#i never make 'myself' in terraria i always just make some random person. one of my other saves is just miku

[wwraithsart]

terraria player jumpscare

[skriaki]

TOP 10 NINTENDO SWITCH GAMES 2019 - my arbitrary list!

Sometimes it's good to be proven wrong. I was pretty sceptical when the Switch was first announced, as it didn't seem too different from the Wii U's gamepad. Then I spent two years watching Nintendo enjoy a complete reversal of fortune, to the point of potentially amassing a more compelling library than Sony's or Microsoft's consoles. So that's how I quite suddenly found myself buying a Switch in October 2019, after having resisted the PS4 and Xbone for five whole years, and my free time has since been dominated by this little machine that defied the odds.

Some of Nintendo's business decisions can still seem inexplicable, but releasing a powerful handheld console that can also be docked with a TV at a moment's notice has proved to be an inspired idea, rather than the gimmick the Wii U's gamepad mostly turned out to be. And along with Nintendo's dependable series of top-notch exclusives, the Switch has enjoyed much better third-party support, which is how I ended up buying Dark Souls for the fourth bloody time just because the option to play it portably was too tempting to resist.

The Switch is the first console I've bought since the PS3 and for all Nintendo's quirks, there's a reason the Switch has dominated Christmas wishlists for three years running. Games like Super Mario Odyssey feel like full-size adventures that just happen to have a portable option, as opposed to handheld games you can also play on the big screen. This is the first year in a long while that I've actually played enough topical titles to justify a "games of the year" list, even if my recent Nintendo bias is pretty blatant.

So with that caveat in mind, and in no particular order, here's my entirely subjective list of the best Nintendo Switch games of 2019.

Luigi's Mansion 3

This is a franchise I'd always been curious about and can finally have an opinion on. The process of going from floor to floor of the hotel hoovering up ghosts and solving puzzles is pretty straightforward, but Luigi's Mansion 3 has so much polish and personality crammed into the cartridge. Luigi is immediately lovable as a determined coward, and each level has a wildly different theme that's realised with extravagant audio and visual flair, so progress always feels rewarding. Though this isn't true horror by any means, there can be an unsettling atmosphere and some of the bosses are pretty freaky. I officially love this oddball franchise and am desperate for a chance to play the story again in co-op. Unquestionably a first-class exclusive.

Doom (Switch port)

Not to be confused with the impressive Switch version of Doom 2016, this is the iconic Doom made cheap and accessible. While purists may take issue with some minor technical deviations, this is the first time I've got most of the way through Doom because the portability and *glorious* true dual-stick control makes this easily my favourite version. There's even a cheat menu for when I just want to mindlessly punch hell beasts. The main thing that ages Doom is its maze-like structure, but playing it casually experience alleviates that frustration somewhat. At a grand total of four pounds, this is a BFB (big fucking bargain).

Untitled Goose Game

You know a game is good when the only asterisk I put on my recommendation is that it *may* be overpriced. Untitled Goose Game took the internet by storm this year because it's the quintessential indie game: cute, simple and with anti-authoritarian undertones. As a horrible goose, it's your mission to cause havoc in an unsuspecting English village, interacting with people and objects to cause chain reactions of chaos. Some of the puzzle solutions are maybe a bit obscure, but 90% of the time just messing around with everything in the area will lead to a solution. Untitled Goose Game makes up for its brevity with sheer comedic charm, feeling much better-designed than a "lul so random" affair like Goat Simulator. A honking good time.

Terraria (Switch port)

I have spent literally hundreds of hours on the PC version of Terraria, so when I was broke after buying my Switch the new Terraria port was an obvious cost-effective choice. While the controls aren't as precise, the amount of time spent mining and sorting through loot makes this a great handheld experience. I can't comment on the multiplayer options but few games represent such a sheer value for money, as there's always a new cave to explore or a new boss to overcome. Time has been kind to this 2011 classic, grind notwithstanding.

Yooka-Laylee and the Impossible Lair

While I personally enjoyed the original Yooka-Laylee, it was definitely flawed and I never seriously expected to see a sequel. But Yooka-Laylee and the Impossible Lair launched quite abruptly and did a pretty spectacular job of upstaging its predecessor. All the previous game's half-baked feel has been replaced with clever design touches, like the equippable tonics which grant helpful abilities at the cost of a currency penalty. The titular Lair is actually the final level and available to throw yourself at right from the beginning, but beating it without first obtaining more hitpoints by completing other stages is incredibly hard, which is a great way to incentivize progress without denying more confident players the option of beating the game earlier if they can meet the challenge. Impossible Lair might be this year's biggest surprise, and despite a modest budget I think it's worthy of comparison to excellent 2D platformers like Rayman Legends. Just don't expect to defeat Capital B on your first attempt.

