While this can work out, the world of Thedas is so big and rich even from Origins. Suddenly solidifying their metaphysics coupled with making everything because of Specific People X, Y, and Z is kinda writing themselves into a corner. Like, there are whole branches they can't explore anymore without also forcing them into the stories they've already told. I know this sounds like it should go in The Bad, but they've been doing this since at least Inquisition, so I can't mark them down for it. You can't order a pastry from Strawberry Pastry Heaven and then complain when it has strawberries in it. I knew what I was biting into on this one.

Cat Cafe: There's a cat cafe where you can pet at least one cat. I approve. However, I couldn't reasonably put this in The Good as I think you should be able to pet more cats and/or have a quest or something that requires you to spend time in the cat cafe.

Spite: I managed to guess what kind of spirit Spite was originally with my first guess, even though I didn't find out I was correct until after I finished the game. I had a number of guesses, but the ones on my "most likely" list all stemmed from that original correct guess. I'm proud of that. It also surprised my friend who was watching. I like to imagine she muted her mic to keep from squealing about it when I made it.

Cheese Jokes: Is it really a Dragon Age game if it doesn't have cheese jokes? While this is definitely a positive, I don't feel like it's strong enough to put in The Good. It's more of... expected, but still pleasant to have. Like cheese.

Decor: I love all the little items you can get to decorate your room, and I like that you can decorate up the Lighthouse environs, too... but goshdarn, do they all need so many giant statues? Or... creepy nugs? Freaking nugs, man....

[toyota-supra]

finished Pseudoregalia. here's what I said about it on Steam:

This game fucking rules.

Pseudoregalia nails 3D platforming at all it is good for. This is a short and a bit rough combination of most of what I like in games about movement and exploration and it is very worth it. If you're not very experienced with 3D platformers or don't like games with big maps (this one literally does not give you directions at all and I love it) I SUPER DO NOT recommend it. But for me this game is everything I wanted. So many immensely interesting movement abilities to use in ways that you will spend the entire game wondering if everything you did was intended or not, or even in the right order. Everything is very fluid and responsive, so for all this I want to say Pseudoregalia is one of if not the best indie 3D platformer you should be getting right now, next to Blue Fire for similar reasons.

The biggest loss of the game for me, and I'm sure half of this game's reviews mention this already, is the combat. Combat in 3D platformers is a thing that is more often than not done terribly and Pseudoregalia is no exception. It doesn't get in the way of the game too often, as the game is even a bit empty of enemies at times (good! this is a good thing), but when it is mandatory for progression or there's too many enemies to ignore, by god is it annoying. No matter the tools you're given or the amount of health you have, it simply isn't fun. But this is completely understandable for a game of this scale and what I think is a solo dev team? I would say, if a game like this is worked on again, to either focus on making enemy encounters MORE like obstacles in an obstacle course than an almost zelda-like pace breaker (I mean come on why can they knock out your sword like that? it looks fucking RAD but it's not a good mechanic) or just make them less intrusive.

Still. Very happy with the game, and I'm probably playing again in a few years, if not sooner. SUPER recommend.

[devil1205]

BEGGING BUSINESS

Before I start this post, I express my gratitude and heartfelt and a BIG THANK YOU to my dearest friend and brother Tarun Rohra for sharing some vital information on the topic. I also Would like to express my thanks to Google for some important data.

Imagine yourself going somewhere and suddenly you approach a beggar and specially a deformed one. Maybe they do not have eyes or a body part is not in functional order. You see that beggar and feel sorry and give some money to the poor beggar and they go away. You might think that you did a great deed by giving some money. Here is the time that you are wrong and there is more than what meets the eye. Your amount of money does not really reach the beggar. In fact it goes to their leader who makes them beg. Sad but true. This begging problem specially in India has taken a shape of professional business.

There is a large syndicate that is operating in quite some parts of India. The ring leader kidnaps children and many times makes them handicapped in many ways and send them to beg and earn. Later when the children go to beg and whatever money they get goes to the ring leader and children get nothing. So the money you think has gone in the hands of a poor beggar has actually been wasted. This was also shown in Danny Boyle's award winning film The Slumdog Millionaire" starring Dev Patel, Irrfan Khan and many more.

At many times Begging is not just limited to money. Many times beggars ask for medicines also. For that they prepare bogus prescriptions and fake patient's name also. This something new I came to know that even for medicines beggars do all this and God knows that the might be doing with the Medicines. Does it reach the required patient?? I really have no clue about this.

Then there is one more scam in the begging business.If the beggars get something to eat like biscuits. After they get biscuits specially the brand new packed ones they give it to shop owners in exchange of money and then with that money they probably buy cheap drugs. Again money wasted indirectly. Above Medicine scam and this biscuit scam information was given to me by my friend Tarun as he has gone through this.

https://pib.gov.in/Pressreleaseshare.aspx?PRID=1781351

The Above link is a survey about the Begging problem in INDIA covering maximum states and Maharashtra is Ranked 27th in this survey.

Since in the start I raised the problems that how this business is going or proceeding. Now anyone who reads this might think that what is the solution to this. i can give an Idea on personal level as to how we can do our part that might just help. The first and the most important step to curb this Begging menace is do not give them a single penny from your side as the reason now is known to many. If any of them cry that they have not eaten for some days buy them some eatables and make them eat in front of your eyes so that you are assured that your money again is not gone in cheap drugs. In Anyway do not give them any amount of money.

In the above survey there were quite few mentions that how NGOS,Government and many bodies are coming ahead with schemes and plans to tackle the Begging problem. Many plans are being formulated for rehabilitation of children involved in begging. The governing authorities will do their work in rehabilitating the beggars but will this Menace of Begging ever get curbed or rather be done with. Will the people involved in this Begging Business ever understand that now their time to stop has come? It is a difficult situation. Even with all facilities or plans we make for them to do better, will they change in future and stop getting involved in this Begging Business.Only time will give the answer.

The END

[gracedcoup]

Diavolo’s childhood (feat. Barbatos) headcanons

you know what’s great about having very little canon info about characters’ backstories? it means I get to be self-indulgent. the devs can’t stop me

Most of this is set up in chronological order like that first “Mammon raised Satan” headcanon post, though there are a few towards the end that are just add-ons. (Speaking of, these all coexist with the “Mammon raised Satan” headcanons)

Initially, Barbatos was hired to be a basic servant in the Demon Lord’s Castle. Given his skill with cooking and cleaning, his duties likely centered around those two tasks. As castle employees are held to exceptionally high standards, it isn’t unusual for servants to come and go in relatively short order.

Because the Demon King was a busy man, he rarely had time to spend one-on-one with Diavolo…or, rather, he never really bothered to make time to spend with his son. Because of this, child Diavolo would go to the servants for attention and approval. He often just wanted to show someone a picture he drew, or show off a good grade he got, talk about his day, eat snacks together, so on and so forth. Just small stuff, things that are minor at best to adults but still very important to little kids.

Since Diavolo was the young prince, the servants knew better than to be rude to him. But also, since Diavolo is the young prince, most servants were too nervous to interact with him much. The Demon King had grown noticeably temperamental since his wife died in childbirth, and it didn’t take much to see that he wasn’t overly fond of his son. There was a lot of implication and speculation surrounding the whole mess, and the general consensus was that it was safest to stay as uninvolved as possible.

As a result, Diavolo’s attempts at socializing were met with polite but distant affirmations most of the time, maybe a pat on the head if he was lucky. The Little Ds would talk to him sometimes, but there was an equal chance they would brush him off immediately. If they didn’t get their work done, getting fired was the least of their worries – they might get eaten!

With Barbatos, it was the same as with the other servants at first. Palace employee, high expectations, lots of work to do, sorry Young Master. Diavolo himself isn’t quite sure why he latched onto Barbatos specifically. If pressed for an answer, he could say it might’ve been because of how cool and composed Barbatos always looked.

By chance (by which I mean “Little D #2 told him”), Diavolo found out that Barbatos really liked tea. This led to him inviting Barbatos to have tea with him, though he was relatively unsuccessful until he started pulling out the Big Guns™ – namely, some cheshire cat grass tea. With how rare that particular tea is, Barbatos knew better than to pass up a chance to try it. All he had to do for reimbursement was chat and entertain the young prince with stories of the outside world, after all. It was, possibly, the best deal Barbatos had ever stumbled into.

