#iOS 13 Release

[cheritzteam]

[The Ssum] “June” and “Henri” Ending Update Complete! Don’t Miss out on the Commemorative Event Too♡ v.2.1.7 App Update

Hello, dear lab participant.

You can now download the new version of <The Ssum: Love From Today>.

Google Play Store (Android) - linkApple App Store (iOS) - link

This update includes server maintenance, so you will receive 10 Aurora Batteries as Study Support upon accessing the game.

Make sure you access the Lab by 16-AUG-2024 (KST) to get your compensation! *You must collect your reward within 3 days.

The following are the details of the update we have received from the Lab.

< ⓛ Ending Update, “June” and “Henri” Are Waiting for You Lab Participant! >

Ending update has completed all the stories for "June" and "Henri"! What awaits the lab participant in the final chapter? Please join us in helping these two Ssumones find true love through you, the lab participant 💘

< ②The Future of Two Ssumones Changes with the “Choices” of the Lab Participant?>

The Ssum Season 2's exclusive epilogue special support update! What if the lab participant's choices determine the Ssumone's future? Collect the epilogue special support you acquire based on their changed future!

< ③Observe the Ssumones’ Emotions at a Glance Through “Emojis!”>

You can now view cute emojis in the chats with June and Henri. The round and endearing emojis level up the appeal of the Ssumones 🧡 Please look forward to seeing which emojis the two will use to express their love to you, lab participant!

If you're currently matched with someone else, tap the Profile button on the main screen. Tap the arrow button next to your current match's profile picture to match with someone else.

*Chats with your current match will not be deleted and can be continued when you reconnect. When reconnecting, please note the time of your last chat so that you don't miss any chats/calls. *When you match with a new Ssumone, you will need to change your Ssumone at your wake-up time to ensure that all Day 1 chats can take place.

💛Commemorative Event Announcement💛

< X(Twitter) Repost Event >

This August 13, the Update of 💙Henri💙 and 💛June💛 

…and to celebrate, we’re holding a repost event on Cheritz’s official X(Twitter)!

***

💌 How to participate 1) Log in to X(Twitter)🔑 2) Repost the event post(link) on @Cheritz_DL🔁

📆 Event ends on August 13, 2024 (Wed) ~ August 19, 2024 (Mon) KST

🎁 Event prizes - 50 Aurora Batteries (20 winners)

📢 Winner announcement August 29, 2024 (Thu) KST

※Disclaimer※ - You cannot participate with an account set to private. - Winners have 10 days to respond via DM to claim their prize.

We are providing every lab participant with Special Lab Support in celebration of the update!

Make sure to collect the items while they’re available - especially the Aurora Creature Box which can only be acquired through purchase💌

📆 Reward Period ~August 21th, 2024 (Wed) 9 AM KST

🎁 Lab Support Details 5 Aurora Batteries + 1 Aurora Creature Box

The additional update information received from the research institute is as follows.

[New Updates] > Henri's first birthday celebration with you!   Event data for Henri’s birthday has been added. Check out the upcoming event announcements for more details!

[Others] - Minor bugs were fixed.

We hope you hop onto the hype for our newly released Update of <The Ssum>.

We will do our best to provide you with more heart-racing content in the future.

Thank you.

-Cheritz-

[warframestuff]

The time has come again! Hotfixing will be paused while we lock in for Warframe: 1999 (releasing in December!) and the separate Xaku Prime release, which is coming November 13!

One important note: during this downtime, the iOS team may continue to Hotfix to tackle performance improvements exclusive to the Mobile platform!

Devstream 182 came and went! For a short and sweet recap of some highlights (or if you missed it and somehow landed here instead):

Xaku Prime approaches with the Trumna Prime and Quassas Prime, coming November 13!

They’re also joined by the Artifex Prime Syandana and the Necra Prime Operator/Drifter suits!

The Technocyte Coda (or Infested Liches), bring 13 Coda Weapons! To see more on these fellas, you can read up on the recap!

The light Trinity Rework has been revealed! Expect light touchups to make her more powerful in the current era of Warframe, with a focus on Ability Duration, Well of Life, and a replaced passive. For more, check out the recap!

And, of course, our comms channel isn’t closed! We’re still collecting feedback, reading bug reports and continuing our usual day-to-day operations on the communications side! To note a few bright spots in the timeline between now and November 13:

Prime Time, Warframe International and Devshorts continue!

As said, Devstream 182 has come and gone! To read up on everything, check the recap!