A Hat In Time (Switch port)

I recently reviewed A Hat In Time but at the risk of repeating myself, it's one of the most charming games of the last few years and an incredibly impressive crowdfunded achievement. Mario's offerings may be a grander technical feat, but A Hat In Time is a fast and fabulous journey through a series of weird and wonderful worlds that all feel distinct in content and tone. It's very openly inspired by GameCube-era platformers like Mario Sunshine and Psychonauts and it easily scratches that itch. Simply one of the best original platformers of this generation, and I defy you not to love Hat Kid's cheeky antics.

Spyro Reignited Trilogy (Switch port)

As someone who thinks the original Spyro trilogy holds up better than most early 3D games, I'd have actually preferred a simple port rather than a full remake, but The Reignited Trilogy is honestly impeccable. The updated visuals are gorgeous while maintaining the general style of those old, jaggy models, and very little of the gameplay or content has changed except for sensible updates like the ability to immediately warp between every level you've visited. Having full dual-analogue control is also an absolute godsend even for a PS1 veteran like me. Though Spyro may seem a bit basic these days when faced with modern platformer marvels, the Reignited Trilogy makes these old favourites accessible again at a generous price point.

Ring Fit Adventure

Yes, I have a Wii kicking around in a box somewhere. No, Wii Fit never held my attention as anything more than a curiosity. Ring Fit Adventure, meanwhile, is limited only by my cholesterol-encrusted heart and dislike of excessive showering. This is an honest-to-goodness attempt at making an RPG out of a workout toy, and the amount of polish put into the game's presentation and hardware implementation is pretty remarkable. Levels involve jogging on the spot and squeezing the ring accessory to collect goodies and overcome obstacles, and periodically you'll engage in turn-based combat where you use a custom selection of exercise moves to deal damage. It's a fantastic idea pulled off much more elegantly than it sounds. The ring accessory unfortunately makes this quite an expensive game, so it'll take a lot of regular use to get your money's worth, but I can honestly (and surprisingly) say that exercise suddenly becomes more compelling when it's presented as a light RPG adventure with anthropomorphic gym equipment encouraging you to take breaks and drink plenty of water.

Pokémon Sword/Shield

Disclaimer: I can only give my impressions from 25 hours of playing Pokémon Shield, so this is DEFINITELY not a full review. That being said, this is still an easy recommendation to existing Pokemaniacs and a good starting point for any new acolytes. While the core formula hasn't evolved (har har) much since the very first Pokemon, Sword and Shield still has a number of modern quality of life improvements that make previous generations show their age. I've had so much fun building a core crew of cute and/or badass 'mons in a weird Nintendo version of Britain, and the online features combine with a VASTLY improved random encounter system to make grinding far less of a concern. The wild area takes some getting used to, but it's satisfying to come back and capture the huge Onyx you had to run away from a few hours before. Even if Pokémon Sword/Shield has some technical blemishes and could have pushed the series further in some regards, it's still easy to see why this franchise has maintained such a beloved status for so long.

Red Faction: Guerrilla Re-mars-tered (Switch port)

Along with Dark Souls, Red Faction was a game I never even knew I needed on the go, but now I've got it I can't imagine ever going back. A cult classic due to its amazing destruction physics, Red Faction sees you leading a proletariat revolution on Mars, literally tearing down corporate monuments to free the working class from systematic oppression. The open world is a bit claustrophobic and the shooting isn't exactly mind-blowing, but there's a reason I've beaten Red Faction every couple of years ever since its original 2009 release. The Switch port does the game justice and if you set the difficulty to easy then this is one of the best rage-venting experiences money can buy. So yes, I recommend getting your ass to Mars.

[kingglorie]

My Side of the MLP Steam Chat

No names in here are changed, so if you want to sue me, go for it.

There was a point, in the height of the My Little Pony phenomenon where I would frequent the forum for Terraria online and participate in their Brony thread. Most of the guys there were cool people, and there was some drama but that isn’t the point of this story. After sometime of the thread on the forum, the members growing, we still had yet to put up a MLP Server. I decided to take it upon myself and put up a server, I already have a setup built for it, just needed to get it running. Quickly after I put up the server and it was neat, we all had fun playing on it. Suddenly one day I got a message from some person, there display name was something about strawberries, and they ran some website and they told be they had submitted my Terraria to I think a website called Equestria Daily? Regardless it was a fairly popular website for MLP fans, and we had a large influx of requests to join the server. A bit after said website posted the server I got a message from someone, I don’t remember what their display name was on the forum, but later I learned this person was Corrie. They wanted me to take my server and set it up for their Steam Group, which was just a general MLP Steam group, but it had like 50,000 members. So after weighing my options I decided to go ahead and do that. After this I really became distant from the Terraria forum people and they went on and did their own thing, they ended up making their own Website called Global Equestria, which is it’s own shitshow for another day.