…then he’d started to worry. Diavolo’s big smile whenever Barbatos complimented him was cute, but how come he never seemed to be so happy outside of their little talks? Demons came in many shapes and sizes, from all walks of life, but Barbatos was pretty sure young demons weren’t normally so determined to seek out attention. He steadily became more receptive to Diavolo’s attempts to chat outside of tea-time, even if that sometimes resulted in Diavolo trailing behind him like a duckling as he did his work.

Seeing this, the rest of the staff grew a little friendlier towards Diavolo as well. He was a nice kid after all, and Barbatos wasn’t getting in trouble, so why would they? There was still a starch politeness to their responses, but they stopped being so quick to excuse themselves or shoo him away. Barbatos remained the only one who would truly talk with Diavolo, let alone at length.

(Meanwhile, Little D #2 was bold enough to demand sweets as payment for telling Diavolo about Barbatos’ love of tea. He did get them eventually, but he also got scolded by Barbatos for being impudent, so he’s not sure if he really won in the end.)

As time passed, unfortunately, Barbatos only gained more and more reasons to worry about Diavolo.

During one of their chats, Diavolo excitedly told Barbatos about his progress in learning magic. He’d mastered some specific, difficult technique, and his tutor had commended him for it. When Barbatos suggested that he tell his father about how well his lessons were going, Diavolo was uncertain at first, but quickly came around to the idea.

Barbatos never learned for sure if Diavolo had told his father about it. All he knew was that Diavolo had been gloomy and distant when he spoke with the young prince later that day.

Such was hardly an isolated occurrence. Barbatos gradually stopped suggesting that Diavolo talk to his father, if only to keep him from looking so melancholy. The Demon King held little interest in hearing about his son’s achievements, apparently, or even in just conversing with the boy. No need to keep holding a candle to a glacier, even if the glacier really ought to get its act together–

(Barbatos hugged Diavolo one day, when the young prince looked especially dispirited. Diavolo burst into tears. It was the first, but not last, time Barbatos considered just picking the kid up and walking out of the palace.)

Naturally Barbatos held his tongue, choosing instead to focus on supporting Diavolo. Telling your boss he sucks at being a parent is a one-way ticket to getting canned and, if your boss is the Demon King, possibly put to death. But ohhhhh if looks could kill…

It didn’t take Diavolo long to consider Barbatos his best friend (not that there was competition), or for Barbatos to view Diavolo similarly to a little brother. It became the norm to see the two of them together, save for the times Diavolo was explicitly required to be elsewhere, or when Barbatos needed to be in the kitchens.

We know Diavolo got Barbatos to stay on as his personal butler by claiming he would refuse to become Demon King otherwise. However, that’s also how he got his father to let Barbatos stay, too. The Demon King had assented with an annoyed sigh and a wave of his hand; if Diavolo wanted some rando as his butler so badly, than so be it. Barbatos had passed the background check to work at the Palace, after all, and he could just fire the guy whenever he finally messed up. (Or set him on fire, should he ever try to encourage Diavolo into a rebellious phase.)

As Diavolo’s new personal butler, Barbatos knew his performance needed to be top-notch. In the back of his mind, he knew he’d become a pawn at best – if Diavolo acted up or went against his father’s wishes, the Demon King could very easily use Barbatos’ employment (or wellbeing) to force Diavolo back into line. Though he did persevere, and he did become even more of a hyper-competent butler as a result, it…left him with a bit of a complex. With the Demon King asleep and Diavolo in charge, Barbatos knows the chance of being used like a bullwhip to corral the young prince is effectively nil. Still, that doesn’t stop him from wigging out a little during the (very, very, VERY) rare occasions he makes a mistake, like that time he was running late to meet up with the group.

✧ The two of them joke about how Diavolo “tricked” Barbatos into working as his personal butler, but Diavolo does get genuinely worried about it sometimes. What if Barbatos isn’t happy with his job? What if he wants to leave? For the most part, Diavolo knows that Barbatos cares about him dearly and would never do something so abrupt…but then again, he hadn’t expected his father to up and descend into semi-eternal slumber, either. Diavolo knows it’s an irrational fear, but the anxiety comes and goes and comes again regardless.

✧ Though he has a history of sneaking away from Barbatos occasionally, Diavolo was very grateful for his butler’s habit of shadowing him after his father’s “disappearance.” Their relationship (or lack thereof) hadn’t been particularly warm, but the Demon King had nonetheless been a constant in his son’s life up until that point. Him suddenly not being there anymore was jarring to Diavolo, and became the catalyst for him to start worrying that Barbatos might also leave one day.

✧ Although Barbatos is more of a dad to Diavolo than the Demon King is, Diavolo views him as more of an older brother figure. This has less to do with Barbatos’ behavior and more to do with Diavolo’s perception of his father, whom he is disinclined to associate with Barbatos at all. It just…doesn’t feel right. Barbatos is kind, and though he can be strict at times, he makes it clear that it comes from a place of care; he acknowledges and commends Diavolo’s accomplishments, and encourages his ward’s growth as a person. In complete contrast, the Demon King was always cold and distant at best. Though Diavolo knows that the Demon King doesn’t act like how a parent should, he has the man ingrained as his definition of “father.” Barbatos hardly deserves to be insulted with such a title.

✧ After the incident with Satan, in what he himself acknowledges as futile and hopeless pondering, Diavolo wonders how his father would react if he were given a second chance to connect with his son. The Demon King had never been violent towards Diavolo, but the most love he’d ever shown him was when he’d allowed Barbatos to stay on as Diavolo’s personal servant. Which…wasn’t exactly much love at all. In the end, Diavolo doesn’t know if his father would take that second chance, or if he ever truly cared about Diavolo as a son. (For all his wondering, Diavolo doesn’t particularly want to know, either.)

✧ Barbatos has had to ban Diavolo from showering him with presents. He certainly doesn’t mind being gifted some high-quality tea leaves from time to time, but anything more than that (outside of his birthday) is prohibited.

✧ Diavolo doesn’t know his own age. Part of this is because he’s just really, really, really old. The other part is that he never bothered keeping track of his birthdays when he was young, since all they amounted to were a formal social event and a bunch of festivities outside the castle. The formal event was boring and filled with passive-aggressive nobility, and he was never allowed to attend any of the festivities taking place beyond the castle walls. Privately, he thinks of his age as the number of years since Barbatos started working at the castle plus a few extra centuries; it’s the best approximation he’s got.

✧ Aside from how potentially dangerous warping reality can be, the other reason why Barbatos isn’t allowed to use his powers freely is so that the Demon King never finds out about them. Being able to see into the past and future isn’t exactly a common ability amongst demons, but it blends in with other odd abilities enough to not be particularly noteworthy. Being able to pick what timeline is the sole reality is rare enough to turn heads, though, including the Demon King’s. Though he’s nowhere close to present-day Diavolo’s power level, Barbatos is still strong enough (from a technical aspect) to pose a serious threat to the prince – and the Demon King – should he so choose. If the Demon King had known about the extent of Barbatos’ powers, he would’ve kept the butler on a much tighter leash, to the point that Diavolo probably wouldn’t have gotten to see or talk to him again.

✧ Barbatos, on a regular basis, has to talk himself out of suggesting that Diavolo get a pet. Though Diavolo would definitely benefit from the extra companionship, he would also be devastated if anything happened to the creature. It doesn’t help that, in terms of animals that could be reasonably taken care of at the palace, there aren’t many that would live even half as long as the prince to begin with.

✧ Diavolo mentions on multiple occasions that it’s important for him to appear strong and to not worry others. Though he doesn’t have breakdowns often, Barbatos is the only person he’ll allow to see him when he does.

✧ Despite Barbatos’ notoriously calm demeanor, Diavolo has grown proficient at reading his actual mood over the years. For outsiders, it’s easier to gauge Barbatos’ mood based on Diavolo’s behavior. If the prince is acting normal, then everything’s (probably) fine.

tl;dr

[kathleenmarymulligan]

“You didn’t fail—your idea failed. Try something new.”

Last week, David and I were invited to be delegates at a G20 event at Guru Nanak Dev University, which is just up the road from Khalsa College.

One of the panels at this event at GNDU was on entrepreneurship. While this is not exactly my field, I am glad I was compelled (by my status as a delegate) to attend. One of the panelists, an esteemed professor of business from Mumbai, offered the thought that I have chosen as my title.

I would say that my idea—as conceived—has failed.

Without getting into too much detail, I will simply say that several factors have contributed to this: my own naivety at what could be accomplished with a group of actors with whom I do not share a common language (unlike Kerala—where I did my first Fulbright), some particularly nasty departmental politics that became clear to David and me a few weeks after arrival, a lack of communication concerning hindrances to my project work plan, and (what I perceive) as the global effects of COVID on the current college age student. One toxic presence has done more than anything else to dismantle what I planned to accomplish. I have kept quiet about this in my blog and hoped for the best.