Quest to Conquer Cancer has a few days left! To see progress live, check it out here!

The QTCC Dojo Showcase ends soon, too! Submit any Dojo’s by October 31st to enter the showcase!

Tennotober 2024 has a few days left, too! We’ve got the usual Tennotober guidelines here, as well as the Captura guidelines here!

Thank you for your patience and understanding, Tenno! Xaku Prime Access arrives November 13!

[i-just-give-you-the-vidya-songs]

The song is 'Ikoroshia' from the game 'Danganronpa 2: Goodbye Despair', a 2012 visual novel developed and published by Spike Chunsoft and released on PSP / PSVita / PC / OSX / Linux / PS4 / Android / iOS / Switch / Xbox One

-Submission by anonymous

[frigid-moon-fall]

Alright I'm tired of it being locked up in a notepad, here's the chronological release dates of all things Destiny that I know of. I'll add to it if someone knows more.

Dates are YYYY/MM/DD. Blue is Destiny 1, pink is Destiny 2, pretty much just prefix everything with the normal full title of either game. I'm trying to keep it easy to read. Kasukabe's artbook is on here because it has extra comics. The anthologies are non-canon but officially licensed and all by multiple artists (far too many to list) as far as I know. I am not dedicated enough to find the localization dates of everything, just know that various things have received localizations in languages other than English, sometimes several years after their initial publication.

1997/12/23 - Tales of Destiny PS1 release 1997/12/25 ~ 2000/10/30 - 神の眼をめぐる野望 (first manga adaptation by Shinki Kitsutsuki) 1998/03/01 - ルーティのルール (novel by Ryuuji Saiki) 1998/09/01 - 青の記憶 (novel by Sara Yajima) 1998/09/10 - 天地戦争編 (novel by Ryuuji Saiki) 1998/10/23 ~ 1999/01/23 - First half of drama CD 1999/04/24 ~ 1999/06/26 - Doujin drama CD (by Tomokazu Seki (Stahn's voice actor) and Yuka Imai (Rutee's voice actor)) [???] 1999/06/10 ~ 1999/08/28 - Second half of drama CD 1999/12/28 - Mini Drama CD 2000/05/31 - 運命をつぐもの (novels by Sara Yajima) 2000/07/18 ~ 2003/01/18 - Second manga adaptation by Iqura Sugimoto 2000/07/27 ~ 2001/09/27 - Super Comic Gekijou (Anthology) 2000/08/25 ~ 2002/01/31 - Broth Comics Anthology (Anthology) 2001/01/19 ~ 2001/10/19 - 4koma Manga Gekijou (Anthology) 2002/09/28 - Tales Ring Archive drama CDs 2002/01/31 - Tales of Fandom vol.1 2002/11/29 - Tales of Destiny 2 PS2 release 2003/01/01 ~ 2003/03/25 - Novels by Shou Yuuki 2003/02/21 ~ 2004/10/29 - 4koma Manga Gekijou (Anthology) 2003/03/01 ~ 2003/11/24 - 蒼黒の追憶 (novels by Sara Yajima) 2003/03/10 ~ 2004/08/27 - Super Comic Gekijou (Anthology) 2003/04/26 ~ 2003/08/22 - Drama CD 2003/05/17 ~ 2006/03/18 - Tales of Destiny 2 manga adaptation by Makoto2Gou 2003/06/25 - DNA Media Comics Anthology (Anthology) 2003/08/01 ~ 2003/01/01 - Broth Comics EX Anthology (Anthology) 2003/08/25 - DNA Media Comics / ID Comics 4koma Kings (Anthology) 2003/09/01 - 朱鷺色の風 (novel by Sara Yajima) 2006/11/30 - Tales of Destiny PS2 remake 2007/02/16 - Tales of Destiny 2 PSP port 2007/03/01 ~ 2007/05/30 - 蒼黒の想い (novels by Sara Yajima) 2007/03/22 - Gangan Comics Anthology EX (Anthology) 2007/04/10 - BLADE Comics Anthology Collection (Anthology) 2007/12/27 ~ 2011/02/26 - 儚き刻のリオン (DC manga adaptation by Akira Kasukabe) 2008/01/31 - Tales of Destiny Director's Cut release 2011/07/13 - Akira Kasukabe's Tales of Destiny artbook 2013/11/18 - Pachislot........ 2014/02/04 - Pachislot Android/iOS port 2021/11/19 - Tales of Reading Live

By the way, anyone know if the android/iOS port of the pachislot was ever archived?

