#but i really liked the other 2 dishonored games

[madegeeky]

Epic Free Games (til 2 Feb. 2023, 10am cst)

Adios is a cinematic first-person game about sticking to a complicated decision.

You're a pig farmer in Kansas. It's October. Cold, crisp mornings are the norm, and you have decided that you're no longer okay with letting the mob use your pigs to dispose of bodies. When your old friend - a hitman - arrives with his assistant to deliver another body, you finally screw up the courage to tell them that you're done.

Hell is Others is an extraction horror PVPVE top-down shooter. Outside the safety of your apartment lies the noir hellscape of Century City. A city of endless night that straddles the line between reality and insanity. Explore, hunt and loot in a place where blood is currency.

[tossawary]

I may never get over the parallels between Emily Kaldwin and the Outsider in the Dishonored series, specifically the parallels created/revealed by Daud's games (The Knife of Dunwall and The Brigmore Witches) and Billie Lurk's game (Death of the Outsider). (Spoilers for the entire series if you haven't played the main games and companion games.)

The Outsider claims at one point that he doesn't play favorites. I think he's a fucking liar. Because in The Knife of Dunwall, he sets the story off by giving Daud a name, Delilah. He did not have to do that, just as he didn't have to give his Mark to any of the people he gave it to. He is constantly putting his hand on the scales.

Moving simultaneously to the events of Dishonored, Delilah was going to possess Emily and NO ONE saw her coming. She had everything ready in secret. She was going to win.

(Side note: I think Delilah originally developed this plan because she wanted to possess Jessamine, but her half-sister's death at Daud's hands caused Delilah to scrap whatever painting she'd originally been working on. And no one would have foreseen THAT coming either. Nightmare scenario AU for Corvo Attano.)

Corvo, Emily, and the conspirators of Dishonored didn't even know that Delilah Copperspoon existed. A guilt-stricken Daud sliding in at the last moment is the ONLY reason that Delilah didn't succeed in taking over Dunwall in Dishonored instead of Dishonored 2. And Daud only caught the impending murder of a second Empress because the Outsider gave Delilah's name to him directly.

The Outsider's favor came down on the side of Corvo and Daud, rather than Delilah, even before Delilah started doing weird shit to the Void and he took offense. Or rather: the Outsider came down on Emily's side, even before potentially Marking her. And... why?

In Death of the Outsider, it is revealed to Billie Lurk that the Outsider used to be an ordinary person. He is not infallible. He is not objective. He knows a lot, but he's probably not actually fully omniscient. An ancient cult took an ordinary young man, slit his throat, and turned him into a god against his will. And the theming surrounding eyes is not in the least bit subtle.

The vibe that I personally got while playing Death of the Outsider (interpreting only from the canon of the games, rather than any additional material) is that the Eyeless cult greedily looked upon the incredible but unpredictable power of the Void, then they made a human sacrifice and gave it a face, so that they could look upon the new avatar of its power without going insane. (At least, without going insane nearly so quickly.) They turned a person into a focus, a lens, in the hope that they could use him like a corpse puppet for their own ambitions and become powerful through him.

But the Outsider has never cooperated. Personally, I don't think that he has much power of his own, honestly, at least by what he's shown doing in the games. I think that he can only really act as a focusing lens, a pathway, through which other people can touch and use the Void. All he can really do is offer people the Mark, the ability to use him, and then watch them go. (The Heart, he manipulated Piero Joplin to make, I think. I don't know where he got the Time Piece, but I assume it was made in a similar way, taking advantage of the Crack In The Slab that Delilah made. When he "took" Billie's eye and arm in Death of the Outsider, it was only because he opened a connection to the Void in Billie Lurk that was already there.)

I think he can probably use this to make people go insane, obliterating their minds by opening the lens to the Void too far, but... I think there's a vulnerability to him making connections, temporary or permanent ones. It can be dangerous for him. In Dishonored 2, when Delilah is doing whatever she's doing with the Void, the Outsider says, "Delilah is a part of me now. And I don't like it." Delilah appears to use her own Mark to reach out to Corvo or Emily's Mark, so that she can talk to them in the Void, and she's probably doing it by reaching through the Outsider somehow.

I don't think that the Outsider can control what powers his Marked get from the Void or how deeply they reach into it (thank you, game mechanics of giving different characters different powers), which is possibly what he meant when he said that he didn't play favorites. Once he gives them access to the lens into the Void, I don't think that he can take it away or control it, only give his Marked the cold shoulder and stop talking to them. (His role in Dishonored is definitely to give you cool powers and then step back so that you can do your thing.) The game mechanic of collecting runes to increase powers suggests that it's up to the Marked to improve their powers and practice them. (See... everything with Granny Rags.)

The Outsider in Dishonored 2 struck me as... kind of helpless in some ways, confirmed by Death of the Outsider. When Billie Lurk finally finds his body in the Void, there's no fight. He can't do anything to defend himself. (I don't think he wants to defend himself.)

Somewhere in The Brigmore Witches, the Outsider says something about Delilah looking out through Emily's eyes. Emily is in some ways the avatar of Dunwall. She's the focus point of imperial power, the figure supporting the mythology of royal right and privilege, the legal means through which people can seize social, military, economic, etc. control. The Royal Spymaster tried to use Emily. The conspirators tried to use her too. And Delilah tried to trap her own niece in (I think I'm paraphrasing something else that the Outsider says) an invisible prison, screaming inside her own head while someone else takes control, to take this power for herself.

Delilah tries to do to a little girl what the Eyeless cult tried to do to the Outsider. And I think the Outsider went, "Hm, don't like that."

So, the Outsider gives a would-be Empress's name to the man who just killed the last one and is desperate for a release from guilt, even if that means covering up blood with more blood. He gives Delilah's name to DAUD, an assassin, the fucking Knife of Dunwall.

(Or maybe the Outsider could foresee the chaotic wreck that Delilah was going to make of Dunwall, when it turns out that her schemes don't "fix" everything for her like her fantasies, like she does in Dishonored 2. And the Outsider decided that Delilah's future was just too boring to let happen. That's also possible.)

And sure, Delilah comes back years later in Dishonored 2, more powerful than ever, semi-immortal, pushing back against the Outsider within the Void itself, and no one saw her coming this time either. Possibly not even the Outsider. (When the Outsider makes fun of Corvo for not seeing Delilah coming, for losing another Empress, for not stopping to talk to Daud so that Daud could warn Corvo about her, it can read as a genuine admonishment of sorts. I think the Outsider is honestly frustrated.) But if the Outsider hadn't decided to play favorites in the background of Dishonored, if he hadn't decided to set Daud on her, then Delilah would have won before anyone even knew that she was playing the game.

[bogleech]

Hello! as a fictional bug expert, I was wondering if you had any thoughts on Bloodflies from Dishonored 2? (fun fact: i searched your blog to see if you’d mentioned them and the only post that came up was an ask from years ago, also from me, talking about the river krusts in dishonored 1 lmao. i swear i play other games!!)

Oh yeah I remember the krusts, and how the wiki thinks they're mollusks and they even make "pearls" but they are definitely goose barnacles! The bloodflies are funny because officially they're supposed to be insects, from what I've read, but anatomically they're as different from insects as insects are from shrimp.

Maybe that's just because it wasn't designed by anyone who really wanted to create a realistic speculative insect, but these only have four legs, each leg only has four segments, they have perfect ball joints that aren't quite like any current Arthropod, the mouth structure isn't anything like the proboscis of any modern fly or mosquito, the body seems fused into one large streamlined segment, they have no tarsal claws and their inner organs look totally alien. Then there's the fact that apparently these are a juvenile stage, and they become what the wiki calls a kind of wingless "beetle" when they mature. Do they call them beetles in-game? It doesn't look like that stage even has official artwork? In our world all flying insects are already adults. Except for one weird group of mayflies who go through two different winged stages, any insect you see with usable wings is finished growing for good, so for an arthropod to go backwards from that is completely alien!

Aesthetically I like how bird-like they look, like stirges from D&D

Maybe that was even a part of their inspiration?

If they did evolve or mutate from an insect though, I bet it was a lousefly

This is making me want to do more articles on my actual website that just break down a single creature or monster, without necessarily being part of a whole series like the Pokemon reviews. I did think for a while that I should do just "random" daily creature analyses or by request. I should probably go back to that.

[indierpgnewsletter]

Fantasy Cities Volume 1

Around a year ago, I published a series looking at city settings from various fantasy games. I looked at 7 cities including Doskvol, Spire, Eversink, The City from a|state, Into the Cess and Citadel, Infinigrad, and Endon from Magical Industrial Revolution. I’ve now taken those 7 essays and expanded and improved them, added 2 more essays on Lankhmar from DCC’s boxed set and Freeport, a Pathfinder 1e city from Green Ronin. This PDF, Fantasy Cities Vol 1, is available now on my patreon.

Here’s an excerpt from the introduction

In the history of the fantasy genre, cities have an interesting place. Tolkien’s Lord of the Rings, which created so much of what we consider generic about fantasy, doesn't really care for cities. Which makes sense because the books themselves feel like an elegy for a time before industrialization, a love letter to the countryside - to woods and streams and the sands below your feet. The cities of Middle Earth are, at their best, noble and static, and at their worst, corrupt and fallen to the hubris of man.