I am disheartened, but I also need to look at what my essential goals were for this project:

•     To connect young people with survivors of Partition in order to foster understanding about the experiences of those who came before them

•     To guide a group of young artists in creating original material based on interviews with Partition survivors

•     To provide a way for said young artists to share their original work with an audience.

All this will be accomplished.

•     I have accompanied students on interviews with people in their 80’s and 90’s who survived Partition, and witnessed the effect their stories and these connections have on my students. I have been deeply moved by the experience of sitting in the presence of these survivors.

•     David and I are working with these young actors to create, albeit slowly, original monologues out of those interviews. I understand that students at Khalsa College (and perhaps more widely in India) are not as accustomed to writing their own material, so this is a big “ask” we are making. Many are rising to the challenge beautifully. And some very generous translators have helped us to understand what is being written.

•     And we will have a sharing. It will not be a full-scale production, as we first envisioned. Given the amount of rehearsal time that has been taken from us due to various roadblocks- a full production would not be possible. We have been given a goal of the first week in April (before exam preparation begins). With that date in mind, we had to let go of the idea of a full production last week. But we will have an invited sharing at the college, and I also hope to have a lecture/demonstration at the Partition Museum and a local cultural center. I need to remind myself that if David had not been able to accompany me, these sharings would have likely been all I would have been able to offer.

I am turning my focus to things I can control (and my little living space has been getting daily cleanings-- this seems to be my way of gaining some control.) Following the advice, I am "trying something new."

•     I am booking performances of The Belle of Amherst at several colleges in Kolkata, one in Assam, and (hopefully) one theatre in Nepal.

•     I have been awarded a regional travel grant to spend two weeks teaching voice and speech at an actor training program in Nepal.

•     And I have been invited to serve on the panel to interview Fulbright applicants among Tibetan immigrants in Dharamshala in May.

I have met a lot of great people here. I am deeply grateful for this opportunity. And my students are absolutely lovely people. When I am with them (those who show up) my spirit cannot resist being lifted. So-- I’ll share a few pictures of these exuberant, brave young people—and move on. The idea failed. I did not fail. And I believe these young people will take something meaningful away from this experience—as I know David and I will.

I “owe” you all a post about our wonderful return to Kerala. Maybe now that I have shared the not-so-pleasant, I can go back and share those beautiful memories!

[felassan]

DA4 Lead Producer Scylla Costa’s BIG Festival talk, “Challenges of Dragon Age production during the pandemic”, can currently be rewatched on YouTube here starting roughly at timestamp 8:57:02 after a lil presenter blurb/intro. It’s 1 hour long. When it was streamed live, there was an English translation ‘voiceover’. There isn’t in this vid, however I want to post the link for Portuguese speakers, and also it’s neat for everyone to be able to see all the slides he presented with for themselves in context.

I don’t know if an English-language version will get put up so I’m sharing the notes I took during the talk below, in case anyone’s interested and because I might as well since I wrote them. The rest of this post is under a cut due to length.

Edit: Found a place to re-watch the English version of the talk

(Quick note: I didn’t note down everything, mostly things that caught my interest, so this isn’t exhaustive, and when I was watching I was real tired, so pls bear that in mind and don’t take these notes as bullet-proof 100% accurate gospel or direct quotes. If you watched it and think I’ve written down something wrong/misunderstood, let me know and I’ll fix. Also if you’re a Portuguese speaker and I’ve gotten something incorrect or missed something important etc, again just let me know.) **

** Edit: I’ve now gone through my notes while watching the talk again. I’ve filled in some of the gaps (although they still don’t cover everything said) and so forth, and now I’m no longer worried about there being possible errors in this post.

-----

For some context, this slide contained the breakdown of the talk’s structure. Bear in mind there are other slides present in the talk than the ones I’ve posted here, I didn’t include caps of all of them, just ones which were of note to me.

In the talk, chief Producer Scylla goes over challenges of DA4 production during the pandemic. He discusses the adaptations - necessary skills and learning from remote work - and he ponders on the future of teamwork.

After the launch of ME3 he became a producer, all his MMO and other experience helped a lot. He was on DAI for 3 years and MEA for 9 months, then Anthem. Today, on DA4, Scylla and another Lead Producer were the heads of the whole project, and there is his boss is the Executive Producer Christian Dailey. 

^ the usual AAA game development cycle (brief introduction)

AAA games are games that are launched for several platforms simultaneously. 

In BioWare’s case, the pre-production phase of the game development cycle can have from 5 - 30 people, and up to almost 60 people when they’re just about to go through the gate to production. 

In the pre-production phase, they go through the game’s concepts and prototypes and start developing systems. They seek the game’s concept and focus, and its key features. They do lots of market research. In the case of BioWare, all their games are strong in narrative, so they have lots of tools related to game narratives and supporting the development of a narrative (cinematic design, dialogue system etc) that get focused on in this phase. Other parts of the team such as writers and cinematic design need these systems to do their own roles. 

In BioWare’s case, the pre-production phase through to launch can take 4 - 6 years, but it does depend on the size of the team during development.

With regards to Dragon Age 4, they were coming close to the time when they would shift from pre-production to the production stage when the pandemic hit.

During the production phase is when the development of content and features takes place, with the systems mostly already existing from the pre-production phase. A few new systems may be developed in this phase. In the production phase is when things start escalating, and the team really starts growing, to like 2- or 3-fold the prior pre-production phase size. 

(DA4 is currently in the production phase.)

In the alpha phase, features have to be fully implemented and systems all have to be running / working. All the game features should already be in the game by now. They test from pre-production onwards, but this phase is when they run heavy technical tests with lots of players trying to play at the same time. In the beta phase, the idea is that you should now have full content and that now you’re balancing it and running more and lots of different tests with players before launch. There are final tweaks and then the final launch, when in the weeks prior to launch, all the different business units and areas e.g. marketing team, technology team, publishing team, get together once a day and all of the game’s issues are reported and brought to the table to be prioritized. Then they decide the next steps re: these issues (this is known as ‘the war room’).

After the launch there are usually patches like day zero patches and other patches, this being standard industry practise. The last stage is the new content stage where there are DLCs and a game with more content.

On March 12th 2020, the team gathered to review the DA4 story in the new office. Everyone was very excited. (They had spent over 10 years in their last building and had noticed that with the team growing they needed more space. In August 2019 they found the new studio in the city center.)

Anyway that evening, they got an email from the CEO which contained instructions and said that due to the pandemic, they should from now all start working remotely. They had known that this happening was a possibility so they had been planning on how to have all the devs working from home, but initially less than 50% of the devs were able to work from home successfully/efficiently due to various issues e.g. you need a VPN to be able to log in remotely to do your job normally, varying home office setups. The day after this, the office was basically deserted, except for Scylla, the IT infrastructure people and one or two odd devs.

Scylla was part of the team that was working on allowing the devs to work from home. They first started looking at the short-term changes they needed to make to allow this.

“First, take care of our developers”. 

When the pandemic first hit, their and Scylla’s [as Lead Producer] first priority was to look after the devs. Many of them are parents (schools and day-cares were shut, children were studying from home), others have relatives living with them, others have other personal circumstances which of course need to be taken into account when it comes to assessing what needs to be taken into consideration for this new scenario. So, they looked at each dev on a case-by-case basis in order to evaluate, speaking to each one and asking them what they could do to support them.

One of the first changes/adaptations they could implement was flexible working hours and flexibility around deadlines. Generally speaking the devs got a lot of support, EA was really good and really supported the devs especially in the first months of the pandemic (and they are still supporting them). Initially not all devs had suitable office spaces at home, some were working from the living room from laptops or at the kitchen table. The whole covid situation basically just happened over night and nobody was really ready to deal with that change. So their first step was to enable their devs to work remotely. As a producer, Scylla’s main task is to communicate with the team such as via a number of daily meetings. He doesn’t depend so much on powerful hardware.

“Enable developers to work remotely”.

This slide shows some of a BioWare audio team. Different teams have varying and specific needs in order to do their jobs and therefore in order to do them remotely. For example, the audio team need good-quality speakers and amplifiers, while the lighting and art teams need other specific equipment such as tablets and large screens. So there was a lot of work they had to do to go through each dev to understand their individual needs and what needed to be done for them. ‘Could they download the builds? Did they have the right performance [tech-wise]? Could they submit their changelists, their codes to the server?’