I was made an administrator in the Steam group, and I was told to post the server information in an announcement whenever I was ready. So, I took a week and tweaked the server, made sure it was to my liking. Made a way to Whitelist people so there wasn’t rampant griefing, etc. Then I announced the server, and not to my surprise, there were a lot of requests to join, and most were accepted and that was that. I learned at this time, their Steam chat for the group was fairly active, normally twenty people at a time, but often enough more. I figured well hey, if people have questions about the Terraria server they can ask me there. So I joined, and just kinda sat back reading the messages. Everyone now and then people would take notice of me, and I’d say something, but for the most part I just hung back. I was never asked to be a chat moderator, which did exist, but I almost took it upon myself. I was in the chat room already, might as well moderate. I was never asked to stop, they allowed me, they didn’t have a problem with it. I was given an account for the ban logs to record bans or kicks, and that was that, I was a chat moderator as well. Fairly quickly the hype of a new Terraria server died down and people barely played on it, I kept it up for a long time, but it rarely was used. I finally took it down after some time, and stayed a chat moderator. Later on I would put up a DayZ server near the end of my time there.

I’m not going to remember everyone, but I remember most people who were important enough to include.

Long Shot - He was basically the head moderator for the chat. He had the final say aside from Corrie. We got along at first, but we would come to butt heads later on because we had different styles of moderating.

Corrie - He (Prefered she) didn’t come into the chat much, despite that we had on and off communication, she was nice enough at the beginning.

Vero - One of the few guys who I still very rarely talk with, he was alright. He would become a moderator and then be stripped of the title later.

Fredrex - Again, still have them added but even more rarely talk with him. He wouldn’t be a moderator for a long time, but after he was, became the group owner when Corrie left.

Mothu - Brony in denial, he pretty much hated everyone. He did his job as a moderator though. He had a thing for Fredrex if I remember correctly.

Strawbs - Sweet guy, would often break the RP rules in chat. One of the first just random people I told I was gay to. I would have to ban him later though, which really ruined our relationship and he never really talked to me after that.

Most other chat members, admins, or moderators were so on and off that they aren’t important at that time.

The first few months were fairly unimpressive. Most people got along, people talked, etc etc.

Then something happened, I’m not quite sure what.

The first major event that happened in my mind was when another administrator, Arctix Pie as he was called at the time, who later would just become Arc, join first I think the first time even in the chat, because someone decided to randomly invited every admin and moderator into the chat room. He really laid it on, hot and heavy for me, pretty much instantly. I wasn’t sure who this guy was but he was going for it. He would private message me and I would tell him I wasn’t interested. Finally I caved and we became a “thing”, this would last 1 1/2 years to 2 years. There is a lot that happened in between but the main points are, we did a lot together, and after he started to moderator the chat more. Arc got more involved in everything, he may of talked to Corrie a lot before, but not to my knowledge, but after he and Corrie were close. At some point I started to join the chat less, I couldn’t tell you the reason though. Arc did as well.

I don’t know when it happened, but there was a guy who joined the chat and was generally just a pain to be around. His display name on Steam was Squishy Marshmallow Pony Butthole. He didn’t like me, I constantly had to kick him for breaking RP rules and the like, and I guess that's why. Long Shot wouldn’t enact any rules on him. I have no proof of this claim, but I think they had similar fetishes and would RP with each other. I wasn’t super active in the chat when this happened and I don’t know how it happened but I got a message from someone says that, who I will refer to as Squishy, was made a moderator. I was pretty vocal about my distaste for this move, but it was Long Shots choice to make. I noted the amount of times I had to straighten stuff out when he made it get out of line. I avoided the chat heavily after he was made a moderator. After some time and complaint, Corrie stepped up and made the decision to remove Squishy as a moderator, a move I agreed with, through the grapevine I heard it wasn’t a good move that Squishy was made a moderator. I still have a friend that randomly messages me says “You remember when they made Squishy a moderator?” “Yeah.” I’ll answer and he will always say “That was awful.”

After Squishy was removed from moderator, I took it upon myself to be more active in the chat, filling the void for the now defunct moderator. Squishy had it out for the chat thought, he made a second chat and group, basically for the banned people from the chat. I had a friend who would sit in on their chats and would relay messages. They really disliked me, couldn’t tell you why. But they also had the same, people in the regular chat who would pass stuff I said over to Squishy, and they would talk shit about me. I brought it up to Corrie but was basically told to just deal with it. I did end up banning one person who was doing this, and it brought down hellfire on me, he raised a shit storm and basically I was told not to ban people as it didn’t justify breaking the “trolling” rule.