[ii-meeple-confessions]

THE METAGS IS A GOOD POINT!!!! I love speculating on silly little things like what time ii takes place in... ambiguous time between 2018 and 2022 how lovely!!! I will make this an actual confession though since I'm on the topic of metags:

I love them. I love them so so much. They're so stupid. Why are they alive. How do they see things. What is wrong with them... Beautiful little beasts. Actually, on the note of how they see things, I wonder if they don't see visually but instead use some kind of app to scan the Meeple facilities. Kind of like echolocation if your echolocation is a visible map to you. Maybe they have a "Find Me App" instead of a "Find My App".... On that note, I think it's interesting that they're used as Guards of all things. I feel like they'd be more useful as spies, being able to keep track of meeple devices.

....On that note, I just realized, the Find My App was released on iOS 13 September 2019... The latest Mephone, the Mephone X is originally shipped with iOS 11 BUT CAN run iOS 13. Thus, the latest Mephone that CAN run iOS 13 is the Mephone6S.

The only PROBLEM with this is that we've been shown downgrading/upgrading iOS's (meOS's in this case...) changes the personality and software OF the Meeple. So, none of the Mephones can update to iOS 13, because it'd literally wipe out their very being.

GOOD JOB COBS, YOUR METAGS CANT EVEN SERVE THEIR ORIGINAL PURPOSE????? ?????????????????? The Find My App has no use these phones CANT BE TRACKED?????? this is genuinely so funny to me -2G Anon

GEHEHEHEHE I DIDN’T EVEN THINK OF THAT OHH MY GOD. just purposeless little bugs roaming around meeple hq… what guys… I wanna hold one in the palm of my hand

[satoshi-mochida]

Seedsow Lullaby coming to PC, iOS, and Android on May 1 - Gematsu

Publisher ANIPLEX.EXE and developer iMel will release visual novel Seedsow Lullaby for Switch, iOS, and Android on May 1, the companies announced.

Seedsow Lullaby first launched for PC via Steam, DMM Games, and DLsite on December 13, 2024.

Here is an overview of the game, via its Steam page:

About

Following three women on an adventure through the Land of the Gods, Seedsow Lullaby is a visual novel that features no choices or branching paths.

Story

Misuzu lost her mother at a young age. On her sixteenth birthday, in the spring of 2023, she is visited by a lone girl. The girl turns out to be her mother, Yoko, also aged sixteen. Yoko explains that she has been chosen as a Maiden to conduct the Seedsow Ceremony in the dwelling place of the gods, the Eternal Realm, and has traveled from 1996 to invite Misuzu along on her journey. The Seedsow Ceremony is a funeral for the gods, and is necessary for a new generation of immortal deities to usher in a new age. Seedsow Maidens must travel the Eternal Realm and have the ancient god elders accept their deaths before True Winter comes and defiles the land. Accompanying her mother Yoko, Misuzu travels to the year 2050, where her own sixteen-year-old daughter, Tsumugi, joins them as they make for the Eternal Realm. With the addition of Hiruko, who claims to be Misuzu’s younger brother and acts as the group’s guide, the foursome journey through lush landscapes made no less resplendent by True Winter’s looming approach. The young group has been brought together as though by a miracle, but what awaits them at the end of their journey?

Staff

Planning / Scriptwriting: Kazuki (STUDIO HOMMAGE)

Character Design: popman3580・Maniani

Music: Moeki Harada

Direction: Yow

Programming: iMel Inc.

Production: ANIPLEX.EXE

Opening Theme: “Through the Night” (sola)

Ending Theme: “Seedsow Lullaby” (Rita)

Cast

Misuzu (voiced by Minami Iinuma)

Yoko (voiced by Sayumi Watabe)

Tsumugi (voiced by Yukimi Hayase)

Hiruko (voiced by Mutsumi Tamura)

[03fates]

Dear Ghost,

Your presence in Aspenwood Manor has not gone unnoticed. Your hand in this story is greatly appreciated, though the results may not always be to our inhabitants' likings.

We wanted to share a blueprint for the tale you're navigating. You may find it helpful to know how many acts of this drama are still to come; how many storeys you have left to descend. Named after particular bedrooms, the three acts of You are the Ghost in This House are:

I. Guest

II. Family

III. Master

Each act contains roughly 20 chapters, with blog posts from that nosy journalist Jay Jenkins appearing every 5 chapters, totaling 24 installments.