Some devs needed a more powerful internet connection as it would take 6-8 hours to download a build (some devs live rurally). Some needed a lot of cable, as they were working far away from their routers (sometimes up to 50m). As time went by things got better and better. 

The chair devs work from is also important; a kitchen able chair etc is not suitable to sit in for long-term desk work, possibly leading to health issues like back ache and blood circulation problems in the legs.

Every 3 months they had money given to help devs buy new mice, keyboards, monitors - anything they needed really in order for their office setting at home to be improved. For a while, because lots of people [generally, in society] were needing and buying them, it was quite hard to buy things like webcams and microphones.

On mid- and long-term changes:

In terms of DA, we have to look at this from 2 perspectives, the change in the personal and the professional environments. 

As a consequence of working from home, people tend to be less active during the day (even in an office, you go between meeting rooms, up and down stairs etc). Physical activity supports life quality and therefore work quality. Scylla noticed that he began to feel listless and such, and found that he needed to change his routine that he had initially developed when he started working from home, for example; having a normal start time (as in, have a semblance of structure in your day as if you were still working in the office site), get dressed at the normal time, not having meetings over lunch etc. This wasn’t just him, lots of other devs encountered this and had this experience too. Devs which adapted faster had better productivity and became more productive faster.

Scylla bought a stand-up desk which he can raise up and down, and at meetings he would be delivering a talk while standing or even while walking on a treadmill. Other devs also got stand-up desks. He tracked his body’s data on a Fitbit. These sorts of things helped improve physical and mental wellbeing. Other devs did similar things, like starting going out for jogs or began practising yoga. Essentially, everyone needed to make changes to their daily routine in comparison to what they had been doing prior to the pandemic. 

The pandemic has been a thing for over a year now. In their location, every couple of weeks a new restriction is put into place or a rule is changed, and every two weeks there’s a new thing that you can and can’t do. Scylla also started moving around his property. He worked on his desk, fixed it up and painted - taking up a new hobby. Other devs picked up new hobbies too. These are good ways to be active and also to be somewhere else, i.e. to break up the working day and not be spending it all in one home office-type location. Scylla found that when he made these sorts of changes to his routine to improve his lifestyle, the data output by his Fitbit as indicators of his health/wellbeing etc improved, e.g. number of steps taken in a day, heartbeats per minute while at rest. As stated many of the other devs went through a similar process.

On the professional side of things:

They had to improve remote delivery of builds. Accessing things from home as a dev requires a VPN. They need to download a build every day and then upload it to the server after making their changes to the game. They had to work with infrastructure and research other tech, such as streaming tech to allow remote console access, in order to better facilitate this process. For remote access, they also had to work on adapting communications channels.

“Adapting channels of communication.”

In this slide, the team are working on the storyboards. Before you can implement motion capture & performance capture, you have to ‘run the storyboards’ like this. These are small illustrating drawings which reflect the drafts and are meant to quickly reflect the intention of the scenes that are to be built. Before the pandemic, the team would go to meeting rooms like this, sit down, talk and interact in person. After the pandemic, the question became ‘How do you do this over Zoom?’ You can, but it’s not quite the same; it’s harder to see peoples’ expressions, some people are embarrassed speaking over Zoom etc. Therefore they had to adapt their communications systems, and unlearn the ways in which they developed before in order to relearn and learn new ways of communicating.

Slack was a tool that they adopted on this front. Communications channels can be confusing on Slack, so there was a need to develop structure. For example, how quickly should someone reply (as a recommended convention for the purposes of work)? They had to define the process/procedures for the channels so it was clear for the team as a whole how it would all flow (this is important especially if you have a team with say 30 people or as a whole hundreds of people). Before the pandemic, they had stand-up meetings where they’d go around in a circle every morning and talk about their activities - what they’re going to be working on, any roadblocks they had encountered etc. The question arose ‘How do you replace these?’ They ended up doing Slack messages at a certain time of day and updating their statuses with some details on what they’re working on and color-coding (green - fine, yellow - need help, red - busy/blocked out).

Another issue that they faced was unforeseen - the number of meetings that devs were having really shot through the roof. When there wasn’t a good structure of communications channels, any conversation would become a meeting. Everybody began scheduling meetings left and right, and at the end of the day they would have little time left in which to actually work on their to-do lists. Hence, they had to work with the team to really analyze and be very pragmatic. ‘Which meetings needed to happen? Which didn’t? Is a specific meeting really necessary? Which meetings should be recurring? What can be done over Slack?’ This guideline had to be given to the team to help, and it improved things a lot. The number of meetings decreased a lot and they got more effective. For example, by making sure to set an agenda for meetings beforehand, and by having meeting notes (then a dev who didn’t really need to be at a meeting could skip attending and just quickly review the notes output after instead). They also decreased the standard length of meeting times from the default Outlook blocks of 1 hour and 30 mins to 55 mins and 25 mins respectively. This 5 minute change gave devs time for things like bio breaks (also 4 hours in a row at a computer in a home office with one meeting after another just isn’t good for a person).

“Adapting p-cap and mocap”.

On content:

From a content point of view, the most difficult thing in terms of the pandemic was adapting p-cap and mocap (performance capture and motion capture). They hire actors and it’s a large studio. The pandemic meant big limits to what they could and couldn’t do. The actors had to be masked and 5 meters apart in distance (although it doesn’t look like it in some of these shots due to angles). Also there could be no other person around in the studio - only the actors. The directors instead would ‘patch’ in remotely on big screens (you can see this in the second photo in the top right). 

Before the pandemic, they felt that they wouldn’t be able to do p-cap or mocap properly remotely, as the directors would usually stand right next to actors giving guidance on their performance. The techs would also usually be near. But they adapted! The keyword is adapting, changing process. It’s harder and it’s different, but it is possible, and people start rethinking what is possible. What was said to be impossible before now is possible.

P-cap differs to mocap in that it also captures voice and facial expressions.

On the future of work after covid:

There will probably be more working from home and more flexibility for workers e.g. being able to work say 3 out of 5 days from home. It does depend on what a dev’s specific job is however. For example, the audio engineers require lots of specialist equipment and said equipment is of higher quality and quantity in the office. So, depending on role, devs might be working more often or less often from home.

Another development is that lots of devs are moving house. In lockdown etc people started reassessing what’s most important in life. Some are moving further away from the studio to get a cheaper rent or for example couples who both needed an office space to work from home from but their current place only had one area. Others are moving closer to nature for a better quality of life, and still others have other different reasons for doing so. Over 10 devs that he knows in fact have recently moved, including Scylla himself.

The pandemic changed certain skills being used by people on a daily basis. Scylla used as an example of this one of his soft skills, being able to tell from looking/interacting in-person with someone if they are stressed out. Obviously it’s less easy to tell if someone is stressed out when you’re remote, so you adapt different ways of checking in with people in the new situation. To continue carrying out his role as Lead Producer, he began checking in with his team pro-actively on the new comms channels and asking how they were doing.

Also, now that companies are more open to working remotely, there is going to be increased competition for hiring devs. They saw both sides of this coin at BioWare. They were able to hire devs from many places that they couldn’t hire from before e.g. Montreal, Vancouver, the US, as there’s less need for devs to relocate to Edmonton or Austin. This opens up opportunities to hire really intelligent and skilled people that they would not have had access to before.

Question and answer segment:

The pre-production phase has been concluded. They’re in the production phase.

They are not giving out a lot of details yet but Scylla is really excited as a big fan of the whole series. He thinks that with DA4, they will have the opportunity/possibility to launch the best story out of all DA games. He feels that the characters they’re making are amazing. He’s dying to say more but can’t. 

When you work from home you need to keep your team as productive as possible. During the pandemic, when people started working from home, they noticed that some people became more productive and some people became less productive. They were analyzing it on a case-by-case basis so as not to make assumptions. They were interested in seeing what they could do to help. At the beginning of the pandemic, they were looking at the devs as people and seeing what they needed.

Production of DA4 still needed to continue during the pandemic because they want to be able to launch the game.

This slide shows a writer. Writing is an example of a role which is more able to work from home easily.

Their productivity did go down in the first month of the pandemic. After adaptations, some people then became more productive than they were before (this was role and personal situation-dependent, examples of this being artists and coders who were able to art and code at home without being interrupted, thereby being able to produce more). Covid has affected productivity in general, but this is part of our new reality. They have adapted and adjusted some deadlines. They have enough data (Scylla LOVES data) now to understand how long it will take them/how long they’ll need to launch the game. They have always had historical data for this purpose, but they’re doing more of this sort of thing now to ensure that they are doing things at the right time.