The earliest thriving fantasy cities are probably in the sword and sorcery of writers like Fritz Lieber or Michael Moorcock. These stories were influenced by, among other things, the machismo of pulp magazine stories. The cities reflect this. At their best, they're a canvas for male bravado and havens for debauchery and dissolution. At their worst, they're predatory and authoritarian.

In modern fantasy, the city is ascendant. The old tropes withered under post-modernism's sarcastic glare. Now, you get Ankh-Morpork and Bas Lag and many more that capture the contradictions, potential, and romance of cities as places to spend your lives. But what about games? A city in a novel has to be interesting on the page. A city in a game has to be interesting at the table, it has to bear the weight of the imagination of 3-5 people over a shitty internet connection. That's where I started the series affectionately known (by me) as WWTAWWTAC (pronounced whatawhatac), i.e. What We Talk About When We Talk About Cities.

And here’s an excerpt from the new entry on Lankhmar:

Creating a roleplaying game supplement for an existing fantasy city is tricky. It's trickier when it's a place as famous as Lankhmar, the City of the Black Toga, the City of Sevenscore Thousand Smokes. Not only are the stories well-loved, the city is an inspiration for other well-loved cities, notably Discworld's Ankh-Morpork which started out as a loving pastiche before evolving into something deeper. (Even the word "ankh" comes from Lankhmar). This means that you have to walk the line between giving fans what they want and making it a useful, usable supplement. Basically, DCC's approach is to not invent any new lore whatsoever - as far as I can see. They lay out what Leiber's originally stories say about Lankhmar and then give themselves permission to colour within the lines with small, inoffensive details. The end result isn't radical or surprising but it does seem genuinely quite good.

I’ve titled it Volume 1 because if we hit the patreon drive’s goal, I’ll do a Volume 2. Maybe I can finally tackle Waterdeep or Ptolus. Maybe I can expand to cities in novels and actually compare them to cities in games directly. Maybe I can look at cities in video games. Where does Dunwall from Dishonored end and Duskwall begin? There’s lots of things to explore!

Thanks to the 30+ folks who signed up last week, we’re currently at 94 out of 150. So if you’re doing okay and able to support, please head over to patreon and subscribe!

Link: https://www.patreon.com/posts/fantasy-cities-1-94754443

[icedjuiceboxes]

Confront your trauma.

Daud vs Emily, Part 4.

Part 1 here

Part 2 here

Part 3 here

Part 5 here

More of my Dishonored art here

Enjoying the series? Send a tip!

Notes and thank you's below.

A fun Bonus that I did in like. 5 minutes.

ARTIST'S NOTES:

Writing Daud's taunts was SO much fun. I did a few iterations on what he said, maybe once the series is finished I do a wrap up on my sketches and what changed during development.

For the second page, I really wanted to give the feeling of overwhelmness to the reader like mimic how Emily is feeling, as all her trauma is flashing through her mind. I think it's the most panels I've drawn in a single page, and I feel like I could have cramped more in to really nail the feeling, but hey it's good practice for the future.

Emily's activation of Shadow Walk was loosely inspired by The Monster in the Hull. Shadow Walk was another abililty I didn't use in my playthrough, So I don't know if I would have gave it so much focus if it weren't for the fic. And also, taking game powers/mechanics and making it work narratively in other mediums is hard. So seeing what others do is insanely helpful

Emily's shadow walk was my own take on the power, which I explained here

Fun fact! I didn't mean to draw Jess and Delilah in the same pose and the same expression, but oh my god once I noticed it they were mirroring each other it was too good not to point out. The symbolism!! They're sisters okay!!

Thank you's

Thanks to ignorethispotatoplease, darthfluff, no-lights-left-on, geminison, jaspertheshneventh, and don1t1red for the fun tags!! And to all others who reblogged and liked <3. I appreciate it!

[alpaca-clouds]

Hear me out! Whalepunk. 🐳

Within those (potential) punk genres I listed a couple of weeks ago, there is one that absolutely fascinates me, even though it does not yet exist, if we are totally honest. The stuff I made up last week is partly more of a thing yet, than this specific one, though the name/idea is a bit older. As far as I can tell, it went something like this: "Yo, Dishonored feels kinda like a punk thing, right? And it runs on whale oil. So, like... Whalepunk? 😉" And given that there is a subreddit on it, there were definitely folks who really took to it. Yet, nothing much came from it. While I will argue that Dredge is also now part of that genre... That's it. Three games. Dishonored, Dishonored 2 and Dredge.

But I am super fascinated by the potential of this genre and now I am going to tell you why.

So, the entire Whale Oil thing predated the wide steam adaption by a bit. But of course it never got used in the way we see it used within Dishonored either way. For all intents and purposes, the whale oil in Dishonored might as well be called "magic whale goo", because it functions less as the oil and more as "energy source, but it is important it comes from whales". Because Dishonored brings in one other aspect: Some strange, almost eldritsch mysticism that is connected to the whales. And it is this, what makes the potential of the genre so interesting.

See, the thing about Whalepunk to me is, that there are three interesting things to explore within this genre.

The Whaling Industry as it existed was very cut throat and as basically the fishing industry still is today, there was ton of abuse going on. Because, duh, industries. Which would give an interesting start for the "punk" part to happen. Just explore people somehow surviving the life was a whaler and also... struggling with it. Because of their own misery, yes, but also because...

Whales are intelligent creatures. They are really, really intelligent. They are so intelligent that cultures living from fishing at times were able to co-work with the whales. So one can really work with the idea of "killing a being, that is almost human like in its intelligence" and how that might play out. And that would leave interesting places to explore. (Also: A story from the perspective of the whales?)

There is also the aspect of the ocean as this strange and unpredictable place. The one thing that to this day humanity is completely unable to tame. And the mysteries of the deep ocean. The same deep oceans the whales so often visit. Which is why this invites lovecraftian ideas so easily.

Between other people, who are interested in the punk genre, I always have heard: "But whalepunk is icky, because the poor whales." While I am sitting there like: "Whalepunk is interesting, because of that!" Because this senseless slaughter of another intelligent species can wonderfully play into the punk ideas.

And I don't know. I think this is neat. I think this genre would have a real potential on the basis of "the dependence on the ocean" vs "the unpredictability of the ocean". And I would love to see that explored a bit.

Again, so far there is not a lot within the genre. But man, I see some neet storytelling opportunities there.

[gladii0lus]

(Alright if someone wants to draw Delsin and her fighting as he fllirts with her nonstop while she is angrily tries to kill him I’ll die happy wink wink 🫣😏🤭 jk hehe unless? 👀)

Introducing my self-insert >:) Highkey if I was in the infamous world I would be a neon conduit but I wanted to try something new and decided wire :)

@morastfrck @knivesmoe (here she is!! >:))

She is a wire conduit and works in the DUP as a bishop agent (the ones with the coats lmao). Her armor is basically Fetch’s DUP outfit from First Light with a bit of tweak. She’s 22 years old and Chinese American.

She was one of the conduits that stepped up to become an agent when caught by Augustine. She’d rather do anything than to rot in the DUP prison. Sure she could run away again but what’s the risk of getting caught once more? Especially since Augustine can find her family…

Bottom is her powers explained more:

1. Since she is a bishop agent, she usually commands her team and sits back and watches. She doesn’t really fight/interfere unless she absolutely HAS to jump in.

2. Uses her wire powers to make weapons mostly (like the blade in the picture) for melee. The blade wire thing I got inspo from pinterest don’t hurt me people 😭.

3. She doesn’t really have a dash/glide but uses her wires as transportation. (Inspired by Emily Baldwin’s ability “Far Reach” in Dishonored 2 as well as metal bending from Avatar.)

4. Wire walls and shield can shield from projetiles such as blasts and other conduits powers. (The only reason they can block conduits powers is because the DUP specifically gave her DUP wires to absorb whenever she is on a mission).

Bullets on the other hand need more concentration since they’re so small, so she has to compact the wires which causes her to lose vision outside of the shield. She can force the wires to push away enemies when surrounded if overwhelmed.

5. Can snipe, grab and use her wires as an extension of herself. She HAS a limit though. There is a limit to how far she can reach. Maybe about as tall as those Seattle buildings in-game or something.

6. I have no idea how she absorbs wire to be honest :V Maybe from telephone poles and they dematerialize into her arm.

[silvantransthranduiltrash]

When light elves insult the dark elves for the nth time in front of legolas (and sis):

Light elf: -you’re such barbarians, i don’t understand why anyone would- what are you doing?

Legolas & kleoyia: *writing something on notepad*

Kleoyia: playing a game.

Legolas: i mean it’s always the same song and dance with you-

Kleoyia: “barabarians” “heritics” “idiots” “have no comprehensive of a ruling government” “dishonor on you! Dishonor on your family. Dishonor on your cow-“

Legolas: we’ve even made a game of it!

Kleoyia: *turns her notpad around to show a bingo square* Bingo! Everytime we have to interact with you light elves-

Legolas: we bring a bingo sheet with common insults you hurl at us and see who has bingo the fastest.

Kleoyia: it’s usually filled within 15 minutes.

Legolas: ironically the 2 squares that are almost never crossed off are “original insults” and “acusations of things we’ve actually done”

Kleoyia: we keep them in because it makes it interesting

Legolas: but really, do you never get tired of the same song and dance over and over and over again?

Kleoyia: at this point your insecurities and issues are easy to see

Legolas: it’s like going to a museum. “And over there is your superiority complex, over there is your self loathing, and over here is the crippling fear of being an outcast amongst your pears, so instead you make others the outcast!”