In the interest of planning, we thought you'd like to know the release schedule for the rest of Act I: Guest — which, like this House, is a bit irregular and always subject to change and renovation.

GHOST 015: May 28

Under the Floorboards 3: June 4

GHOST 016: June 11

GHOST 017: June 25

GHOST 018: June 25

GHOST 019: June 30

GHOST 020: August 13

Under the Floorboards 4 and other haunting shenanigans: TBD

As always, this is your House. It is haunted. We cannot wait to see how you haunt it next.

Sincerely,

The Voice You Hear and His Conduits at Three Fates

P.S. If you’d like to receive bonus content, sneak peaks, and other House secrets in the coming weeks, join the Three Fates Patreon at any level (as low as $1 a month) and you’ll get access to a special Discord channel which will be haunted with more supernatural activity in the coming weeks.

To access, link your Patreon account to your Discord account (instructions can be found here).  As a reminder, when joining a tier, make sure to do so using a non-Apple browser or device, as iOS charges an extra fee that does not benefit the creators!

[fallloverfic]

It looks like Captain Laserhawk: A Blood Dragon REMIX is getting another comic, at least in France. It's listed as Captain Laserhawk: A Blood Dragon Remix: Mega City Blues by Grelin and Faouz.b. Here's the summary:

"Elena "Mute" Hicks is a private investigator with no pending cases. A few years ago, she operated in the army of Eden where she was the partner of a certain Dolph Laserhawk. It was also at this time that she met her girlfriend, Linda. A beautiful story... But since their breakup, Elena has been drowning in the excesses of the nights of Mega City 4. And when she learns of Linda's death, which occurred in strange circumstances, Mute sinks a little deeper into her own abyss . The unexpected arrival of her former brother in arms, Dolph, since considered public enemy number 3, will push Elena to return to service. Together, they dive into the heart of an investigation across the four corners of the city... Discover the first comic book adaptation of Captain Laserhawk, Netflix's next animated event series! Produced by Ubisoft, written by Adi Shankar (Castlevania) and directed by Bobbypills (Les Kassos, Vermin, Crisis Jung), this dystopia with synthwave and retro gaming influences forms an explosive cocktail between anticipation story, action comedy and meta references to pop culture. Taking place a few months before the events narrated in the animated series, this comic book one-shot introduces new characters and is part of the DNA of the universe by multiplying references and mixing genres."

Art preview from Grelin's instagram. And another.

On iOS it's listed as releasing (digitally, in French) on 8 November 2023 and 13 December 2023. Amazon lists the Kindle release (in French) as 8 November 2023. A lot of French release sites are showing it'll release in November. I'm not seeing this being offered in another language, or physical (though Amazon lists it as being 88 pages, hardcover, with other book dimensions), and this wasn't showing up in searches before. Sounds neat (mostly I like that Dolph canonically has a friend), and hope we get it translated.

(As a reminder, the art book for the show is out, and the boy's love comic for Dolph and Alex comes out digitally on 14 November 2023, and physically 12 December 2023. Also Netflix is still selling Bullfrog plushies).

[soundofseclusion]

13. Golf Peaks

Release: November 2018, iOS/PC Beaten: March 9th, PC (itch.io) Play time: 5h 23m

A tightly designed puzzle game that might have caused a few headaches. I should probably take a break from puzzle games for a while. But I really don't have much to complain about regarding this game. It doesn't overstay its welcome too much, almost every level feels like a fresh twist on the mechanics you're given to play with, and it introduces new gimmicks at a reasonable pace while staying manageable. In that sense, it's really well executed as far as puzzle games go. If I'm really reaching for criticisms, I'll say the isometric camera angle sometimes made readability a bit rough.

[the-monkey-ruler]

Bloons TD 6 (2018)

Platform: Mac / PC / iPhone / iPad / Android Developer: Ninja Kiwi Publisher: Ninja Kiwi Genre: Strategy Theme: Fantasy / Modern Military Franchises: Bloons / Bloons TD Type: Appropriation

Summary:

First released for iOS and Android on June 13, 2018, Bloons TD 6 is the sixth main entry in the Bloons TD series, a tower defense spin-off to the Bloons series of puzzle games. Unlike previous entries into the series, which were developed for Adobe Flash, TD 6 was built with Unity. Bloons TD 6 features a number of other differences relative to previous entries in the series, including polygonal 3D graphics, completely reworked tower upgrades and control schemes, and a new leveling progression system centered around "Monkey Knowledge".