Remote hiring opens up the door to more talent joining, so if someone has talent geography will hold them back less. Some companies though may choose not to hire people from other countries due to labor issues, cumbersome legal aspects, time zones. But even in such cases there are activities for example that can be carried out while the rest of the team is asleep such as testing or working on the build, or there are cases where those companies still will want to hire a specifically/highly talented person even in spite of the potential legal aspects and so on.

On mental health: People were affected. There is the mental, physical and social impacts of the pandemic situation on people. EA supported them during the pandemic in terms of their mental wellbeing, there are specific companies (services offered, speaking to a therapist) that they can contact if they need something or help. EA had always been good at supporting them with this sort of thing but this has improved further during the pandemic. Another change was that they could/can take a couple of days off if they needed/need to because of the pandemic e.g. to take care of children, who were obviously not at school at the time. As a producer he had to be very mindful of all of this. How much they were monitoring peoples’ wellbeing really went up during the pandemic.

A question that was asked - in terms of DA4′s storybeats, is there anything in there that they decided to change due to the pandemic as it wouldn’t be sensitive or appropriate to include anymore, for example a plague plotline or something? Scylla’s answer is that DA and ME are games in which they try to have narratives that are relatable, which include things which people will identify with, so that players understand what characters are going through etc. Nothing in DA4′s plotline/storybeats has been changed (in the frame of this question, relating to the pandemic), as it didn’t have anything in it that could be specifically or a directly connected to a pandemic-type situation or anything. Of course the DA story has Blights and the Taint, but these are different & fantastical things and existed long before the pandemic situation. So this wasn’t the case with DA4 and there was no need to change anything, but this has happened to other games where they decided to change a storyline due to a strong correlation with something in the real world.

There were then concluding/closing remarks. The message he wants to send is that a crisis will always spark opportunities. Look at a crisis and try to see how you can grow.

-----

[☕ found this post interesting or useful? my ko-fi is here if you feel inclined. thank you 🙏]

[askagamedev]

A bunch of you have questions about project development shutting down for some reason...

I’m guessing it has to do with two cases of fairly high-profile projects being shut down. For those unaware, the two cases in question are:

Vampire: The Masquerade: Bloodlines 2, where publisher Paradox Interactive has removed the project from developer Hardsuit Labs and has delayed its release indefinitely

Anthem Next, the rework of the game that Bioware was working on rebuilding

Both of these situations have some similarities, so I’ll try to address them in a batch today.

Is another studio going to pick up where Hardsuit left off for VampTheMBlood2?

Let me be clear here - (this iteration of) VampTheMBlood2 has been cancelled. The current completed work on the project is effectively abandoned; there is very little chance that another studio will be brought in to pick up where Hardsuit Labs left off. Projects of this scope are enormous endeavors with a huge amount of institutional knowledge. Only the current team of developers know how the things they built work. Any new developer who obtains the old project assets and code would have to spend months, possibly years, trying to piece things together - much like archaeologists try to figure out how ancient civilizations did things.

By removing Hardsuit Labs from the project, Paradox is removing all people who know anything about how the project works. If the current project were salvageable, it would (in a worst case scenario) be something similar to what happened with the Kerbal Space Program 2, where the publisher cancelled the contract with the developer studio and hired many individual dev team members from the former studio to continue work on the project. That institutional knowledge of how things work is invaluable if the same project code and assets are to be used. This is clearly not the case with VampTheMBlood2. Paradox is ok with dumping the work done and starting over.

Is Anthem’s cancellation because of the engine being used?

Almost assuredly not. In Anthem’s case, the Frostbite engine was already used to build something that released; if it were a problem with the engine, they would never have been able to ship in the first place. The problem wasn’t that the game wasn’t functional, the problem was that the game wasn’t fun.

What are the common causes for project’s cancellation like this?

Projects far into the development cycle are usually cancelled for a few major reasons. The first is the reality of the numbers - getting from the current state of the project to where it needs to be in order to ship is not feasible within the available time and budget in combination with the current team. The amount of development time needed could, for example, place the finished release in a terrible place on the schedule, competing with its own publisher’s other products or with a licensor or other major competitors. The required additional budget could push it way too far into the monetary loss category, especially when additional costs and factors like a new marketing campaign or changing market trends are considered. 

Why do you say these two situations are similar?

Both projects had notable changes in leadership a while back, and both had a reasonable amount of intervening development time since then. In Anthem’s case, the game’s state was unacceptable for the long term because it wasn’t meeting its goals for continued development and support. The publisher didn’t give up on it though - they gave the (new) dev team leadership an opportunity: a block of time to come up with a prototype and plan to take Anthem from where it was to a place where it could hit its performance goals (number of regular players, monetization targets, etc.) within a set of given constraints (time frame, budget). If they could prove the concept and the external circumstances lined up, they could continue development. This is exactly what the Bioware Austin team had done in the past with Star Wars: The Old Republic. Unfortunately, one or more of these failure conditions were met for Anthem and the proposal was sadly rejected.

I suspect that a similar situation happened between publisher Paradox and developer Hardsuit. When Hardsuit’s creative director was removed from the project, I suspect that the game was not in a good state or on a good trajectory toward launch. It was not where it needed to be. However, I believe the publishers still saw the potential in the project if the developers could properly course-correct. I conjecture that the developers at Hardsuit were given around six months for the new leadership to get things back on track. In a similarly unfortunate set of circumstances, I suspect that they were unable to meet the publisher’s expectations and Paradox decided to pull the plug.

But Paradox said VampTheMBlood2 is still coming!

It (probably) is, but it will likely be a completely new game from a completely new developer, rather than something built from the remnants of Hardsuit’s cancelled code and assets.

It is an unfortunate that these events transpired this way, especially because of the additional pressures and hardships of having to do this under global pandemic circumstances. We’ve only seen some of the subtle side effects of the pandemic forcing the entire game development world into remote work and I suspect we will continue to see more. There are all sorts of things that could have happened that resulted in these project cancellations, with many of them outside the control of any of the parties directly involved. 

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[itsbenedict]

hm. um. really should've... but... well, no. maybe? i mean, it's possible that... given the, base rate of, in... but probably not now, at least, that'd be stepping on toes... and you can't ask if... i mean, i bet i could, but it'd be... i'll just... wait on, trying that, i guess. probably assuming too much, anyway. never have been able to read that kind of thing.

...I've been busting my ass for the past month, because two more devs quit, and now it's just me and two other devs in charge of maintaining what were like 20 devs' worth of products when I signed on, being maintained by ~11 devs at the time. Legacy products are just breaking and we're just not fixing them, because apparently despite a critical shortage of developers, management's highest priority is...

...taking a perfectly functional product with a perfectly functional payment system (that required one of our many customer reps to occasionally go through and approve stuff), and completely ripping out the existing payment/scheduling system to replace it with a fully-automated one. And it was made very clear to me that this had to be done by December 1st, for reasons upper management as usual felt no need to explain.

So I work my ass off all through November, off-hours and on weekends. I drop everything- I shelve various ongoing projects, I postpone plans, I decide to wait until just a little later to pursue certain opportunities...

...and two days before the deadline they tell me that they've discovered that one of the third-party services this system depends on isn't actually launching until December 7th. And good thing, too, because we were not ready to launch on December 1st- everything was technically "done", but half the functionality wasn't tested and most of it wasn't styled properly.

So with another week to test and work on it (another week to bust my ass and be constantly on-call to fix bugs as they arise, to not work on my own life or pursue opportunities, in hopes of being ready by the 7th), we finally get it tested and in full working order today, in time for the nighttime off-hours deployment.

...and then it turns out that the people on the business side of things, who apparently needed this done so urgently, assumed that it wouldn't actually be done by the 7th despite us telling them that it totally would be and to be ready for it- and opted to just not prepare to switch over, at all. The 13th, though, they'll totally be ready to deploy on the 13th, surely.

(the director of development had a meeting with me and the dev on the other half of this project to thank and congratulate us for getting it done. the praise felt very good. not like, worth it, though.)

[illegiblewords]

On FFXIV and the Devs

Listen, I know I’ve been mostly blogging FFXIV for the past couple years--but technically speaking this is my general blog. Some of my followers rn are from Final Fantasy XIV specifically, others are from well before that. I’m very lucky to have friends from lots of places so this is kind of talking to both for a sec.