Not to long after, when I was at work I received a message from Arc saying that chat was a bit unruly and Strawbs was posting porn in the chat, which was very against the rules. I said, ban them for the time being, I’ll deal with it when I got home. Long story short, I got told off my Long Shot, that I should of given Strawbs more chances because he was a “friend” and now he was upset at me and that I had lost a “friend.” I argued that it doesn’t matter if he’s my friend or not, he broke the rules. I didn’t suddenly dislike Strawbs, he was still a great guy, he just broke the rule were it’s basically one strike and you’re out, but that wasn’t a good enough reason. Strawbs was unbanned, I was told by Long Shot not to do it again. I was very disinterested in the chat after that, and rarely visited anymore. Arc would still participate in the chat enough to get himself into trouble which he did.

To make a long story short, he banned someone from the chat, jokingly he said, because someone said he would buy him a video game for it. So Arc banned him, and then unbanned him shortly after. The person who was banned was upset to say the least, and basically brought the thing up to Corrie. Corrie was mad at Arc, and as far as I know didn’t talk to Arc anymore after that. But somehow I got caught in this, even though I wasn’t involved, I was still questioned about it and blamed for it. Corrie was upset at me as well, for I don’t know what. It felt unwarranted, I’m was not responsible for his actions. Arc was removed as an administrator.

A bit after that they decided to do a moderator purge and re-evaluate the chat. They got all of the moderators and administrators in a group chat and had “moderator” review. Corrie basically told us what she thought of us, and we could choose either publicly or privately to be reviewed. Everyone chose publicly, and I was basically told that I wasn’t doing enough and was more of a problem than a help. It was fair to say I wasn’t doing enough, I was not participating in chat at all, and hadn’t for a bit. So I willingly gave up my title. When I chose to give it up, only one of the other moderators said anything to me regarding it, which basically amounted to that I did a good job and I shouldn’t go, and that I’ll be missed.

I had a lengthy discussion with Corrie after the fact about it. I didn’t want the title back, I just wanted to set some stuff straight. I didn’t think it was fair I was given blame for something Arc had done. I didn’t think it was fair how much favoritism was given to certain members as far as rule breaking was concerned, and how Long Shot was playing favorites constantly, specifically noted the Squishy and Strawbs incident. Corrie didn’t really care, she said if it was truly a problem I would of brought it up before now. We left it at that.

A bit later, Corrie left the group and gave the group to Fredex, who was moderator at the time. I know from talking with Corrie that she had received a job at Blizzard and was moving to California and didn’t want to have to manage or deal with the group anymore. When Corrie left, she had completely deleted me from all social media, so I never got to wish her good luck or anything, which stung quite a bit. I would be asked later by Fredex if I wanted to play Heroes of the Storm when it was in alpha, I told him I didn’t have a key, and they cost to much money. He was surprised Corrie didn’t give me one. he was finding out for the first time Corrie didn’t talk to me anymore and had deleted on all platforms. He asked if I wanted him to talk to Corrie about it, I said no, just leave it be. It was too long gone at that point.

A few people told me that group had turned into shit after I left, but I didn’t really care. I felt very jaded about the whole thing, all the time devoted to just be tossed aside and then ignored. Most of the “friends” I had from the chat stopped talking to me after I was no longer an administrator, they weren’t real friends, they just wanted to say they new a moderator.

The people who didn’t delete me, we still don’t talk much.

As far as I know Fredrex still runs the group, I haven’t talk to him in very long.

Nyx I still have added, but I don’t think I’ve talked to him since I was an admin.

Vero is still added, he streams sometimes and I drop in on his stream and say hi, he’s still a cool dude.

I tried to talk to Mothu, but he deleted my friend request a bit after I sent it, which didn’t surprise me.

Me and Arc stayed together for awhile past that, but we grew apart as time went on. He wasn’t a healthy person for me to be around, I believe the last time I spoke to him was when my dog died and I went to him for emotional support, and he really didn’t want to talk about it, he didn’t know how he could help. He would deleted me from social media awhile later as well, we never technically broke up, just stopped talking. When I was resetting up this Tumblr, I still had his added, he would use Tumblr much more than me, and his note said he didn’t have a boyfriend anymore and had a sad face. I also received a “Happy Birthday” message from what I assume is him last year, He doesn’t us Steam much anymore. Assuming I have the right person, he hasn’t been online in 22 days.

I ignored the birthday message. Maybe it was his idea of trying to contact me and talk? I don’t know but I didn’t, which maybe was a mistake, it would be interesting to see what he’s up to. but regardless, I hope he’s well.