Since launch, the game has received a PC release through Steam, co-op support, new towers, and several time-limited event modes.

Source: https://www.giantbomb.com/bloons-td-6/3030-68981/

Link: https://www.youtube.com/watch?app=desktop&v=WOWAnBXFGcU

[realgeometrydash]

GEOMETRY DASH

Geometry Dash is a side-scrolling music platforming game series developed by Robert Topala. The game was released on 13 August 2013 on iOS and Android, and the Windows and macOS versions on 22 December 2014. In Geometry Dash, players control the movement of an icon and navigate music-based levels while avoiding obstacles such as spikes.

--------------------------------------------------------------------

[cheritzteam]

[MM] Announcement on v1.21.3 Update

Hello, this is Cheritz.

v1.21.3 Update Log

Bug Fix

- Prevented free hourglass abuse

Contents Update - November title illustration and app icon update (10-31 ~ 11-13 KST)

[v1.21.3 Update Release]

Android: Due 31st of October, 2023

iOS: Due 31st of October, 2023

* Update schedules are subject to change should any issues arise during the app review process.

Thank you.

Cheritz.

[conniedw]

The fact that if Slenderman was never made Piggy would never have of happened

Well why was Slenderman made well cuz Eric Knudsen, also known as Victor Surge, created Slenderman in June 2009 as part of a Photoshop contest on the online forum Something Awful. Knudsen's goal was to create a character that would cause fear and unease in the general population. Which worked and then an Indie developer named Dennie Vukanovic or DVlooper who made a game in December, 23 2011 called Barguy.

He than made Animal fun and Paint, and one to help people with their finances. Until in November 4, 2015 he released a game called Slendrina who is Slenderman’s daughter. Then down the line we now have 10 Slandrina games which are down below both the names & dates they was released(iOS n Android)

Slandrina-Jan 13, 2015/Nov 4 2015

Slandrina The Cellar-Feb 16, 2015/Mar 21, 2014

House of Slandrina-May 13, 2015/ Dec 22, 2014

Slandrina Asylum-Mar 24, 2017/ Jul 5, 2015

Slandrina 2D-May 10, 2017/Oct 30, 2015

The Child of Slandrina-Apr 1 2016

Slandrina the school-Apr 11, 2017/Aug 20, 2016

Slandrina the Cellar 2-Apr 15, 2017/Nov 25, 2016

Slandrina the forest-Apr 28, 2017/Mar 2, 2017

Slandeina X-Aug 23, 2017

And than finally in November 24, 2017 Granny came out and obviously it was a hit with at time of writing this 420 MILLION downloads!! So yeah definitely a hit! This is also the first game to have a PC version so makes Granny to have 3 different versions which they are n released is

Granny Android-Nov 24, 2017

Granny IOS-Dec 12, 2017

Granny PC-Nov 20, 2018

Fun fact

Child of Slandrina was released only on Android so I can’t play it cuz I am an iOS user plus some of the games haven’t been updated in some time so they you can’t use them on iOS so yeah I can’t play most of the Slandrina games😭😭

Granny chapter 2 came out in September 6, 2019 for Android, September 7, 2019 for IOS, and December 30, 2019 for PC.

And the final and (maybe) last game for the Slandrina/Granny trilogy Granny 3 being released in June 3, 2021 for Android, and August 22, 2021 for Windows

Now that we have the Slandrina/Granny part of this we now have the

PEPPA PIG PART

What did you really think I would put Piggy here ha no we have to talk about the other reason why piggy even exists which is Peppa Pig in which if you don’t know what Peppa pig is

1. How have you not no like actually how?

2. Peppa pig is a show that follows a 1st grade pig named Peppa pig, and her family George, Mummy(Rachel), and Daddy(Perseus).

And their last name is Pig so yeah which I find it so fucking funny to me

So know that we all know Peppa Pig(if you didn’t know(which like how)) we can know Finally get to the

ZOMBIE APOCALYPSE Genre

The zombie apocalypse genre originated with the 1968 American horror film Night of the Living Dead by George A. Romero

INSPIRATION
Romero was inspired by Richard Matheson's 1954 novel I Am Legend, which is about vampires that are driven by a desire for blood.