Some of my past fandoms I think legitimately wound up traumatizing me a bit. Not everyone in them of course, but like. What [INSERT UNSPECIFIED FANDOM] ended up becoming? I started seeing people commit and endorse violent crimes against others over fiction. It became controversial to say you sincerely loved a character as an individual, shaped by all the life experiences they’d had. Wanting to see more of an individual character’s story for who they were and not just what they’d suffered was something I saw people get harassed over. And I’ve seen creators for that fandom behave in ways that were anywhere from lazy to apathetic to downright hateful. There was no joy or love for the characters themselves--only a desire to control and manipulate readers in other aspects of their lives. Final Fantasy XIV fans, overall, love the developers. For the first iteration of this game (so 1.0) it almost got canceled entirely because the way it was presented didn’t work. The devs created a storyline that amounted to a near apocalypse, and when they took things offline to revise/reboot the game? They presented it as the heroes falling to that near-apocalypse.

When 2.0/A Realm Reborn (the current starting point for the game) got brought back--that was a huge show of faith. Everything was revamped in a huge way, and the developers have continued to pay close attention to fan experiences in order to innovate and create new ways to improve quality. The fact that the game HAS achieved huge success at this point is after having overcome tremendous challenges across its lifetime. One of the biggest obstacles that players cited, the length of the first story arc, was even addressed when the devs came back to cut and streamline non-essential elements to eliminate drag. And, as I’m obligated to say as a FFXIV fan, there is a free trial now that goes not only through the entirety of A Realm Reborn but Heavensward too--with Heavensward being the first expansion and considered to be the point where things start getting really good and spicy.

But it goes beyond that too. See, when this past expansion (Shadowbringers) came out, the developers had been given an ultimatum by higher ups. The next race added to the game would be the last. The developers wanted to add a more bestial race option in the Hrothgar, but knew that players were DYING to get tall-and-pretty bunny people with Viera. They worked their asses off against the clock to make sure they had playable options for both Hrothgar and Viera, despite them having very limited hair options, initially no helms that would display, and gender locks. By this, I mean you could only play a female Viera and male Hrothgar. FFXIV hasn’t had gender locked races since 1.0 if I remember right. People got angry, especially given the races didn’t seem finished. But 1) a bunch of developers took extra, unpaid time to add as many helm options as they could before the game released so that players wouldn’t be left with nothing. They did this specifically out of their own creative passion, desire for a quality game, and love for fans. I cannot stress enough how huge this is. They put in SO MUCH EXTRA WORK just because they care. 2) The developers spent the time before next expansion ADDING MALE VIERA SPECIFICALLY BECAUSE FANS WANTED IT SO BADLY. They used the extra time and resources to unlock that option! I wouldn’t be surprised at all if we find they’ve fleshed out the options/polished up existing character design for Viera and Hrothgar as well. We have additionally been promised, in no uncertain terms, that female Hrothgar are coming too. They aren’t being released with the male Viera because this time the devs wanted to be able to make everything as polished as they can for release. They basically used the ultimatum they had before as a way to get their foot in the door as it was closing. They are now able to add to Viera and Hrothgar BOTH, when they’d previously been told they wouldn’t be allowed any further additions. This was, again, a passion move. Natsuko Ishikawa, meanwhile, got to helm the writing for Shadowbringers. It was her first time being a main force in the main scenario plotline. She previously wrote bits for regional plots, as well as the very popular storylines for Dark Knights and Alchemists. She received a standing ovation from fans when she faced them post-Shadowbringers release, and the positive reception reduced her to tears of gratitude. The developers make jokes, and do interviews with fans, and directly answer fan questions with thought and care and playfulness. They are truly humble people who love what they do and are respectful to their audience. Players have had critiques for the game, as folks will have critiques for all media. When the developers learn of critiques, by and large there is always a sense that they listen, consider, and do what they can to improve to the best of their ability and within reason. It’s not indiscriminate and they don’t always know about everything (there are a lot of fans and not all criticism is legitimate) but again. The respect and good intent are absolutely there. I am unbelievably grateful for this game and for the team behind it. It’s restored a lot of faith in people and in creators. The story and its characters are powerfully done. It has a tremendous amount of heart and as a game, it’s a joy to play. I’d strongly encourage people to try it out if you haven’t already. It’s just not something I take for granted, and I think it’s important to remember how fortunate FFXIV and its base are.

[smokeybrandreviews]

Smokey brand Movie Reviews: Super Green

The Green Knight s finally out and i can see it without having to wait a month and a half! I thank A24 for this rather quick turnaround because this thing has been on my radar fr what seems like forever! I’ve written about this before but A24 is my favorite studio releasing content. Neon is a close second and Netflix is making a real charge, but A24 releases classics. Some of my all-time favorite films are A24 products. Ex Machina, Hereditary, Under the Skin, The VVitch, Uncut Gems, Zola, Midsommar, Lady Bird, Eighth Grade, The Lighthouse, High Life, The Monster, Enemy, Climax, Room, The Killing of a Sacred Deer, The Disaster Artist, and Under the Silver Lake have all impressed in one for or another, all of them A24 offerings. This studio is f*cking amazing and i cannot sing it’s praises enough. They’ve been around for less than a decade, A24 was founded in August of 2012, and they’re brought this level of quality consistently. The Green Knight has all of the workings to slide right into my all-time list, just like Ex Machina and Hereditary did before it. Let’s see if i really love it as much as i think i will.

The Exceptional

The first thing that hits you is how f*cking gorgeous this film is. Seriously, i was immediately captivated by that opening scene with Gawain rushing for Mass. It definitely opens up as the film progresses and you are treated to one of the most visually striking films of the year. This movie could give Denis Villeneuve, Ari Aster, or Robert Eggers a run for their money. Seriously, you can frame several shots in a museum and no one would know the difference between that and the Van Gophs on display.

I r0aely mention this but it’s absolutely necessary that i do in this particular review because it was just that memorable. The sound design made this film. I’m not talking about music choice or score, but the actual sound effects for specific scenes. That sh*t was some of the tightest I've ever hear on a film and it really added to the overall experience. Just the way the Green Knight creaked and popped as he moved was more than enough to get this mention but there is so much  ore than just that. I hate that i had to see this at home because, f*ck, this thing would have sounded like god in a proper theater.

I mentioned that you can frame these shots in a museum before and a lot of that shine belongs to the cinematography. The shots chosen for this film are breathtaking. I imagine a lot of that has to do with location but even the scenes filmed in dank castles and murky bogs popped with that same, meticulous, shot composition and it really gave those scenes life. The were ties when my jaw dropped at the majesty of a scene. The one with the giants immediately comes to mind. Like, f*ck, was that beautiful to witness.

In that same breath, you have to know when to pull back. Editing is just as important to a film as anything else and The Green Knight is cut with a precision I've rarely seen. This thing has no fat whatsoever. It presents to you exactly what you need and little else. I love that. I love that this film has a story to tell and it tells it with extreme prejudice. These cuts were made with intent. That’s rare nowadays.

I also have to give a nod to the use of color and lighting. Again, it’s not something i ever really focus on but goddamn is it necessary for this review. Light plays a very important role in how this story was told. Certain scenes absolutely need it and others are perfectly accentuated by it. It takes a deft hand to juggle such a nuanced aspect of film and The Green Knight has done that the best this year. So far.

This film has a very real, very potent, atmosphere. It’s not tension, not like Uncut Gems of Good Times, but there is this unrelenting sense of dread that runs through this entire film. It’s measured and restrained but it’s always there. I appreciate that. For a film to illicit such emotion out of me is testament to the mastery of it’s visionary.

All of the praise I've given to the technical aspects of this film would be for naught if i didn’t recognize the director, David Lowery. This dude is fast climbing the list of my favorite directors. I actually listed  bunch above but, after seeing what he’s gone with this film, dude is really making a case for himself. He did the Pete’s Dragon remake which i hear as pretty good, and A Ghost Story but i haven’t seen either. Not really my cup of tea. But if they’re as good as The Green Knight, i might have to revisit that thought because, holy sh*t, this dude can direct the f*ck out of a film.

The writing is on point. I legit hesitated to put this on here because it is the weakest aspect of  everything else in this film but that is misleading. The writing is exceptional. There is no way this film could be as good as it is, if the script was dog sh*t. The material given to these performers had to the top tier in order for them to give the performances they did and and they definitely f*cking did that!

This whole cast really f*cking delivered. Sarita Choudhury as Mother and Sean Harris as the King were easily the best of the supporting cast but everyone else brought that same energy. Joel Edgerton, Kate Dickie, and  Barry Keoghan, all deliver powerful performances. Hell, this is the best I've ever seen Erin Kellyman act and i have to give a lot of credit to the overall quality of this cast delivered. That said, there are three individuals who put everyone else to shame and i say that knowing exactly how much praise i just heaped upon them all.

