#heavens vault

[videogamepolls]

Requested by anon

[ekamy]

Hi everyone! I'm looking for some assistance in picking my next 2 stream games on Twitch.

If interested, you can vote here!

(All game options are in this post's tags, too, to get the word out. Just to clarify it's not spam! ❤️)

[dabblingreturns]

Started playing heaven's vault. A fun little Sci fi game about colonialism, linguistics and archeology so bad even even Thomas Bruce, 7th Earl of Elgin, might judge.

I understand that that sci-fi technology might allow for easier site analysis but no provenance seems to be preserved here.

[vole-mon-amour]

90 minutes into Heaven's vault & it doesn't feel that great. I originally added it to my wishlist 'cause someone said it's like TFTBL, but it doesn't seem that way now that I played it for a bit. Downloading TFTBL 'cause I freaking miss Jack & Rhack. If my PC could easily run Bl2, I'd start another playthrough of that, I think. I have nooo idea how I managed to finish Bl2 on my dinosaur of a laptop in the first place. It's, like, 10-15 fps at best.

Upd: I'm sorry, you're gonna tell me Rhys isn't like Jack? Rhys that goes, "What a waste, such a nice suit"? Rhys that goes "That should be me. I earned this promotion. I DESERVE it.' Rhys that goes," We could throw him out an airlock. Worked on Henderson."? Rhys that is being basically a copy of Handsome Jack?

Sure, Jan. Let me kill Vaquez immediately.

[rpgchoices]

holy shit this game was wild

[minothtime]

i've been obsessed with these games since last year and literally no other game i've ever seen, played or heard of has come close to these experiences

(alt version under cut)

[sf-re-post-heaven]

The 10th installment of our budding series just for a tidbit of somewhat regularly-scheduled "fresh" content for SF (Re-Post) Heaven! Along the lines of the defunct Photo of The Day on our old network! And we bring you a Smoking Doll who needs no introduction for it's SF Hall of Famer and Smoking Goddess Josee (Real-Smoking-Girl/@real_smokinggirl) of Ontario, Canada!

SFers' Dream! / Real World's Nightmare!

No. 10 in the Series introduced this summer!

(Photo credit: library/vault/archives of SF (Re-Post) Heaven!)

They are what we live for over here in the Greater SF World Community scene. Sure that many of us will adore this photograph and worship our Smoking Honey. On the other hand, among the vast majority of folks who are not afflicted with the Smoking Fetish, those who are in the immensely more populated affiliation with non-smokers (former smokers and never-smokers included) . . . our N-S friends . . . this picture is frowned upon. “What a shame,” nearly all of them will say. “Why is such a lovely young lady smoking cigarettes? And, you say, she's the mother of young children, no less. What a bad example she sets for her innocent, impressionable children! This is not fair to them to be breathing in all of that second-hand smoke! I mean, REALLY!”

We'll supply the answer gladly! Because they look that much more sexy, gorgeous, mature and desirable as cigarette smokers! And they embrace that attitude. And it fits their lifestyles and they love it. Ask them to quit while they're drunk, then duck! "Can you light-up my cigarette?" they'll say in trying to seduce you after exhaling a huge plume in your face! And you'd be able to resist? Yeah, right!

Dual-Media Single-Post, 11-Pack Megapost!

SFer’s Dream/Real World’s Nightmare Video Bonus of Josee@real_smokinggirl!

With a friend and both are smoking Virginia Slims 120s Gold Pack Lights in Josee's car!

And a 6-Pack of Our Smoking Honey!

Disclaimer: “Smoking is injurious to health. We do not promote smoking as a habit for those who are non-smokers. Some women smoke cigarettes and truly know how appealing they look while doing so. We wish all women smokers would quit their habits one day soon. Let's get healthier, ladies!” ⏤ King of SF Aficionados web-master/web producer (SF Deity!)

[suckitphaneuf]

[miss-mossball]

Doesn't give a Pluck

[aidylweiss16]

Just finished Chants of Sennaar. Had a great time, I'd probably compare it most to Return of the Obra Dinn in terms of its puzzles and gameplay, but for those of you that played it and are looking for more language games, I highly recommend Heaven's Vault.

You focus on one language, instead of multiple, but there are much stronger connections between similar words. A lot of what you run into to translate is procedurally generated, so it's a lot more replayable on that front and the characters will respond differently to you depending on how you approach them. The music is similarly gorgeous. Plus you gotta love a sarcastic robot bestie. I've probably played it through 8 times (6 via new game+) and I'm still encountering new words to translate and new character interactions.

Archaeology! In SPACE! 'Nuff said.

[katistrophe]

I heard you like conlangs so I put conlang in your conlang

Or, Kat has Heaven’s Vault on their brain after playing Chants of Sennaar.

(Translation notes after the cut)

To start this off, I am a ridiculous person who has religiously avoided language spoilers for Heaven’s Vault, so this is based off of the… sixty-odd pages of notes I took while playing.

The title was tricky, of course - couldn’t really find the etymology of „Sennaar“, so „Chants of Sennaar“ became „Songs of the Tower“. If there is an Ancient word for „tower“ I haven’t found it, so I constructed one. I first thought of „high wall“, but went for „heaven:wall“ as a semi-pun on the Tower of Babel thing instead. (Double pun, but only for English speakers: I’m pretty sure if you exchange the noun marker in „wall“ for a place marker you get „place where something is buried“. As in a vault.)