Everything you just read was stolen for Google(why the fuck did they uppercase that)

I am not writing all of that. I started writing this at 8pm MST and now it’s 11:43am MST

OKAY NOW WE START TALKING ‘BOUT PIGGY

In which piggy is an mix of Zombie Apocalypse, Peppa Pig, and Granny which Granny is a spin off of Slandrina and Slandrina is a fan fiction about Slanderman so yeah I know that this is not that detailed as the Granny/Slandrina part but the bc I started writing and reaching when I woke up from a nap so I got like 3hrs of some sleep

Bye bye:b(I did so much research so time to take a 1hr nap and than do my school work(btw its 12pm now))

[championkoma]

I am once again back on my pokemon bullshit.

Over the past 10 years or so, my love for pokemon has been fading with each new release. Starting with Sun and Moon, I began to feel like pokemon had become too kid friendly for me, as I just graduated high school and was truly beginning my adult life. I enjoyed the story of Sun and Moon but did not enjoy the games mechanics in the totems rather than gyms and what not and did not enjoy the region itself so much. After that, ultra Sun and moon released and I bought it but never even beat it until this year because I just couldn’t get into it. I enjoyed the Lets Go games but wish there was more battling involved so I could see my boy mega blastoise more in Kanto. I was quite excited for Pokemon Sword and Shield but once I began playing I quickly grew bored of it, can’t really place any reason why but it just didn’t stick. I had fun with Brilliant Diamond and Shining Pearl but they’re nothing to write home about. Then legends arceus released and I was super hyped for it, and now I still have not finished it. I think it’s the best idea the pokemon company has had in years but I can only play for about 30 minutes before getting bored. Now with Scarlet and Violet, I was not hyped in the slightest but bought scarlet anyways and actually ended up loving the story but thought it was an ugly game, the first dlc was fun and I looked forward to the second but once it came out, I quickly gave up once encountering the trials.

Overall, I figured I’ve just outgrown Pokemon but once IOS allowed emulators, I decided to get all the older games again and quickly felt the nostalgia and love for the series in full again.

The Delta Emulator for GB/GBA/DS.

I downloaded delta first, as it was the emulator I was most familiar with. I got all the GB and GBA games first but quickly wanted to try SoulSilver for DS again. At this point I’m not too far but still open it up and grind whenever I have time.

ArcEmu for Apple Watch

I then learned of ArcEmu that allows you to play Gb/GBA games on an Apple Watch. I love this idea and downloaded FireRed for it but don’t really use it for anything, but enjoy knowing that I have it with me if I ever leave my phone.

Folium

An emulator for 3DS games has been fun to tinker with but doesn’t run the best on my iPhone 13 mini. Weirdly, Pokemon Omega Ruby seems to run better than Pokemon X.

Overall, I just like to tinker with the emulators on iOS and prefer the DS and 3ds games on emulators, for some reason GB and GBA feels wrong on phones.

Pokémon Go

I have been a day 1 pokemon Go rural player, over the years I have mostly just used it for transferring shiny pokemon to my main switch games. At this point I’m pretty much done with the game as they continue to make the game a pain for rural players who don’t want to spend money. I have transferred all of my shinies to home and most of the pokemon but will still check the game whenever I’m in new areas and whatnot.

Pokemon TCG Pocket

I started playing the new Pokemon TCG Pocket game and im liking it so far. I’ve never been much of a Pokemon TCG player, just a collector and this game scratches the itch for a casual collector like me who just likes to buy a booster pack occasionally here and there. I pulled a full art Mewtwo card which was cool.

Pokémon Sapphire/GameBoy Micro

About 2 years ago, I bought a GameBoy Advanced and a couple of Pokemon Repro carts. Eventually I pulled the trigger on a legitimate copy of Pokemon Sapphire. I work full time and do full time college so I don’t have much time to actually play. Eventually I decided to get a GameBoy micro, and decided to go for a cheaper and more beat up so that I can take it with me everywhere and not feel bad if it gets beat up.

I have loved having a GameBoy micro with me. I still don’t get to play as much as I’d like but it makes lunch breaks more fun at work and something about playing on actual hardware feels so much better.

Pokemon and the impact it has had on me

I have been a lifelong Pokemon fan, many of my earliest memories include Pokemon. I watched Pokemon the first movie probably over 100 times. I collected and traded Pokemon cards on the playground with many of my classmates. I received Pokemon firered as my first Pokemon game when I was 10, around the time Pokemon platinum was released and put hundreds of hours into it. Once, Pokemon X and Y released I made it my goal to complete the pokedex and was successful. I probably put 300-500 hours per game back in the day and now usually don’t even spend 100 hours on the modern games. Maybe I’m just a grumpy old fan but to me it feels like modern Pokemon is missing the heart that old Pokemon had.