Kleoyia: “now if you follow me to exhibit b, we can see how these personal issues fuel violent and discriminatory actions against a people you’ve no understanding of just trying to live there lives”

Legolas: don’t you ever get tired of the constant hatred you spew?

Kleoyia: if i had the time and energy you have to spare to hate people that don’t even know you exist, i could probably solve world hunger.

Legolas: so why don’t you eat something and go to bed? You get cranky when you’re hungry.

Kleoyia: after all, babies need plenty of rest in order to grow into productive, esteemed members of society!

Light elf:......

Elladan and elrohir, who invited the sibs in the first place and watched all this go down: holy shit-

[pendleton-manor]

It just occurred to me that Chaos does not really affect the ending in Dishonored 2 the way it does Dishonored 1. Like, the final mission is still largely the same either way. In fact, you can play high chaos the entire time but choose to spare Delilah at the end. Which I find very weird. Like it should completely take away my agency at this point.

While the low chaos ending was flat, the final high chaos mission with the loyalists was so so good. The game was telling you “you’ve made your bed now lie in it.” From Samuel turning on you and alerting everyone with a gunshot to the fact that Pendleton dies with or without your interference to the fact that Martin shoots himself to the fact that Havelock will jump off the ledge with Emily, you have NO agency. These events will occur because of what you have already done, completely disregarding what you choose to do in the moment.

Dishonored 2 has more subtle changes based on high chaos. Aside from Emily and Corvo’s dialogue (which, in my opinion, is a classic example of telling instead of showing. Easy to forgive though) there are little hints sprinkled throughout the game that what you’re doing is negatively impacting the world. The clerk at Addermire who hangs herself and the men playing cards who get into a shootout come to mind. But this doesn’t culminate into anything other than a slideshow ending narrated by the Outsider. The player’s return to the tower is the same no matter what you do. The only difference (I think) is that Delilah is either painting or waiting in the throne room.

Why not have the low chaos ending be a bit different? Instead of the Overseers dying when they rushed the Tower, why not have them stationed outside, holding their own, protecting the few citizens left? Why not have the player save the High Overseer who has been captured, winning over the overseer forces? Then the high chaos ending can stay the same—they rushed the tower and failed and Emily finds them all dead.

The same can go for gang presence. You’re gonna tell me the Hatters and the Bottle Street gangs will just give up territory super easily? I know they’re scattered throughout the final level, but they attack on sight! If you’re low chaos, they ought to recognize you as the empress and decide that the only way to save their own skins is to help you kick witches out of their territory. High chaos, they blame you for all this mess and attack you on sight, same as always.

I don’t know.

I just think that the final high chaos level ought to make me confront my choices and force me to face the consequences. I shouldn’t have any control over what happens narratively.

[rottenshotgungames]

I’ve spent three years working on a game about motion

Footfall Devlog 1

It’s really hard for me to talk about my games. It’s even harder to talk about something I’ve been keeping so close to my chest for so long, but it’s time to do so.

This Devlog will be covering the basics of what Footfall is and the first few challenges of making a game so heavily inspired by immersive sims.

So, without further ado:

What is Footfall?

Footfall is an occult-industrial stealth-action rpg inspired by Dishonored, Assassin’s Creed, and Bloodborne. It aims to emulate the systemic ecosystem and emergent gameplay of immersive sims, and particularly the fast, creative, movement-centric gameplay of Dishonored.

You play as Gifted of the Watchman, the god of stories and action. You are functional demigods, arcane in nature and forever part of a great cosmic play of chaos and change.

Some basics about how the game is played before going forward:

You get 3 Action Points at the beginning of your turn, each action point representing a period of 2 seconds.

Movement is measured in ~3 foot increments labeled "Strides." These are about the average length of a walking stride, and tend to be measured with one's arm.

You get powers which move you and others in interesting and unique ways (e.g. teleporting, creating portals, time manipulation, etc.)

Designing a Tabletop ImSim: or How I Learned To Stop Worrying and Love the Physics Engine

This game is, first and foremost, a stealth-action game, as such one specific thing was very important to get right: movement. My most important design goal, from the beginning, was to create interesting systems that interact in cool ways, particularly in regards to movement (otherwise, the stealth would just be boring and the action wouldn’t be bombastic enough). Generally speaking, there are a few ways to do movement in TTRPGs:

Narrative abstraction (PBtAs). The strength of this one lies in its lack of necessity of maps, which is not a strength particularly necessary for a game where movement mechanics are a core pillar.

Landmark-defined zones (ALIEN RPG and Celestial Bodies). This option’s strength also lies in its abstraction. You can have tactical combat and actual movement mechanics, but you don’t need codified distances (just a big rock that tells you where you are).

Short grid-based movement based on character stats (Tactics RPGs like Fire Emblem). The strength here is in the tactical importance of moving even one tile. Moving *feels* important because you get to do so little of it in one round, and it makes each tile moved feel like a long distance.

Simplified but simulatory grid-based movement (D&D). The strength of this system is, generally speaking, how thorough yet digestible it is. You’re given jump mechanics, falling mechanics, running mechanics, and they’re all simple enough that you can (usually) remember how they work without opening the book. The issue is that they don’t tend to be very interactive—“Yay, I can jump across a 10-foot gap without that impacting anything other than my positioning. Yay.”

Without beating around the bush, none of these options appealed to me for this project. Option 4 came the closest, but the issue with it is the same as with all of them: these movement systems tend to be very . . . “confined” to only affecting positioning, whether narratively or tactically. I pretty quickly realized that I had one option in front of me, make something I had never seen before:

5. A tabletop physics engine.

First thing’s first, I laid out a few key goals for my physics engine:

Strive for playability, not accuracy. People aren't computers, I don't want you to have to perform complex calculations constantly (unless you want to and therefore choose to).

Interactivity and impact. Even if those decisions aren't codified in the physics engine itself, I want the physics to inform multiple gameplay decisions through its interactions with other systems.

Flexibility of simulation. This is a physics engine, if it breaks when someone tries to jump (which it won't) then it's not working very well, is it? People should be able to toy around with it and get cool interactions out of it without it suddenly turning into a hell of, "WHAT DO YOU MEAN DRIVING A CAR KILLS ME???"

Pretty simple stuff altogether, right? . . . right?

Alright, so what went wrong the first time? Well, I took the last point too far, to the point that I shirked the golden rule: "Strive for Playability, not Accuracy." It would be impossible to accurately model how gravity works in real life without a single round of physics-heavy combat taking 4 hours, which may be your jam but definitely isn't mine. The first version of the physics engine included such awful rules as:

Ground acceleration to model running - "If you move in a direction using 1 action point, and continue moving in the same direction with the following action point you begin to sprint. Your sprint will continue as long as you keep following up one movement with another in the same direction. Your movement speed is considered to be double its base amount and any attacks made with a bow or powder arm that target you have a minor disadvantage to hit if your last action point on your turn was spent sprinting." This was just . . . way too confusing and difficult to track, to the point that it actively disincentivized going fast.

Just straight up incorrect gravitational-acceleration math - It's still not wholly accurate, but I tried for way too long to make it wholly accurate.

An attempt to model fall-damage based upon Momentum - People accelerate downward faster than most people think they do. You will fall about 96 feet (over 29 meters) in a matter of 2 seconds. 1 Action Point. Yeah, there's just no calculating fall damage without relying solely on distance or some over-complicated math that still relies on distance.

Listed out, specific momentums that add damage to your strikes - "When an object or creature lands a strike while in motion, the energy imparted onto their target deals additional damage. If you have a momentum equal to or greater than 24 feet per Action Point before making an attack with a melee weapon, you deal an additional d4 of damage on your strike. If you have a momentum equal to or greater than 48 feet per Action Point before making an attack with a melee weapon, you deal an additional d8 of damage on your strike instead. If you have a momentum equal to . . ." God, this was so stupid of me. It's a really simple formula now: "When making an attack, for each 4 Strides per Action Point of Momentum a creature has in the direction of their target (if the target is in some combination of directions, such as Forward and Left, use the higher of the two) they deal an additional point of damage."

There were more, but it's really not worth going on and on.

Upon revising the physics engine, which was part of a whole system overhaul in the year of our lord 2022, I had one goal: "Simplify the math without simplifying the impact." Which, as you can probably tell from the second to last bullet of the prior list, I did.

The physics engine, as it is, is actually quite simple in practice. You can read the whole thing if you decide to grab the free playtest (which will be releasing soon, just have to finish up some final adjustments and get some art in), but for now I present to you . . .

The Footfall Physics Engine Quick Reference

Momentum: Strides moved in a direction since the beginning of your last Action. Momentum is directional (Forward, Backward, Left, Right, Up, Down). You may change facing at the beginning of an Action. Changing facing mid-air costs an Action Point. Move in the direction of and Strides equal to Momentum when in the air.

Gravity: When not standing on solid ground, you fall. Creatures gain 32 Strides of Downward Momentum at the beginning of each Action Point spent falling. Gifted may choose to halve this to 16 Strides.

Concussive Force: +1 Damage on attacks for each 4 Strides of Momentum in direction of Target. When hit by an object, damage die = +1 die size per 7 Strides of Momentum (1d2 at 7, 1d20 at 42). Throwing an object increases its Momentum by 21 Strides.

