#gonna leave it tonight (it's 11pm for me) lol im exhausted from that

[spiralguide]

hiveswap liveblog part 1

- the home screen music is so pretty! love the harp + piano + synth strings combo and the chord progs. reminds me a bit of the sims opening music somehow - ooh that opening noise was quite undertale esque - fucksake my laptop can't play the opening cutscene :I :I i guess im in a room now. some nice monstery bg sound

BEDROOM - roxy is the babysitter i guess? and their dad is gpa harley? - oh wow joey actually goes to school that's slightly jarring. breaks the isolated feel you get from the comic - oh look a fiduspawn reference. there's a cheruby key in there. ok - couple of misses with the writing style so far for me but some good hits. - what the fuck there's a manthro chap there. solid "what a daring dream" and pony pals references - there's so much to look at why is there so much to look at - damn that outside landscape is pretty! - more misses. man it's hard to avoid the fact that a walkaround game written by hussie would have been hilarious. but then if it were written by hussie i would be being much less critical of it so maybe not a fair comparison - ok jude using walkie talkie speak is cute. the joke of him being way too serious about this is pretty funny and his dialogue is landing well w me - wow was that... a misspelling. on 'material'

HALLWAY - good god that's a lot of crap in the hallway. i hope i don't have to click on all of it - I LIKE THIS MUSIC. I REALLY LIKE THE GLOCKENSPIELY MIDDLE 8. the staccato string chords remind me of something from the homestuck soundtracks but i can't think what - what the fuck is the signless doing in the hallway - the geography of this hallway is not immediately clear but it opens out on a landing which is why both directions of an apparent fork go the same way - more stuff is landing w me. tho some of the LOOK / ACTION choices seem a bit confusing and superfluous - what are pogs.... google says milk caps. is this a weird american thing - the significance of the mulder/scully preferences was lost on me because i don't know which is which lmao i am a fake nerd - "i better shake a leg" what. does that mean. hurry up?  - this is a VERY pretty game i have to say

ATTIC - oh gpa harley hangs out up here? this is weird and i don't get the familial basis of this game. feels like a weird au - miss and hit - ooooh nice music upon peering into the attic i hope there's more when you go in - more good jude dialogue - it feels weird to be playing a game where you have to click to move vs like, the johns land walkabout flash which was much simpler and yet allowed you to navigate with keys. i keep reaching for them

STAIRS - a miss... oh god. bad miss - there's a picture of jake and jane. and roxy. still a solid what the fuck on that one. and there's also a wedding picture of joey's random hot mom with mustachioed jake english and just. what is he doing there. ok foreshadowing that the dog betrayed jake which sounds stupid but whatever - another miss. why isn't there a space after any of the ellipses. i noticed this in the first room but it felt petty to mention it then and now it is annoying

DOWNSTAIRS - a tuba? this music is pretty noiry. i would LOVE a noiry soundtrack, trollcops was always one of my fav ever hs songs. tho there's some weird piano happening in the background which doesn't fit tonally and is confusing me - does joey have a crush on the green lady from reboot? sure seems like it. ok the idea of jake's daughter having a thing for GREEN ladies is p funny - aww i was really excited for her to play a haunting melody. MORE CREEPY MUSIC - oh some blue ladies! yeah she's defo gay and not being shy about it in her internal monologue omg yay - may have been another typo there but i clicked too fast to tell - thing where she turned the static noise off seems kinda unnecessary but ok - that commentary lacked a full stop... - spice mix seems irrelevant - the rooms aren't labeled or anything and it's not v helpful and making everything feel a bit disordered - why are jude's question marks separated... also it would be funnier if he did a vocalised "question mark" a la kanaya. but his dialogue is still good - something i only just noticed because im dumb: joey types in jane's blue but no capitalisation. jude types in yellow which is a new colour, it's not sollux's yellow - the action box for going back up the stairs from the living room is so tiny wtf. also that's probably not what it's called i don't know game things - this is the point at which i would be consulting a walkthrough were there one available. oh thank god there are the flashlight batteries. the different batteries in the sylladex are not labeled very clearly that's not that helpful - significantly more misses than hits in this part of the game BASEMENT - this music is a little cruder but i like the jazzy tuba(?) still - equal hits and misses - jake likes betty crocker in this universe? - missed that cutscene again. fucksake. and that one - battle music is alright. i like the melody but theyve gone for a weird synth and there are some weird false relations - "the room where it slappens?" what? the strife writing is really hard to read. altho "let's do lunge - check please" is silly but funny - i love jude's dialogue, it's well done. joey just kinda talks the same way as jane but lower case. she even has the skepticism thing - haha wiliness attribute. i notice that the game isn't doing much in the way of inventing its own running gags, it's actually just still referencing those of the original comic. not that they aren't working but. it could do better TROPHY ROOM - is that a different strife music or am i an idiot. nice bass and a maybe less offensive synth? oooooooh nice 8bit work - i really like the concept of the strife text, what a good adaptation of the comic. most of the puns are a bit weak tho. but a few are gooduns. - how the fuck do i win. ive tried all the options. oh there we go - fun victory text but the music is basic and annoying. oh the same rank ascension jargon as homestuck that's nice if in a less readable/interesting format than in the comic - more hits than misses in this room! that digression on a mexican folk monster is pretty random. im still very into the glockenspiely part of this music, that wasn't a thing that stopped happening or anything - there are some ashes in this room. I have a newfound appreciation for john's exploration sequence at the start of homestuck. i wouldn't say im tired of the point-and-click thing yet but im not loving it - some of jude's dialogue reminds me of WV's commands to john before he reads the etiquette book. abrupt capitals. maybe that's where some of my affection for it comes from - i do like the conversation options those are pretty well done