Alicia Vikander comes in and delivers on two roles, Essel and the Lady. This isn’t surprising at all because she always delivers. I’m never disappointed by her performances. Admittedly, i haven’t seen many but that’s because she is very particular about the characters she signs on to portray. That said, it’s weird the two performances she’s done that immediately jump out to me, are both with A24 films. Her Eva in Ex Machina, and that film in general, is what made me even take notice of both her and A24 as a studio. Here we are, seven years later, and she’s still blowing my mind. F*cking exceptional.

Ralph Ineson is almost unrecognizable in the Green Knight make-up but the second he opens his mouth, you immediately recognize that gravitas. There is a weight to this character and you f*cking feel it with every move Ineson makes. Dude isn’t in it much but the scenes he does appear in are absolutely stolen by this big, green, maestro of his craft.

More than anyone, this is Dev Patel’s film. This dude is a great actor but it’s rare someone gets a part where they can really bite into the content but that is not the case with this role. No, sir, this sh*t was tailor made for Patel and he definitely digs right the f*ck in. His Sir Gawain is just as good as his Jamal Malik from Slumdog, if not better. Seriously, this film would be nothing without Patel. As outstanding as every other aspect that i gushed about in this brilliant goddamn film, the very best is Dev Patel’s performance. Seriously, that sh*t, alone, is worth the watch.

The Verdict

The Green Knight is f*cking exceptional and exceeded all of my expectations. This year long wait was more than worth. It's the best film of the year so far, leap-frogging into my top twenty all-time and I've seen thousands of films. This thing is a masterpiece on all levels. Narrative, plot, lighting, performances, sound design, composition, editing, score; It's the closest thing to a technically perfect film I've seen in quite some time. If Dev Patel doesn't get an Oscar nod for this, there is no justice in the world because he f*cking carries this movie. Patel is easily the strongest force driving this incredibly compelling watch, but Alicia Vikander, Erin Kellyman, Sarita Choudhury, Ralph Ineson, Sean Harris, Kate Dickie, and Barry Keoghan all match that energy with f*cking gusto. I was absolutely mesmerized by the way these absolute masters in their craft, embodied and gave their respective characters life, particularly Vikander. She never disappoints.

The only issue I see that would hinder someone actually getting into this film is the fact that it's a little long in the tooth. You never really feel it, as long as you buy into the fact it's a character study and not a high concept fantasy film filled with dragons and sh*t. If you think Michael Bay and Zack Snyder are the pinnacle of cinematic excellence, pass on this. You won't make past the first tn minutes. Also, make better life choices. No, this is about Gawain and it never deviates from that core drive. Weird sh*t happens, sure, but it's nothing as fantastical as Smaug or a Balrog. Even so, this f*cking movie kept me glued to the edge of my seat. I loved every second of it and cannot sing it's praises enough. My only regret is that I didn't get to see it in a proper theater. This f*cker would have been a real experience to see on a proper cinema screen, especially that shot with the giants. The Green Knight is outstanding and deserves all of the praise it's gotten and so much more.

[rainofaugustsith]

SWTOR: Season of (Galactic) Change?

So I've had time to contemplate some of the information about 6.3 from the livestream. There will be no story spoilers, just the announcement of the format of 6.3. 

Complete honesty: I'm very disappointed it's another flashpoint. 

Complete reality: I don't think we're ever going to see a stand alone flashpoint again. For most of SWTOR's history, from Ilum onward, flashpoints have always been incorporated into main story. They don't want people to do what they were able to do in the class story, which was to stroll past all of the flashpoints (solo or not) without a second thought - missing some key story content in the process. I personally feel that is also one reason we aren't seeing planetary arcs anymore.  There are surely reasons of economy, yes, but I think they also want to ensure that all players have all story information. The planetary arcs and bonus series were again optional, and players could and did walk right past them if they pleased, missing everything from background to major plot points on Revan, the Dread Masters, the fate of Corellia, and the factions' roles on various planets.

Having said that, the issues with flashpoints have been described many times by many players. They can be really long and really tedious. None of the flashpoints from Umbara onward allow use of the combat assistance droid. There aren't any save points so you can't stop for the day and come back later. 

What do the flashpoints mean for the game overall? I personally think we're going to keep seeing the pattern of flashpoints alternating with more conventional story. What I also feel, though, is that there's a greater chance we may be getting more of that story. 

Before the recent shakeup at EA/BW, I wouldn't have thought things looked good for solo, story-based or more casual players.

The harbinger? Treatment of companions in gameplay. I'm not getting into story because I really am not up for that shit at this time of night, so please don't. But let's talk the combat settings. Companions were deliberately nerfed so they healed less. This wasn't conjecture, the devs said it was working as intended. Players started having to use forced "guest companions" in difficult flashpoints. This was something previously restricted only to story chapters, in both the class stories and KOTFE/KOTET. I personally do not think this was bad in Umbara or Nathema. Both required the player to use Lana and Theron, who were companions they knew and had likely leveled up, at least a little, through the previous story chapters. But then on Copero we were forced to use Raina Temple, who was level 1 for anyone other than Imperial Agents who had previously leveled up her influence. In both Meridian and Spirit of Vengeance players going through the story were also forced to work with one or two companions they had not leveled. The takeaway? They perhaps want players to lean less on companions, which is a common complaint among some endgame types. 

It wasn't just companions, either. Between the re-tuning of the Uprisings, the daily area and heroics of Dantooine that favored grouping, the difficulty at the end of Echoes of Oblivion and the mess that was Spirit of Vengeance, as well as the mats for new augments locked behind ranked group PvP and NiM Ops, I think the writing was on the wall. It was clear that they were going in a direction that favored raiders, as the main story became unplayable. Players were told they should just get 306-ranked gear to complete SOV, when they had only earned 268 gear by the end of Onslaught, something that's really not been necessary in the previous expansions (at least from KOTFE onward). 

But then Anthem folded. At the same time, it was noted that the single-player Star Wars: Fallen Order game had done exceptionally well. And then came the news that Dragon Age 4, which had been inexplicably developed as multi-player, would no longer have that format. Around the same time, SWTOR started soliciting suggestions for improved accessibility on the official forums. 

I think this may bode well for SWTOR. It may have finally gotten across the message that players are here for stories, and players come in many ability levels and game play preferences. Or from a more stark economic perspective, it may have clued them in that driving away everyone but the hardcore raiders does have negative outcomes. 

The fact that they even had a livestream for 6.3 was shocking to me. It's been about three months since 6.2 was released, and for some video games that might be a long time ago. But in SWTOR land that's an achievement. The most recent time the game had what could be considered regular updates throughout the year was 2017, when there were roughly three months between KOTET, Iokath, Umbara and Copero, respectively. 

Maybe they really are committed to doing better this year. I'd certainly like to think so. 

IMHO this next flashpoint will be a good barometer for the devs' intentions. They have a choice - they can do a repeat of SOV or they can make positive changes. Given that we seem to have two companions during the flashpoint, maybe they are already making those positive changes. On the other hand the companions are still "mandatory guests" rather than companions we really want to bring, and for all we know, the PC won't be questing with both of them simultaneously. 

 I'd personally like to continue my characters' stories, but I won't do it if it's going to be all tedious flashpoints that take hours and require endgame gear. So I really hope they are changing to a kinder and more open and accessible path, instead of just making "play your way" a really bad joke.

[blubberquark]

Belated Protector Postmortem

I made the game Protector for the 46th Ludum Dare game jam. I did not make a tumblr post about it during the jam. Don’t think Protector is my best jam game, but what can you expect from a jam game? Hardly a glowing endorsement, I know. Download it from itch.io at this link, or don’t.

With some distance, I think it’s interesting to tell you why I don‘t think Protector is that good... or maybe “good” is not the right word. Some friends and other Ludum Dare entrants had encouraged me (privately) to keep working on it after the jam and fix the bugs. In my opinion, Protector is fine the way it is (for a jam game anyway), but any more work on it will be a waste of time. There will be no post-compo releases of Protector.

If you are just getting started making games, Protector could be a good example of when to stop working on a prototype. But first, let’s do the usual “game jam postmortem“ song and dance.

Game Description

In this moody puzzle-ish platformer, you control an invincible character tasked with guiding a small (and very vincible) dog through the level. You cannot control the dog.