Fall Damage: When you hit the ground, damage die = +1 die size per 4 Strides fallen (1d2 at 4, 1d20 at 24). +1d20 for each 4 Strides beyond 24. Gifted falling at 16 Stride Gravity cannot take more than 1d20 Fall Damage.

Wall Damage: When you hit a wall, damage die = +1 die size for each 5 Strides of Momentum beyond 9 (1d2 damage at 9, 1d4 at 14). If damage die > d20, add a new die and start over.

I'm actually really proud of this physics engine. So far, players have LOVED playing around with it, and even some fairly math-dense people understood it after looking at the powers section for a little bit. I can't say for certain if I've accomplished all of my goals, and public playtesting may prove that it needs simplified further, but the successes I've had surrounding the physics engine are what told me that taking the effort to design Footfall wasn't a fool's errand. People used to tell me that movement is boring, it's just the thing you have to do to get to the fun stuff; and I feel as though I've proven it can be interesting, digestible, and—above all-else—fun.

It's fun to move yourself forward multiple strides using a power, then launch yourself into the air where you can soar across the battlefield and directly into a specific foe for increased damage. It's fun to have your buddy sit in a momentum-generation-machine constructed with two vertically aligned portals that triple her downward momentum each time she passes through, then watch as she swaps spots and momentums with a giant enemy monster, which you promptly send hurtling into a wall at 18x terminal velocity with your portals. Honestly, it's just fucking cool.

I'm so excited for people to get their hands on it.

Conclusion

Honestly, I have no idea what design lesson to leave you with. The best I can say is this: Fuck the haters. If you have an idea, and you really believe in that idea, follow through. Anything is possible given some time, planning, reflection, and a willingness to revise.

If you think something would be cool, and nobody's made it yet? Make it. Do it, right now. You can, I'm proof. It's gonna be great, I know it.

I believe in you.

Self Promotion

Welp, it's that time again folks. If you wanna check out my other games, and get updated when the Footfall free playtest goes live, follow me in Itch.io! If you want more devlogs, and more rpg design talk, follow me here or on twitter.

You really can't go wrong either way.

[wrenhavenriver]

Okay I’m not done talking about this actually. Re: the Dishonored series’ attempts to reconcile its critical views of imperialism with keeping the characters who sit at the very top of the Empire likable, I think DH1 is considerably less obvious/glaring about this internal conflict than DH2 because: 1) it’s, duh, the first in the series, and suspension of disbelief comes a lot more naturally the first time you’re told “things will be better now, for real” than the second; and 2) Jessamine’s rule sees so little screentime it’s much easier to portray the miseries of the game as entirely attributable to Burrows’ rule (and the actions of other assorted Bad People™) without directly confronting the imperial system that put them all in a position to seize and promptly abuse power in the first place. Under a read more because I can't shut up, sorry.

Like, say you play DH1 for the first time on low chaos: you get the happy ending epilogue speech, and even if it seems to smooth everything over a little too optimistically for a game that otherwise shows a collapsing society and the corruption that brought it to that state in grim, unflinching detail, well, that’s mostly okay—you maintained low chaos, after all, in essence proving the Outsider’s “Perhaps that’s just the nature of man” theory wrong, and the good effects just rippled outward to a much a larger scale, which was pretty much the point of the chaos system in the first place. If it all sounds a little bit like the happy ending to a parable not particularly grounded in the realities of systems of power that the rest of the game was critiquing, maybe that’s just what happens when an entity as long-lived and far-sighted as the Outsider summarizes a period that is little more than a miniscule blip in time to him. Stand far enough back from something and all the rough edges blur out to nothing.

(Plus it’s a video game after all, so maybe you can suspend your disbelief/any personal political beliefs about real world empires you may have brought with you. Maybe it's nice to imagine that things can change meaningfully for the better for Dunwall and the other Isles simply by plopping a Kaldwin back onto the throne.)

The existence of DH2 makes it clear, though, that the ending monologue to DH1 really is more fairytale than reality (or, you know, what happens when a game gets greenlit for a sequel the devs of three years ago didn't know they'd get). A Kaldwin takes the throne—under the watchful eye and protection of her witchcraft-using Serkonan father, at that, a man with viscerally personal history with the Abbey, the City Watch, and the deeply xenophobic nobility—and despite all those very real family connections and personal reasons to want to reform things for the better, we step into Emily’s rule to see the people of Serkonos being trampled on and worked to death in the silver mines, the Abbey still freely hunting down and torturing or otherwise “disappearing” people suspected of witchcraft, and the Guard casually beating and murdering citizens—in one notable case, by throwing one directly into the same brutal Wall of Light technology mobilized to great effect by Burrows’ corrupt regime and that is still in wide use around Emily’s Empire fifteen years later.

Some of this chaos was instigated by Delilah and her inner circle (especially the Duke) leading up to the coup, but much of it is preexisting corruption that can’t be blamed on her—she and the coven certainly had no reason to prop up the Abbey, for one, and she didn’t have to create the aristocratic bitterness motivating turncoats like Ramsey, only give them an outlet for what was already simmering. Meagan, Sokolov, and Lucia Pastor all make it abundantly clear that this was not a momentary slip-up—Dunwall Tower had been looking the other way while violence and unrest grew for some time, because the human cost of keeping silver flowing was out of sight and out of mind, a function basically built into the system of Imperial rule. Not a bug, but a feature. A tendency toward retaining corrupt institutions, an erosion of empathy, because that’s what keeps the wheels turning and wealth being funneled upward.

So when low chaos Emily professes in mission nine that she’s learned her lesson and that from now on she’ll Pay Attention, really! to the four nation Empire she’s the head of, and the happy epilogue plays and we get another Outsider monologue about the golden age ahead, it just seems…vaguely absurd? Like, we already saw this! Burrows, Campbell, and the Bastard Trio™ of the loyalists were deposed or otherwise gotten rid of, making room for Good People™ with Good Intentions™ to take their place in charge and fix things—you’ve got Emily on the throne with Corvo to guide her; Yul Khulan, a “kind” man and eventual close personal ally of Emily’s, becomes High Overseer; Curnow, widely reputed as a Reasonable Authority Figure and rare man of principle in the Guard, has survived (and presumably still has some years of service as a Captain before the retirement mentioned in The Corroded Man).

And then we fast forward fifteen years and all these groups...still suck? The Empress hates her job and is eating off plates made of silver mined by Karnacan laborers dying hideously of terrible respiratory ailments, the Overseers we see in Karnaca are ransacking homes and torturing Outsider worshippers (a group including such dangerous people as *checks notes* newspaper artists), half the City Guard is on the payroll of the shitty aristocrats supporting Delilah’s coup, and the Grand Guard is passing the time by throwing people into Walls of Light. Emily’s reign began with a veritable A-team of Certified Good People and fifteen years later it's barely made a dent, because the system of imperial rule is built from the ground up to shelter corruption and complacency, to resist change, no matter who’s in charge and whether that person is “paying attention” or not. It’s beyond the power of one sufficiently motivated Empress and a team of well-intentioned people in positions of authority below her.

It’s tempting to say “no, it really was just an issue of Emily not taking her duties seriously, look at Jessamine’s rule, or Euhorn’s before her!” but the thing is Obvious Disasters like Violent Coups Aside we really don’t have much evidence that their rules were all that much better, or at the very least any less prone to corruption? DH1 again has the advantage over DH2 here, mostly by way of omission. We don’t get to actually see what life in the Empire is like under Jessamine, just that tiny sliver of time in the Prologue returning as Corvo to Dunwall Tower, where despite the player being told there’s a deadly plague about to bring the city to a “breaking point,” the scenery is beautiful and calm and the staff are polite and affable. It makes for very compelling contrast when the game fast forwards six months to the dank misery of Coldridge Prison, and then later the grim state of the streets filling up with corpses and weepers.

Mission six completes the comparison with a return to Dunwall Tower, where the courtyard is now brimming with hostile guards and surveillance towers and tallboys, and one lone maid who openly laments Jessamine’s passing. Life under the authoritarian despot who purposely instigated a plague for the purpose of wiping out the lower classes is, obviously, much worse than life under the benevolent Empress who is introduced to us passionately advocating for saving the lives of all of her citizens. But, in the same way Emily and her inner circle of Well-Intentioned People weren’t enough to dislodge the entrenched corruption and brutality—or prevent a new wave of it—Jessamine’s kindness can’t paint over the miseries of the imperial system she presides over. We the players see Coldridge Prison for the first time in the six-months-later flashback of Burrows’ rule, but it existed during Jessamine’s time—guards state explicitly in the DLC that she and Corvo used to come inspect it, in fact. Jessamine wholly loves Corvo, a native of Serkonos, but anti-Serkonan prejudice runs rampant in her court and city. Corvo and Emily wholly love Jessamine too, but the people of Dunwall are somewhat divided on the matter (“Long live the Empress!” “She was a WENCH!” / “Not everyone did, but I really liked the Empress…”). Burrows deceived Jessamine and took advantage of her trusting nature, but he only had the resources to do so in the first place because of the system that promoted him to Royal Spymaster, a position of incredible power and very little accountability.