Anyways, just figured I’d make a post for the hell of it and just chat about Pokémon.

[autolenaphilia]

Jenny Leclue. Detectivú is a flawed game, but it also does do a lot of things right.

The main flaw is the weird gameplay. It’s basically a point-and-click adventure game, but perhaps because one of the launch platforms was the iOS, it does things weirdly. There are for example screens that are basically point-and-click or hidden object screens, where you have to move a cursor around the screen to click on points of interests. But instead of free mouse aim, you have the cursor centered on the screen, and you have to slowly move the camera around with the cursor centered, and then activate it on a hotspot. The character movement is similarly odd, it’s basically a 2d platformer, except there is no real challenge because Jenny the player character can’t die or even fail. Like just clicking and moving Jenny to where you clicked would have made things much easier, without removing any significant challenge.

It’s not too bad, but it feels that this game should be a mouse-controlled point-and-click, and that this control scheme holds it back, at least on PC. I would have liked the ability to save whenever, you are dependent on autosaves here. I would have liked more puzzles, there is too much platforming and way too few puzzles in this game. And harder puzzles too, the ones we get are fun, but I want more challenge.

And again, I don’t feel I’m being too hard on some simple mobile game, this game has ambitions to be a serious proper adventure game. It took me ten hours to beat. It’s legit overqualified to be a mobile game at that length. And it got released on PC (including natively for Linux, thanks to the devs for that) as a proper adventure title. So it feels fair to compare to other adventure games on the pc, and I wish it was more like them.

The game has a substantive story too. And the story is where the game held me, because it’s good. It’s metafictional in a way that’s really fun. The framing story is about Arthur Finklestein, who writes the Jenny Leclue series of kid’s mystery novels. Jenny is the kid detective star of these books, basically a younger Nancy Drew. And he is now on the 38th book in the series, and the formula is getting stale. He’s getting threatening letters and phone calls from his publishers to shake things up, have a proper murder for once. And Arthur rises up to the challenge.

It’s Jenny Leclue, the series’s kid detective that we play as in this new adventure. And she is a great character. The first thing is that Jenny is utterly adorable, with her glasses, unruly mop of red hair, gap-toothed smile, and autistic, nerdy nature. Part of the fun in playing her is just how cute she is. But her character goes deeper than that. And here is the metafictional element comes in.

Part of the trope of the kid detective is that the child detective is not just smarter than the other kids, but smarter than the adults as well, being able to solve mysteries they can’t. And Jenny is every bit as clever as the genre expects her to be. She is smarter than the other residents of her town, named Arthurton after its creator. And she knows it. So she has of course developed a massive superiority complex, she is arrogant about her intelligence and somewhat accurately feels that she is smarter than everyone else. Part of it is that she is a child too. Her exact age is left vague, but she can’t be much older than 13. So she isn’t yet mature enough to handle this situation and grow past it. So when the game starts, she is, as another girl puts it, a jerk to other people.

She is also very bored, and again the metafiction comes into play. Because Arthur wants to keep his genre, safe, cozy and formulaic for the kids reading, all the mysteries Jenny are given are boringly mundane. We get a taste of it in the opening of the game, where Arthur as a writer is clearly afraid and holding back, and still sticking to his formula, so Jenny solves mysteries like “what did the dean eat for breakfast” or “A scatter-brained woman lost her glasses. Where are they?” She of course feels that this is boring, and a waste of her detective talents.

And then the friendly avuncular dean of the university gets murdered, Jenny finds his body, and her mother gets accused of the murder. Jenny’s perspective on the events after her mother gets arrested are not shown directly, but appropriately depicted in a nightmare that leads us into the rest of the game.

It’s scary, but Jenny is able to recover from the trauma and start to unravel the murder mystery. There is a comment on children’s literature genre here, and it’s that kids can handle more things than adults think they are capable of, and in fact find murder and danger in books fun. Arthur Finkelstein acts as the narrator of the game, and he and Jenny end up in conflict quite often, where she is all for doing dangerous things in her investigation, while Arthur wants to keep her safe. And of course the theme is also wider than fiction. It’s about the necessity of kids growing up, abandoning the sentimental idea of childhood innocence that adults impose on them and learning to experience the darker side of life

Since her only parent is in jail, Jenny ends up temporarily fostered by the wealthy Glatz family. And I like this bit, because the Glatz matriarch threatens to make the tomboyish Jenny do traditionally girly things like dress shopping and pony rides, to Jenny’s absolute horror. I like girls being allowed to rebel against femininity like that.