Instead you can pick up and throw a bone, but you can’t carry the bone. When you press the bone throwing button a second time, the dog will chase after the bone.

One the dog is running, you cannot stop it. You also cannot call the dog to return to you. You have to clear the path for the dog before you let it loose.

What Went Right

Scope: I scoped Protector aggressively minimal. I remember feeling a bit under the weather on the first day of the jam, so I decided to take it easy and submit something small. I was okay with submitting a small game in the jam category. I just had this idea I wanted to try out.

There is only one level, and it’s not all that big. I submitted on the morning of the third day, with everything I wanted in the game, without losing any sleep, and with some time to spare.

Theme: The idea was my own take on that last level in Bastion, when the kid carries the battering ram, but as an escort mission. The main character was supposed to be some kind of brute or barbarian loosely inspired by the barbarian class in Diablo II. Obviously you keep a dog alive, because that’s the theme of the jam.

Character Designs: I think nailed it with the brute and dog sprites. The brute is big and faceless, and the dog is small and cute. The proportions of the brute convey that he is strong and slow, and his shield (but no sword) should clue you in about his purpose.

Simple Dog Behaviour: The dog runs and bounces around pretty quickly. Once the dog is running, all bets are off, because you are too slow to catch up. You have to set everything up so the dog won’t kill himself, because he’s not a cat with nine lives. He is a dumb dog.

Any kind of AI or pathfinding would have made the dog less predictable, and the main objective of the game is to keep it alive (that was the theme of the jam), so simple, fast, predictable movement was key. The player has to be able to predict the dog’s path before it starts running.

Level Design: The level is not that big. There is a variety of obstacles and set pieces, and these are all easy for the player character to navigate, but potentially lethal to the dog. In addition to multiple platforming challenges, there are two unique “set pieces” that break up the monotony.

There are five different ways for the dog to die, and the level is constructed to make the player experience each of them once. Some are obvious, like the lightning cloud and the tower that shoots arrows, but the level is designed so that every player dies at least once. After mastering an obstacle once, it should pose no challenge on repeat playthroughs.

What Went Wrong

Controls: The controls are very simple, based on only the four arrow keys, X and C. These can be mapped to the left stick and first two buttons of a gamepad. In walk mode, the two buttons jump and call the dog, and the “up” direction is used to raise the shield.

In throw mode, with the left/right axis controls the throwing angle, and the up/down angle controls the velocity. This control scheme feels too cumbersome. The X key is used for calling the dog and throwing the bone, based on context. This also feels cumbersome, but it makes it less likely for players to accidentally throw or call the dog when they want to jump. I still had to resort to putting the controls on the screen at all times.

For gamepad controls it would have made more sense to use the direction of the left stick for the throwing angle and velocity. For keyboard+mouse controls I could have implemented a mouse-based throwing system like in Gunpoint or a parabola indicator that shows where the bone will land. I could also have gone the other way with a Worms style throwing system in which the throwing velocity is proportional to the time the button was held. As is, the throwing uses the same buttons as platforming, but it doesn’t feel good.

Bone Physics: The bone physics was kind of bouncy and floaty. I implemented my own physics because the bone was the only object in the whole game that needs halfway realistic bouncy collisions. The player and the dog use platformer physics, so there was no need for a physics engine like Box2D, libODE, or pymunk. The bone is modelled like a simple spinning ball. I could have made the bone less bouncy to give the player more control, maybe even cheated by making it less bouncy only in the x-direction. I could also have gone in the other direction and modelled the bone as a rectangle or two balls connected by a line.

Dog Platforming: The dog sometimes gets stuck in a wall or on a ledge. This is bad. I could fix this by making the dog fall down or turn around when this happens, but that would make the problem worse. I’d rather have the dog (or the bone) stuck in a weird position until the player gets it out than having it sit inside a pit in an unwinnable position with believable physics.

The way bone physics and platforming work is very janky, but that is because the obvious fix would have unacceptable gameplay consequences.

Main Gameplay Loop: It goes like this: throw bone - move into position - let dog loose - wait for dog - retrieve bone - throw bone - move into position, and so on. There is no way to call the dog back because that would make certain puzzles too easy, no way to set multiple way points for the dog, no way to ask the dog to fetch the bone back to you, and no way to carry the bone - otherwise you could just walk over and drop the bone there.

The gameplay loop as it stands just doesn’t allow that many puzzles, and changes to the gameplay would make the current puzzles too easy. Adding more content is more or less incompatible with the current gameplay, and changes to the gameplay loop would break the existing balance.

Allowing the player to carry the bone, to use different tools than the shield, to call the dog back would destroy the game design.

What I Learned

Escort missions suck. I already knew that hidden complex systems are not fun, but even indirect interaction based on simple systems is hard to get right. Beyond that, I did not try anything new and outlandish. I just had the idea about the big protector and the little dog.

The most surprising thing was how poorly Protector was rated in the “Mood” category given the relatively high theme score. Having no sound really did me no favours, and neither did the GameBoy screen resolution or the 5-colour palette.

But importantly, despite all the gameplay shortcomings, this still works as a short game. If the game is short enough, it can be carried by novelty, and players will forgive janky controls, even if the controls are part of the game’s main difficulty. I relied on this insight in other jam games, but it does not translate to long-form games.

This is a bit meta, but it is important to understand when a game design does not work. To some degree I think game jams even encourage a kind of toxic positivity towards young people learning to program. By all means, you should encourage people who want to try their hand at game design, and you should not go out of your way to disparage teenagers learning to code or programmers who make programmer art because the graphic design in their enterprise software day job is done in a different department. All too often, instead of “keep it up“, we tell people who are getting started to keep working on their jam games. If a game has load of bugs, on some level it would be nice to have them fixed, and these bugs are an obvious starting point for a post-jam version of the game - but when I see buggy games with experimental gameplay ideas, I don’t always encourage the devs to keep tweaking the mechanics until it works. Some experiments have negative results, and that’s okay.

Some jam entries are great games, successful experiments if you will, but they can’t easily be made into longer games. That’s also okay.

Can We Fix This?

“But hypothetically” you ask me, “how would you turn Protector into a longer game if I hired you to be a game designer?”

Okay. Hypothetically. In this hypothetical world, you pay by the hour, no unpaid overtime, and no bonus based on how well the game sells ;-)

We need a story that glues all the levels together, and the dog platforming would be at most a third of the game. Maybe in some levels you and the dog fight side by side, maybe you explore some of the levels with the dog on a leash, maybe you tie the leash to a post at the level entrance and come back when you have cleared everything.

I can’t stress enough how important it is to have through-line that connects different types of gameplay, different set pieces and minigames.

In order to make the platforming and puzzle solving more interesting, you would have a different load-out in different levels. Some platforms are dog-only, and you would throw the bone (or a tennis ball) up there because you can’t reach it yourself. You would need a way to recall the bone (or tennis ball) or a way to recall the dog, maybe a dog whistle. Maybe you just have a limited supply of dog treats per level. Earlier levels just have the bone, and shield, later ones introduce mobility items for the player character, tennis balls, a collar, a leash, dog treats, a dog whistle, and so on.

It would be a fun idea (or a gimmick) to have most of the upgrades be for the dog, but that’s not very fun to actually play.

Another possible problem is if the dog handling becomes an afterthought, or a drag in the player, going back to fetch the dog after the level has been cleared. Escort missions are not held in high regard among players, so this could become a self-fulfilling prophecy.

With all these mobility items and larger levels, we would need an improved dog AI. We also could not have the dog fall into a pit of spikes, instead it should refuse to jump into unsafe distances, and somehow communicate to the player. We would also need a way to get the dog back down if it got up the wrong platform, and a way for the player to reset progress to the last check point or re-fill dog treats without creating an exploitable loophole where the player can just walk back and forth to the vending machine and win a level with infinite dog treats.

Oh no, the dog AI sounds complicated now. Complicated hidden systems are not fun, and training AI-powered animals is not that difficult code-wise, but it is difficult to pull off in a way that is fun and legible to the player. I still remember Black&White. Those animals were a gimmick. Somehow we need a way for the dog to communicate things to the player. Can the dog talk? Is there a bark code? Can the dog smell things?

One thing we absolutely must not do is vary the dog AI between levels. Players will have a really hard time as is, because the smarter the dog gets, the easier it becomes to accidentally mis-predict what it will do.

Think about all the parts of this rather comprehensive proposal: Complex AI, some kind of story, different controls, unlockable items, and level/puzzle design that integrates all of the above, all written from scratch or re-written for the bigger game. I’d rather spend the time on something else.