Euhorn we know the least about, but we are told he enjoyed a “prosperous age”—a sentiment that falls somewhat flat when we learn that he had an affair with a chamber maid (the power differential of which is highly questionable at best), strung along the resulting illegitimate daughter with promises of elevating her to a princess that he never intended to keep, then took his chance when said daughter was blamed for breaking a vase to throw her and her mother out onto the streets, where the mother is brutalized by a prison guard and eventually dies in agony in debtor’s prison, leaving the daughter to fend for herself alone in the world. All of which shows us that the Empire is, in this age of “prosperity,” still a place of extreme power imbalances where the Emperor takes advantage of women in his employ, debtor’s prisons exist, guards can cause fatal injuries to civilians on a whim and face no consequences, and children are thrown with disdain onto the streets to die. Which, on many levels, is not all that different from the ages of other rulers who follow.

tl;dr these games show us over and over again that the Empire is built on a fundamentally broken system that perpetuates corruption and then try to append “but it’s okay so long as the people in charge are good people who are paying attention to their jobs” to the end of them for the sake of keeping those characters likable, and while the first game can get away with this by virtue of being the first game and using Jessamine’s rule primarily as a way to showcase how bad Burrows’ rule sucks by comparison, this falls flat when the very existence of the second game provides ample evidence that the Good Intentions of Generally Good People are not enough to counteract the entrenched cruelties of the institutions that keep imperialism afloat. Okay I'm going to go get another hobby now bye.

[kiwiwinjindouche]

Nightmares From the Void: a horror Dishonored AU

(unless this title is already taken by something else or idk sfwjdwmfjdj i've not found anything? but let me know if it does)

I've talked about it a little some time ago, and even if I have to figure out more things (this is really getting out of hands), I have some bits to share!

Putting all this under a 'read more' cuz this is going to be a huge post.

I'd love to have your thoughts about it, if you feel like it!! <3

Quick description:

This may be a Horror!AU, but it’s definitely not just “OOOO JUMPSCARES AND GORE”. Horror isn’t just that, you know? And the best part about this is looking for references and more information because this is so interesting and so much better than just blood and viscera everywhere. I really wanted them to have their own little vibe, despite everything, and playing with the different kinds of horrors and fears. This all needs a bit more thinking yet, I’m sure, but I really like it so far.

There’re uh, changes, and maybe I’m thinking this too much like a third person game? I don’t know, maybe in first person it’d still look great.

This is just about Dishonored 2 (for now, at least?), and I mostly though about the main villains, to be honest. But as time goes by (and as I’m writing this post), I want to explore the other areas too.

I find some of the ideas a bit too obvious, somehow, but eeehhh :fingerguns: My mindset was kinda 'how could we go further, and into the horror genre, than this?"

After the ritual to bring back Delilah, in 1849, powers from the Void started to spread into Aramis’ mansion, crawling into the veins of those who were here. They slowly turned them into more monstrous versions of themselves. The closer to the ritual you were, the bigger the impact the Void had on you. Some of the guards got infected as well, but way less than the main crew. Memories of alternative lives flashed through them too.

Differences for the coup crew:

Mission 1: A Long Day in Dunwall

Enemies: /

Description: Something feels off, as a puppet-ish Luca arrives. Then, Delilah appears, and the crowd is horrified by her look and all the vines and flowers.

Additional notes: Delilah can flee with Alexi’s corpse, so the player must fight her later as an undead.

Boss battle: Ramsey is not affected by the Void, so nothing changes.

Mission 3: The Good Doctor

Type of horror: Kind of slasher, ‘virus’, body horror

Enemies: The guards are infected with bloodflies and mushrooms (? Virus?). They technically are undead and immortal, but weak. They can be killed for good with fire. Guards + Bloodflies.

Description: The player tries to escape Grim Alex’s grip. They can carry a torch to keep her away.

Additional notes: There are a torch, blueprints and upgrades regarding fire equipment in Vasco’s belongings.

Boss battle: First, the player must find the main nest of the bloodflies and burn it. Grim Alex follows the player, and she can control the bloodflies. If the player tries to kill her, her body gets infested with bloodflies and she charges back. She is afraid of fire. Her fight only has one phase, and the player either helps her with the serum or kills her for good.

Why this? Because Alexandria is already kind of infected by something, and I think she should be a bit more unhinged when you face her. I decided to go with a wendigo/rake vibe for her. She follows you everywhere you go, and you can’t really get rid of her if you don’t have fire. Everything feels more organic yet dead at the same time. There should be a spark of hope somewhere, though.

Inspirations: RE / TLOU / Redead / Scorn / Outlast / Bloodborne

Mission 4: The Clockwork Mansion

Type of horror: Psychological

Enemies: Cyborgs and clockworks. The guards are a bit weaker than the original soldiers, but they can share some capabilities. Guards + Clockworks.

Description: A kind of Hide and Seek in the mansion. The player gets knock out at the beginning and must find their stuff.

Additional notes: Sokolov is saved after the fight. They are eyes on the wall.

Boss battle: The player fights Kirin in his laboratory. He is waiting for them and jumps on his greatest clockwork (a huge one). First, the player fights the robot. Phase two, the fight is taking place beneath the laboratory, in the basement, room of the generator. The player can tear Kirin’s artificial arms/legs apart. The final move is pushing him against the generator and watching him getting electroshocked. Either it kills him or not is up to the player, depending on the power of the shock (player can get to the room before the battle).

Why this? I was thinking about more clockworks and mechanical things. In fact, the starting point of all this was for Kirin to build cyborgs too. Then, the idea of him having bugs features came to me, as a reference to him tearing their legs and such. But then, and as much as I wanted to avoid the spider thing, Kirin playing with you, as you try to escape his mansion (his web) sounded more fitting.

Inspirations: Lies of P / Shining / Bacterial Contamination / BG3 (Malus) / Mimic / Nosk / DrOctopus

Mission 5: The Royal Conservatory

Type of horror: Paranormal and jump scares

Enemies: Zombies and stuffed animals. The guards are slower but hit harder. Guards + Witches + Animals.

Description:

Additional notes: Lots of illusions. Aggressive skulls. Moving around through mirrors.

Boss battle: The player has the option to fight a big cursed plush to get the defective lens. With each hit the doll takes, it loses a member part (leg, arm…) and the player must destroy them too before they go back to the doll. Then, mirror labyrinth to get to Breanna, while the player is followed by zombies. Breanna’s fight takes place in a room surrounded by mirrors too. If the player goes behind the scenes before phase two, they can use the defective lens and remove Breanna’s powers, leading them to the non-lethal ending. Phase two, she is mostly stronger than before, but also helped by the doll if the player didn’t destroy it earlier.

Why this? I had the idea of zombies for Breanna for a long time. Again, just thinking about “how could we go further?” But zombies weren’t enough. And then I thought ‘well, there’re also a ton of dead animals there’. I also wanted to find something revolving around the lenses, or rather, glasses, hence the mirrors, and the illusions. As for the cursed plush, we already know witches have some voodoo plushies they use from time to time, so I thought it was a good reference to this too.

Inspirations: Twilight Princess (Blizzeta) / Collector (Hollow Knight)

Mission 7: A Crack in the Slab

Type of horror: Liminal spaces and gothic horror

Enemies: Ghosts. The guards don’t attack the player unless player attacks them first. They have 1 hp and respawn at each time switch. Guards.

Description: The player travels through Aramis’ mind. They must find all the broken memory pieces to restore Aramis’ health and spirit. The player starts with a 45 minutes chrono. After 15 minutes, the level starts to fall apart. The player can use clocks and hourglasses to slow or speed time.

Additional notes: The level falls apart, much like Aramis’ mind. Clocks, hourglasses. Maybe some enigmas. The player still can’t use their powers.

Boss battle: Race against time. The player must travel through past and present to stop the boss – who is TBD still (a strange chimera? And echo of Luca?). To help Aramis fully recover, the player must defeat it. Else, they can either decide to kill him or let him stay insane.

Why this? What better than liminal spaces and fear of the nothing for Aramis? His mind is falling apart, and so is the level. You must be a bit quick into this labyrinth. As I’m writing this, this needs some more thinking, but maybe thanks to a new power (or simply, a better ‘Possession’) you can go to Aramis’ mind instead of just wondering around his mansion. The idea stays the same, but still.

Inspirations: Backrooms / Crys Tales / Poes

Mission 8: The Grand Palace

Type of horror: Survival…?

Enemies: Puppets. The guards are more agile, dodge more the attacks. Guards.

Description:

Additional notes: Show off. The player must repair the false duke and the pieces are all around the palace. Inspired by the royalty and the Game. Some puppets and guards wear masks. There are music boxes in the palace (around the ballroom). Puppet and some bits of flesh.

Boss battle: Luca waits for the player in his ballroom, where they find multiple false dukes dancing with the ‘guests’. They must find the right one and defeat him. They can also be helped by a dysfunctional puppet they must repair first – Armando. Then, Luca twisted and turns into a giant puppet with wacky movements.

Why this? So, this might be the less ‘horror’ one, somehow. Depends on if you are fine with getting surrounded by puppets or not. But why puppets? Because Luca longs for control. He is creating himself a perfect little world where everyone will obey him. And yet, he is one of them, because Delilah is already using him. I had in mind a ballroom, more excessive and unnecessary shows off. He is rich, he is powerful, he doesn’t care about the others.

Inspirations: Little Nightmares / Steelrising (ambient) / Skull kid puppets / Nutcracker

Mission 9: Death to the Empress

Type of horror: Analog horror and strange imagery, a bit of dark fantasy but tiny bit

Enemies: A bit of everything and living paintings. The guards are moving when the player is not watching. The paintings can catch and block the player, attack them or simply scare them. Guards + Witches + Clockworks + Paintings.