And Jenny’s imprisonment in the Glatz manor enables her to meet Susie Glatz, the biological daughter of the family, and Jenny’s ally and foil for the rest of the game. And Susie is one the other side of the trap for girls that gender roles present. Susie is outwardly the perfect feminine girl that her parents want, and she genuinely likes dresses, horses and cheerleading. The thing is, Susie is also secretly an engineering inventor genius who makes all kinds of nifty gadgets. But because her parents believe strictly in gender roles, Susie has to keep her interest in science and technology a secret. So even if she largely voluntarily conforms to the femininity Jenny rejects, she is still restricted by it. And she is not taken seriously, not even by Jenny.

She is a good foil for Jenny, because Jenny has already dismissed her as a bimbo, as she calls Susie to her face. But Susie is genuinely smart, and she is smart in ways that Jenny is not, as Jenny put all her intelligence skill points into being a detective and not technology. And while Jenny is arrogant, Susie is genuinely nice and just wants to be friends with Jenny. Their relationship has a fun tension to it, that enables Jenny to grow as a character and admit that she does need help from friends like Susie. It’s great character writing. It is literal children’s novel writing, but it allows female characters to be flawed and multifaceted, talks about femininity in nuanced ways and allows the girls characters to interact with each other in ways that are about them and not about boys.

(This game passes the bechdel test in its original sense too. I can easily imagine Jenny/Susie as a budding butch/femme lesbian relationship)

There are other delights of the storytelling in this game, such as the intriguing sci-fi mystery hidden (quite literally) beneath Arthurton that Jenny partly uncovers during the game and is tied into the murder mystery. The narration once talks pointedly about the “twin peaks of Arthurton”, and that’s kinda the vibe the game has at times, which I like (Jenny shares her love of coffee with Twin Peaks’s agent Cooper and she finds people named Cooper and Cole buried in the town’s graveyard). And the game’s 2d hand-drawn artstyle is delightful throughout. The game originally released without voice acting, but a free update in 2020 gave the game full voice acting, and it’s of high quality.

The problem is that the game’s storytelling kinda disappoints in the end. It ends on a cliffhanger, a “to be continued”, with several mysteries left unsolved. And this game was released in 2019, after itself having a protracted development of years involving kickstarter funding, and we haven’t seen a sequel to date, despite the devs telling us they are working on it. It’s very much up in the air at this point, we might get a Jenny Leclue 2, we very well might not.

So I don’t know what to think about Jenny Leclue, Detectivú.The gameplay is often awkward, and the story is unfinished. Still I was so delighted by Jenny as a character, and the writing of her and Susie that I’m willing to forgive its flaws. Definitely worth the 41 sek I spent on it in a GOG sale. And if a sequel happens that wraps up the story I will be there.

[satoshi-mochida]

Pine: A Story of Loss launches December 13 - Gematsu

Pine: A Story of Loss, a short story-driven game about life after love, will launch for Switch, PC via Steam, iOS, and Android on December 13, publisher Fellow Traveller and developer Made Up Games announced.

Here is an overview of the game, via its Steam page:

About

Pine: A Story of Loss is an interactive and emotional short story told wordlessly through hand-drawn animation and music, designed to be played in a single sitting. It follows the story of a woodworker grieving the recent passing of his wife. Now alone in the glade where they made their home, he attempts to move on. His simple daily chores of tending to his garden or collecting wood for the next winter are interrupted by memories of the happy times they spent together. Desperate not to forget her, the woodworker captures these memories in beautiful carvings out of the wood he collects. Pine: A Story of Loss is a story-driven game focused on accessible, engaging interactions that pull you into the woodworker’s experience. Charming puzzles and mini-games celebrate the happy memories of their time together while deliberate chores underscore his challenges with moving on.

Key Features

The Insistence of Memory – As you help the woodworker complete his daily routine, the simple chores you’ll guide him through are interrupted by reminders of his late wife. In these endearing memories you’ll relive their happiest moments together, playing games and building a life with each other.

Meticulous Mementoes – The woodworker’s carvings are beloved mementos he captures from his memories. Pine: A Story of Loss‘ unique carving mechanic lets you create the carvings with the woodworker’s hands, each a promise that his lost love will be remembered.

Lovingly Crafted – Classic hand-drawn animation, a beautiful setting, an evocative score and immersive environmental sound effects bring Pine: A Story of Loss‘ story to life.

Watch a new trailer below.

Release Date Trailer