Also on the title card, „options“ is literally „say change“, paralleling „say your destination“/„say your question(?)“ from hoppers/robots awaiting input. „Change“ is also inferred from the verb.

„Warriors“ was pretty straightforward to translate as „soldiers“. I also „translated“ the exclamation mark in the UI since Ancient doesn’t really have punctuation as such - it now says „important“.

„Bards“ is my own guess since I haven’t found the equivalent yet, but I don’t think I’ve leaned too far out of the window with it - „person who sings“. To reflect how „ungrammatical“ sentences with uncertain words are, I added spaces between the words rather than the run-on style of fully translated ones. I‘m not sure if an approximation of OSV sentence structure like „bards, we are“ would work in Ancient, but the whole mentally switching from OSV to SVO and vice vice versa is enough in the connection segments, I wouldn’t want to inflict it on a hypothetical Ancient-speaking player during all of the Gardens. (Note also the player trying to describe the „plural“ part with „many“ since Ancient doesn’t really do plural forms of nouns.)

„Devotees“ was probably the easiest to translate - „pilgrims“ is as literal as it gets, seeing as they are people wanting to move towards their deity. The „unreadable“ in the inscription becomes „can-not read“. (Not sure whether using „want“ for „seek“ isn’t a Chants-ism, but I haven’t found a better word yet, so it’s the best I can do…)

[grumpyfaceurn]

Press A to Contrarian Bastard

[marley-manson]

Well I succumbed and watched the Pilot and first ep of Due South last night.

Really struck me how central the theme of Fraser's estrangement from his father is in the Pilot. Fraser mentioning that the last time they spoke was Christmas, essentially saying that the only times they speak are presumably brief calls at holidays. Gerard responding with a platitude - "I guess the more you know someone, the less needs to be said" - but it becomes quite clear that Fraser feels he doesn't know Bob at all, and has to learn about him through his journals.

And yet they're cut from the same cloth: "I always thought your father was the last of a kind. I was wrong - you are." And this is tied to the mountie stereotype lol.

Bob and Fraser both repeat the lines, "You're going to shoot a mountie? They'll hunt you to the ends of the earth," and they're both wrong. No one wants to pursue Bob Fraser's death except Fraser, and no one's happy with Fraser for solving the case because it uncovered corruption. He gets exiled for it. Bob and Fraser are the only mounties who "always get their man," lol, and it's because of Bob's neglect in the course of duty that Fraser follows in his footsteps and becomes so similar to Bob. He idealizes his father and wanted to grow up to be just like him - we can see that admiration in the drawing of him he finds in Bob's things that he made when he was a child eg, or in the song Superman that plays while Fraser reads his journal in the diner. But he doesn't know him. And he pursues duty above all else because he has nothing else of his father.

And then you have Ray, who seems to exist as the opposite of Bob. If there's one thing Ray is, it's there. He is there for Fraser to hunt down suspects, to invite him to a loud family dinner, to save him from an explosion, he tracks him down to apologize for being dismissive, to invite him to dinner, and he flies to the Yukon when he can't reach him by phone. In the diner scene in particular he's directly positioned as a contrast to Bob's absence both in life and death. Fraser is alone trying to understand his father through his journals (looking for something "he missed" ie his dad), and Ray joins him, ending the thematically significant song montage, and eases his solitude. Fraser says he doesn't have family, and Ray shares his own with him.

And after the pilot case, there's nothing drawing them together except friendship. They're not a mismatched pair of cops assigned together who have to learn to get along, they work together unofficially because they can't help but spend every waking moment together.

Bob represents absence and Ray represents presence, distant admiration vs actually knowing someone.

And I'll probably have more to say on that as like, poles Fraser is caught between, if/as I rewatch more of the show. Ray's position is a little muddy especially because pre VS he buys into Fraser's image to an extent, as pointedly examined in Heaven and Earth. But again, more on that another time.

[doyouknowthisgame]

[rpgchoices]

Some of my favorite videogames female characters

Aliya (Heaven's Vault), Zoe Castillo (Dreamfall), April Ryan (Dreamfall), Vivienne, Flemeth, Morrigan, Isabela, Sera (Dragon Age series), Kate Walker (Syberia), Gobbet (Shadowrun Hong King), Magdalene (Pentiment), Lae'zel, Jaheira, Minthara and Orin (Baldur's Gate 3), Grieving Mother (Pillars of Eternity 1), Calia (Enderal), Viconia (Baldur's Gate 2), Eiger (Shadowrun Dragonfall), Aliizi (Sorcery!), Berath (Pillars of Eternity Deadfire), Meredith (Dragon Age 2), Rhin (Tides of Numenera), Aylin (Baldur's Gate 3), Imoen (Baldur's Gate 1&2), Kanerah, Octavia, Jaethal, Amiri (Pathfinder Kingmaker), Pallegina (Pillars of Eternity), Bethany (Dragon Age 2), Josephine (Dragon Age Inquisition), Quirri, Dirrong (Salting the Earth).

[who-do-i-know-this-man-s3]

⚠️Vote for whomever YOU DO NOT KNOW⚠️‼️