Description:

Additional notes:

Boss battle: First, the player fights her outside, but there are other living paintings that attack them. Every weakness moment of Delilah, the player can reunite her with her soul. Then, she runs into her perfect world, the player shall follow her, but instead they find a crying Jessamine. They have a small chat together, until the player realizes it’s Delilah using her powers to stab where it hurts. The player then fights Delilah, but with Jessamine’s appearance. Lastly, Delilah charges a final blow, and statues are attacking the player. They must survive a certain amount of time. Then, the final blow explodes and both her and the player are thrown out of the painting. The player wakes up before she does, and either they decide to kill her or not by messing with the ritual.

Why this? Well, I know analog horror is also about found footage and doesn’t suit Dishonored, but the weird imagery looks just fine for a painter. Also, what about moving statues? Surely this is not new, and not all of them would move obviously.

Inspirations: Mandela Catalogue / A Hat in Time / Layers of fear / Canvas Curse (Drawcia)

And that's ... almost it? Wait, could this be... what's up there???

Epilogue: Secret Meeting

Type of horror: Cosmic horror

Description: If the player found all the runes and bonecharms throughout the game, after the credits they appear in the Void. The Outsider comes to them to talk about their run, their choices, and asks them if they wish to see his true form. Then, the player can decide to fight him.

Why this? Because I wanted to add cosmic horror to the list! And the Outsider is already kind of that, the Void is a space beyond true comprehension and such. I still have to figure out his ‘true form’ as a powerful being.

Inspirations: Lovecraft

AND NOW, that's about it so far! As you can see, some things still need a good thinking and such, to be worked on. I've also started to think about a playlist, but I'm not sure about it yet and this is going to be for later. There'll definitely be more to it, I just don't know when lol.

THANK YOU SO MUCH IF YOU'VE READ IT ALL, it means a lot!!!! 💗​💗​💗​

[splatsvilles-fashionista]

Splatoon 3: A quick guide to Gear Abilities - Part 1

 Splatoon 3 has been out for a couple of days now, and has brought in a lot of new fans, along with a ton of returning ones, but one thing everyone has in common, regardless of experience with the series, is that none of us have any goddamn gear now! Gear is very important, and can have a big impact on how you play your weapon, and how well you play it.

This guide is meant to be a quick reference point for what Abilities do and if they’re right for you. My intention here is to try and ease newer players, or even older players who aren’t sure what they want, into putting together gear sets with a sense of purpose and functionality.

Before we start, let’s go over some basics.

The golden rule, the one that takes priority over everything else, is to always use what you like the most. The suggestions I am going to make are written from the perspective of trying to be as optimal as possible, but I encourage you to ignore everything I’m about to say if doing so makes the game more fun for you. You don’t owe it to anyone to follow the meta, play what you want, how you want.

Most abilities are functionally identical to their counterparts in Splatoon 2. This means that if you can copy a setup that worked well for you in that game then there is very little reason to change it in this game.

All abilities have diminishing returns, meaning that the fewer points of an ability you have, the more each individual point is worth is worth. This means that pures, gear pieces that have one main and three subs of the same ability, while looking clean, are often redundant when worn together. Sometimes, three pures with the same ability barely give more benefits than a single one does!

I’m not going to go over the Main Slot-exclusive abilities in this post, as I intend to make a separate post for those later this week. Main-exclusive Abilities are generally very niche, with a couple of exceptions, like Last-Ditch Effort and Stealth Jump, both of which are generally regarded as some of the best abilities available in Ranked mode.

I’m also not going into great detail on Special Power Up, simply because that ability is so complex that no one is really sure how good it is, yet. That said, from what I know, it’s very good on Tacticooler (massively increasing the duration) and very bad on Tri-zooka (increased duration, which means nothing when you still only get the three shots) and Booyah Bomb (increased passive energy charge) in particular.

With that said, let’s start with...

The One-Point Wonders: Quick Super Jump, Ink Resistance Up, Sub Resistance Up, and Special Saver

These four abilities, Quick Super Jump, Ink Resistance Up, Sub Resistance Up and Special Saver, are all great to have one sub slot off. With only a single sub slot, Quick Super Jump increases the speed of Super Jumps by about .2 seconds, which will absolutely add up over the course of a match. Ink Resistance Up increases movement speed in enemy ink by a whooping 20%, and also increases the amount of time you can spend in enemy ink before you start taking damage by somewhere around a tenth of a second. Sub Resistance Up scales more or less the time as Bomb Defense Up DX did in Splatoon 2, which means that a single sub can ruin a lot of popular bomb combos that rely on hitting bomb splash damage. Finally, Special Saver reduces the amount of Special lost on death from 50% to 41%. You will very often see competitive players run one point each of the first three, and sometimes Sub Saver when they’re playing a weapon that really cares about the Special.

Having covered the general-purpose abilities, let’s start getting specific, beginning with:

The Dishonorable Mention: Sub Power Up

Sub Power Up has the misfortune of being the single worst ability in the game by a pretty significant margin. Its effects on most Sub Weapons are negligible, generally only increasing throw distance, and for the ones that get other effects the scaling tends to be incredibly poor. There is one notable exception, however. For Squid Beakons, the effect of Sub Power Up is increasing the Super Jump speed of people jumping to them, and the scaling is really good, with two subs actually translating to three Subs of Quick Super Jump. if you’re a Squid Beakon fanatic, consider giving this poor ability a home in your build.

The New Hotness: Intensify Action

Intensify Action is the other new ability, and it does three different things. It makes Squid Surges charge faster, reduces momentum lost from doing multiple Squid Rolls in a row, and reduces the accuracy penalty while firing in the air. The effects on Surge and Roll are nice, but it’s really that last thing we care about. That said, this effect actually doesn’t do anything on a lot of weapon types, as only Shooters, Blasters, Splatlings and Dualies have the air penalty, but on those weapons the scaling is absolutely fantastic, as a single sub reduces the penalty by 40%. The exception here are Blasters, who actually scale way worse by comparison. Regardless, it’s still a fantastic ability for Blasters, Ranged Blaster in particular. If you main any of the aforementioned weapon types, give this ability a shot! You won’t be disappointed.

The Old Favourite: Swim Speed Up

Doing exactly what it says on the tin, Swim Speed Up is one of the most consistently reliable abilities in the game. Aside from just being all-around good, Swim Speed Up is also very important in reducing the speed penalty from Ninja Squid and heavy weapons. For heavy weapons like the Hydra, Dynamo and Explosher, a paltry two sub slots is all you need to go from a trudging 90% swim speed to a blazing 102%. To offset Ninja Squid, on the other hand, you will need at least seven sub slots. As an additional note, light weapons, like Splattershot jr. and Tri-Slosher, get lessened effects from this ability, but their inherent movement speed bonus means they will always be faster than mid-weights and heavies, as long as they all have the same amount of ability points.

Sprinkle this ability into your gear to your liking. You can’t go wrong with Swim Speed.

For The Specialized: Run Speed Up

While similar in concept, Run Speed Up ends up being radically different from its swimming counterpart. Moving faster while on your two feet might seem like a no-brainer, but most weapons don’t actually spend that much time out of the ink for prolonged periods of time. And many of the weapons that do, like most Sloshers and Chargers, actually have pretty poor movement speed while firing, which means that Run Speed Up, which gives a percentage increase, benefits them very little.

So what wants Run Speed Up? Splatlings like it due to them spending a lot of time charging and even longer firing (Nautilus excluded, due to its charge hold and terrible innate strafe speed). Brellas also enjoy the spring in their step, due to the sheer amount of time they’ll spend holding up their shield. The new Stringers can also make use of it due their high innate strafe speed.

Simply put, think about how much time you spend actually firing on the move, and how well your weapon moves on the ground innately, and you should be able to figure out if you want this ability from there. Generally speaking, you’ll want a single pure at most.

Great Savings: Ink Saver (Main) and Ink Saver (Sub)

The Ink Savers, which reduce the cost of your Main Weapon’s fire and your Sub weapon, respectively, are pretty easy to explain. Simply put, Ink Saver (Main) should only be used on weapons that have a very high firing cost to begin with, like Dynamo Roller and Explosher. Most shooters and dualies can fire dozens if not more than a hundred times before running out of ink, and as such get incredibly little out of it reducing that cost. On weapons like that reducing the cost of your Sub weapon might be significantly more worthwhile, especially if you like using it in tandem with your Main weapon.

The most important thing when using these abilities on your gear is to make sure the amount you settle for has a purpose. Going back to the Explosher again, rather than just settle for whatever you, try to find an amount of Ink Saver (Main) that actually increases the amount of shots you get on a full tank by a comfortable amount, and leave it at that. When it comes to Ink Saver (Sub), instead try to find an amount where you feel like you can throw your bomb and have a comfortable amount of ink left in the tank to fight with. Experiment, and see what feels right for you.

As an aside, don’t use Ink Saver (Sub) if you have a utility Sub like Squid Beakon, Sprinkler or Ink Mine. It should be saved for Sub weapons that are used frequently and proactive.

Three Fantastic Slot Fillers: Ink Recovery Up, Special Charge Up, Quick Respawn

I call these abilities slot fillers, but don’t let that make you believe they are unimportant, because depending on your playstyle they might actually be the most important abilities in your entire arsenal.

Ink Recovery is probably the least exciting of these, and the one I have the least to say about. It’s an excellent ability, especially if you prefer to sneak around in your ink a lot, and if you do it’ll probably be more worthwhile than any of the Ink Savers.

Special Charge Up is an excellent choice if your playstyle revolves heavily around your Special. Special costs are by and large a lot more expensive in Splatoon 3 than they were in Splatoon 2, so whether you’re spamming Reef Slider or Tacticooler, consider sticking some of this in your build, and make sure to mix in some Special Saver to sweeten the deal.

Finally, Quick Respawn is a solid fallback plan for all occasions. It only shortens the respawn timer if you haven’t gotten a kill since the last time you died, but this doesn’t really diminish its usefulness all that much. We all have games where we’re not doing too hot, be it due to personal reasons or because we’re simply in a bad matchup, and Quick Respawn helps you get back in the game quicker. Additionally, Quick Respawn does not care about assists, so if you can still pitch in with bomb splash damage, tracking, or Tacticooler drinks, and still keep your shortened respawn.

All of these abilities are good in any amount, so fit in as much as you’d like in any mixture you’d like.

And that’s all regular abilities (except one) in Splatoon 3! I’ll be back later this week with a second part, going over the Main-exclusive abilities.

Thank you for your time, I hope this guide has been useful to you, and if you have questions, feel free to send them my way!

[mokeonn]

Why don't you wanna play your other games cuz you can't turn them honor? What part of honor mode has enchanted you so?

I do enjoy my other games but I am having a TON of fun with honor mode, mainly coming down to the following reasons:

- No reloading.

This has been my blessing and my curse. On the one hand, it makes battles WAY more fun because if they go south, I can't just press the magic undo key. It's changed my battle strategy when I lose from "just reload to before the battle" to "have someone escape and prepare to pickpocket Withers at camp," which is a lot more fun imo. It's also why I had so many problems with the phase spider matriarch and why Poetry is technically continuing with dishonor because I kept running away and leaving camp right back to the fight. (Which was my fault, I forgot you can use waypoints in camp)

It also means I don't have to worry about saving often anymore. No more backtracking more than expected because I forgot to save before or after an event, because I simply can't backtrack!

However this also causes a nightmare, if you fuck up and end up wiping out an entire town or giving a character a bad end on accident, you're stuck with that. I have figured out how to turn the tide in my favor for a lot of events, but for others, I am simply out of luck if I mess it up. Like triggering the Isobel kidnapping scene and not winning the fight, or if something happens to a future companion in a battle where they're an ally. You're just stuck with the consequences, which sucks SO much.

- the difficulty is kinda fun and adds new features to fights that freshens it up

I normally go through the game in balanced mode, because that feels just right for me, but I can't help but admit that the new attacks and enemy features of honor mode freshen up the game a lot more. Take the intellect devourer fight at the very beginning of the game when you pick up Shadowheart, I've done that fight so many times it's more of a chore that gets you to level up than anything else. In tactician mode, it's the same fight, but they hit harder. In honor mode??? Those fuckers got laser beams! That's new! That adds something that freshens up an old experience! I like that a lot!

Many fights are like that where an old fight I've already done at least 5 times feels new. Getting the owlbear fight out of the way? Now there's 2 owlbears, bitch. Does the hag have new attacks? I wouldn't know! I just cheese the fight by arcane locking the stairs to the lair when she first reveals herself.

It really adds a breath of fresh air, and it gets me to think a lot more about equipment, spells, battle strategies, classes, feats, and so on. Rather than simply brute forcing my way through and reloading until I win.

-food system

I understand this is just a general tactician mode change, but instead of 40 camp supplies, you need 80.

I tend to pick up any edible substance I can see anyways, leading to me having over 1,000 camp supplies sometimes. I have to constantly distribute supplies to other party members lest my player character have 70% of their inventory and ability to carry things be taken up by food. I am constantly juggling to make sure I don't become encumbered.

So, having that set to 80 instantly helps me cut down on food and has even caused a little challenge. Due to the difficulty of honor mode, I have to long rest more, which means I now ACTUALLY have to worry about camp supplies. There will be times were the party needs to rest but I don't have enough supplies so I need to either find something, or buy something.

I find the food management aspect really fun actually and it's very interesting to want to long rest only to realize you only have 18 supplies and need to scramble to get 62 more.

-gettin' funky with it

I think the biggest part I like about honor mode as well is that there are areas where you can't simply run away to camp if things go south. So the game constantly requires me to think outside of the box and get funky with it.

Things like using enemies as weapons against other enemies, making a healing circle in combat and throwing a potion down in the middle of it, getting rid of an entire boss fight early by simply getting other enemies to fight them, blocking off doorways with boxes or arcane lock, finding out that darkness is your friend it is SUCH a good spell.

It's REALLY fun to figure out wild solutions to get things done without risking the run ending. A dumb example was in grymforge! I wanted to get all the duegar out of the way before fighting Nere, so I did this by going to the upper platform hanging above the entrance of the main room, and using a berserker Karlach to start throwing things down. Most of the duegar were melee fighters so they would end up dashing around and missing turns, and those that could hit far were taken out first. I had potions lined up the wazoo and made shadowheart throw them on karlach when she got low on health, Astarion was sneak attacking, and Poetry (my durge bardlock) was inspiring Karlach and eldrich blasting.

It got even better because some enemies had javelins they would throw up, which meant that Karlach now had more Javelins to throw down.

It was a dumb battle that ended with a solid 8 turns of everyone wailing on the scrying eye hoping to damage it, because we ran out of thunder spells that could hurt it and most of our damage was negated most turns. It cried for help every time, but no help came.

But I had a ton of fun with it! It was a memorable fight! It wasn't like my first fight in my first playthrough where I had to keep reloading, I just got to win by standing up really high and making Karlach throw every Javelin I had found and gave her throughout the game and then some.

-it justifies my bad habits that make gamers cry

To the joy of all my friends, I have stopped using my inventory system I made up. I used to pick up every backpack and pouch I could find and sort everything into 4 bags in the order of: spell scrolls, drinkables, throwables, and coatables.

This kept everything nice and clean as most things outside of these bags either got a special bag (i.e story items or dye bottles) or just got to be sold. It was a little tedious to grab things during battle, but I used the custom page to make things easier. So it was only really a pain getting things out of someone else's inventory.

I have since found out that an auto sort by type button exists, and I can just use that instead. And that a search bar exists. It took until a friend pointed it out for me to realize this. So I stopped doing the bag system since I could simply throw the story items you can't sell into a backpack and just auto sort everything else.

Plus I used to have a treasure pouch I would sell, which is not necessary! That's what the 'add to wares' button is for! Whoopsie!

So, thankfully, for everyone, I stopped doing the backpack system...

However

I had also developed another habit around the same time I developed the backpack system. I was doing a challenge run where I dared myself to use every object I picked up no matter how useless, and it caused me to develop a habit that makes everyone who plays with me cry:

I press take all no matter what.

That's just how I close containers.

There's nothing that makes a friend playing with you cry more than an inventory full of useless garbage, and you keep picking up more garbage off the ground to mess with them.

In honor mode, the shop prices are HIGH. A 80 gp ring of flinging in balanced mode is over 200gp in honor mode. The gloves of missile snaring that are about 200 gp normally? Over 600gp. If you aren't planning on pickpocketting (which admittedly I am clearly under utilizing and I need to plan on pickpocketting more), you need a LOT of money to buy items you need.

You know what gets you a lot of money? Selling a metric fuckton of armor, weapons, rotten food, bones, and whatever other garbage you pick up!

Hell, if you even give some of these to shop keepers for free, they'll like you more and lower the prices!

So next time your friend yells at you for picking up all of the severed body parts you see in on the risen road, consider that each of those parts net you about 3 gold, and you need that bottle of light blue dye Dammon is selling.

- I want the achievement and the gold dice

I've been getting into achievement hunting and I really like how all of bg3 achievements are achievable through story beats or small fun actions, so I want the achievement. I'm already working on the second hardest one which is busking 100 gold, so I need the hardest one. Boost my ego. Plus I wanna see if it gets the tactician achievement out of the way as well.

Also yeah I want those gold dice lmao

So that's why I have only been playing honor mode lately. I still love those regular balanced games, and I will need to revisit my main game soon since I haven't beaten the game yet and have no idea what act 3 encounters there are, but I am having the time of my life with honor mode. The furthest I have gotten so far is right before the Nightsong and the assault on Moonrise Towers. I would be able to tell you how well that went if I didn't proceed to let my hubris get the better of me and mess up the last light Inn.

Anyways, I highly recommend trying honor mode! It really forces you to get into out of the box thinking and try some spells, classes, and methods you might not have used. Whether that's disguising yourself as a drow to get past the goblin camps conflict free, pickpocketting every shopkeeper you can to save money, or saving every smokepowder barrel you can find; there's a lot of fun to be had in honor mode.

Of course, if you normally do explorer and never balanced or tactician, maybe reconsider idk. Also I am weird and absolutely have been trying new classes I never played before in this mode, I highly recommend playing a class you have played before if you're worried about the difficulty. For me? I got act 1 figured out, so by act 2 I'll be used to the class I picked it's no biggie :)

So far the only honor mode game going REALLY well for me is the one I'm doing with my friend, since he was unsure about honor mode and normally plays explorer. That one he is a druid half-wood elf (which is a fantastic pick as the wild shapes are grand for not dying and half-wood elves get an extra 3 meters to their speed) and I am a war cleric of Selune romancing Lae'zel (war clerics RULE for hitting hard, and I wanted to piss off Shadowheart as much as possible with my build.) So if you have a friend who likes playing tactician or honor mode, you can totally mooch off them. Having another player to control half of the team honestly helps a lot imo.

[foxhopfics]

Hey! I'm Jamie/Spiral/Fox and i write things sometimes!

You can find me @/spiralsystem on Ao3!

This blog will mainly work with requests, as my main fics that I'm working on will be posted directly to archive.

For x reader requests I will likely use the pronoun "you" over "they" (I just think it's fun)

HOW TO SEND A REQUEST: please send the pairing you want, any tropes or whatever (not obligatory), and pick from one of 3:

- Headcanons: a quick page of headcanon points

- Drabble: quick blurb between 200-500 words

- Short fic: 1000-3000 words

Please don't be shy with requests!

Request types I will take:

X GN!Reader

X Male!reader

X Trans!reader

Character x character

Main fandoms I'll currently write for:

Baldur's Gate 3

911/911 Lone Star

Dishonored

Ace Attorney

Vocaloid/Project Sekai Colourful Stage

Critical role seasons 1 & 2

Dc

Jujutsu Kaisen

Genshin Impact

All For The Game

& Many more!

More about my writing under the cut so this doesn't get super long :)

Views on shit for writing: I reaaallly don't subscribe to the whole concept of proship/antiship. I take requests on what I'm comfortable writing.

I DO accept nsfw requests, but only within appropriate age ranges. I am comfortable writing age gaps but please dm me and i'll write something on a different site, same with any other typically "taboo" requests. I will not release a "will not/will write" list because that's just inviting problems.

If you'd like nsfw x a minor!character, please specify in the ask if you are also a minor. If there is no age, I will deny the request. I won't write underage smut for adults. I also probably won't push it past an M rating.

Minors I write for:

ProSeka: Honestly realistically most of these characters are minors, but like we don't all know teenagers aren't celibate. Vocaloids don't canonically have ages but since they're all kinda minor-coded, I'll just stick to M max for proseka.

Genshin - Qiqi and Klee, Sayu, and Yaoyao. Diona is NOT a minor, she runs a bar 🙄. Bennett/razor/fischl/anybody who uses the "teen model" I consider 18 at least.

Ace attorney - pearl, trucy. If you want ema I'll write her as her older self unless specified, sorry.

9-1-1: I'll write any of the kids as a side accessory to their parents, unless you want a Gen piece about the kids. I love writing Chris & Denny :)

Dc: Ages are played with a lot in DC, so any characters that are generally accepted as minors/adults will be treated as such. I.e: Damian Wayne, Jon kent will be treated as kids unless you specify a universe where they're older (like when Older!Jon came to that one Earth)

BALDUR'S GATE 3:

The ONLY characters I won't write for this are LAE'ZEL and MINTHARA:

Minthara: killed her and saved the tieflings. No real interest in having her as a companion so I haven't seen any content with her.

Lae'zel: get back to me when she doesn't excuse slaughtering and colonizing entire towns lol. I'm native and the gith creche slaughtering the entire temple of lathander (as. As a cleric of lathander also) and she was like 🤷‍♂️ we live here now. I was not cool with that. I also really don't know how to write a romance for someone who is constantly combative towards the player.

BSD: I can only write for the ADA characters + aktugawa because. I have only seen season 1 :,) sorry

Muses & character's I'm great at writing for:

Bg3: Tav, Wyll

911: Eddie, TK

Dishonored: Corvo, Outsider (and Garett from Thief 2014)

Ace Attorney: Edgeworth, Klavier, Apollo, Clay, Simon, Diego

Vocaloid/Proseka: Len, VFlower, GUMI, Shiho, Toya, Mafuyu, Mizuki

Critrole: Percy, Vax, Caleb, Jester

DC: batfam, superfam, flashs & rogues gallery, teen titans, young justice

JJK: Gojo, Nanami, Itadori, Inumaki, Fushiguro

Genshin: Diluc, Zhongli, Alhaitham & Kaveh (and 4ggravate), Traveler twins, Pantalone, Wriothesley

AFTG: Neil, Aaron, Jean

[the-sinful-voice-witch]

Ok soooooo I'm gonna write how I wish the final battle between Knuckles and Rouge would be in the movie according to my post about her participation in it, you know the scene from SA2 that I strongly hope they add in the next movie:

So, this conversation takes place after a fight, you have to visualize exactly the Sonic Adventure 2 last fight between them but with a scene of Rouge braking her wing after Knuckles throws her against a wall or something and I think everyone who saw that original scene in the video game doesn't need an explanation of why 😂😂 and this could be a fight for the pieces of the master emerald or the chaos emeralds, I'm not sure what fits better in the context of the version of the movie:

Rouge: AJJJ! *in pain *You brute! Some "noble" guardian you are! Attacking a lady?! SHAME ON YOU!!

Knuckles: Excuse me? You're the one who cowardly ambushed me from behind more than once! At least I have enough honor to attack from the front and what kind of Lady goes around stealing jewels?? You dishonorable thief!!

* Rouge feeling humiliated at his words rushes at him despite the pain on her wing*

Rouge: All the jewels in the world belong to me...!! Eh..!? Aaaaaaah!! *she loses balance and trips falling from the platform unable to fly up *

Knuckles: Hey!!!!! *jumps and grabs *

Rouge: kuuuhh!! .... Eh? * opens her eyes and looks up at his eyes confused *

Knuckles: got you!

* he pulls himself up and helps her get on the platform again while still looking at each other eyes, he is still holding her hand until she suddenly recovers from the shock and feels embarrassed so she pulled her hand away as if she got burned *

Rouge: Keep your hands from me! Don't touch me... * looks away embarrassed *

Knuckles: !? Is that how you're gonna thank me for saving your life??

Rouge: saving my life? *looks at him outraged* Ja! I broke my wing because of you, I'm not falling for that "noble" act, I'm sure you just wanted to hold my hand...

Knuckles: The audacity Woman! Are you crazy?! After what you put me through you spit at me that nonsense?!

Rouge: ha! if not that... surely you just wanted to save the goods I carry with me so don't pretend to be a hero!

Knuckles: I didn't even know you had them with you bat-girl! I did it because it was the right thing to do, is what someone taught me in Earth. I just followed the wisdom I believe in! Don't you dare to doubt the hero's way!

Rouge: what kind of wisdom is that? Being a hero means being so stupid you'd save the enemy's life?

Knuckles: No, it means I couldn't just let you die because... Being a hero means you take responsibility for other people and not care only about yourself, I guess a selfish thief like you wouldn't understand, you don't even care how much people you put in danger with your actions but I do not care, I will keep fighting you and do what I need to do to help those people and fulfill my guardian duty! * strikes a ready for fight pose*

Rouge:......... * keeps side looking at him until she sighs * Ahh... Not matter what you say you sound stupid to me...

Knuckles: what did you sa...?! !!! * gets the stolen goods thrown at him * HEY!? Eh... * confused * what?

Rouge: then just take them, I'm so tired of fighting you, this isn't funny or worthy anymore... * she turns around ready to leave *

Knuckles: Wait!! Your wing!! Don't you... Need help to set it back in place? I'm sorry I broke it, let me just...!

Rouge: * turns her head at him* Ah this? Don't worry... * se grabs her wing and puts it back in place again herself* Gah..! Uff, this is nothing, I'm a strong lady, im sure you already know...

Knuckles:.... Impressive...

Rouge: * she starts flying away while Knuckles looks at her in awe really impressed* Goodbye handsome and don't go around holding girls hands with that gentle grip of yours they might think you have no decency...

Knuckles: what the...!? You...!!! Hey!! * she flies away laughing maliciously * ....* sight* wait, did she just called my grip gentle...? Aaaarrr I have no time for this!! * runs out of the platform embarrassed*

SECOND ACT: SCENE AFTER SHADOW'S SACRIFICE

*Rouge walks close to knuckles to stare into the space through the window *

Knuckles: So... What are your plans now? Are you going to keep looking for those jewels you like so much?

Rouge: nah, I think I'm going to quit that... Too much work for too little pay...

Knuckles: I see... * looks shyly away*

Rouge: so, looks like he also believed in that earthly hero wisdom...

Knuckles: *looks back at her a bit sadly*

Rouge: he really *looks down to Shadow's bracelet and then at the Earth* took responsibility for all those people...

Knuckles: *follows her gaze * yes, he fought like the most honorable warrior, he earned my respect

Rouge: * sights and chuckles * jiji I see... * she looks back at knuckles and he looks back at her so their eyes meet again* I guess this is a goodbye

Knuckles:..... I guess so...

Rouge: * she starts to turn around to leave * come on, don't make that long face I'm sure we'll see each other again handsome... * winks *

Knuckles: * makes an unamused face *sure, bet you'll come back just to be a pain in the ass...

Rouge: my my whatever did I do to earn that sass from you knucklehead... anyway goodbye!! * she sprints away *

Knuckles: grrrrr Hum! * rolls his eyes and then makes a fond side smile at her back * goodbye bat- girl

And the end!

Remember my other post? You know my Headcanon is that she will live with Randall and Rachel so soon Knuckles will see her in a video-call XD