#maybe not so much the devs themselves who actually know the inner workings of how games are made

[drhu0806]

I have... very mixed feelings about the criticisms aimed towards game devs right now regarding Baldur's Gate 3 setting a new standard for RPGs, and frankly I'm a little disappointed if only because it doesn't sound all that different from those really annoying players who obviously have absolutely no experience in game dev and what it's like but they keep talking shit like they do. Game dev is hard. I'm not a game dev, but I am in software and that's hard enough, and I can only imagine what people who make games go through. I am not going to pretend I know what their job is like.

That's not to say I completely disagree with people wanting to put BG3 on that pedestal: I absolutely want AAA studio execs to fear for their lives with the release of this game because it's going to prove so many things to them, and I do want it to set some kind of standard in some things. But I also genuinely don't think it's even possible for games to consistently reach BG3 as a standard even if they tried. So I see it less as attainable and more as something to consistently worth striving for, mainly because of just why BG3 is almost for certain going to rock our worlds, because it's a result of a perfect combination of factors that I genuinely think even AAA studios will have hard time getting:

Backing of Wizards of the Coast - this is one of the biggest ones I think, but this gives BG3 relatively lower risk when it comes to turning profits. I'm pretty sure I don't need to tell anyone that D&D is hot right now, so Larian already has a near guaranteed huge batch of consumers coming in.

Highly successful early access - this is less of a super important point since AAA studios def have the resources for QA on this level but we do need to factor in the steady cash flow and how for a part of playtesting players are paying them rather than the other way around. Also of note is that part of what made their EA so successful is because the studio has had previous EAs that proved their worth, which ties into the next point...

Proven track record - Larian is one of the most perfect companies to have taken on this role--though yeah they did get rejected before when they tried convincing WotC--mainly because they've had at least two very successful and genuinely good games in the past, and they've brought on a lot of those devs from those games to work on BG3. This is the really important point because I do want to emphasize that Larian had to build up to BG3; the two Original Sin games were good but they aren't as big. Part of why I don't think games regularly being the same caliber of the game is feasible because studios need the experience, and they absolutely cannot make games as high functioning as BG3 every single time.

You need at least both points 1 and 3 to get something like BG3 and while there are some franchises + studios that can achieve this (I def have one in mind but they THREW THEIR POTENTIAL AWAY--) I'd be very hard pressed to find this combination with any level of consistency. I'm sure we'll get games of this caliber every once in a while but I feel like so much of getting there is having games in between that may or may not be great.

I feel like there's a disconnect in the way people are expressing and interpreting these opinions. I personally think game devs--at least the reasonable ones--are saying BG3 shouldn't be the standard because they're saying it's really not possible to make games of that level of scope all the time, which I think is pretty reasonable. But maybe the way some of them are saying it, players are interpreting it as a refusal to put in the time and effort to make decent games that don't break the backs of their producers. I think BG3's general work flow is definitely something any company could achieve, and I think that's what good fans want, I just sympathize with devs in that I don't want players to hold games to such a high standard on a technical level when Larian was just about the perfect company to take on this job and you can't get that all the time.

[border-spam]

Leech Lord - Nobody loves me like you

It was so late it felt like time itself had passed out, that void somewhere in the AM between being tired enough to fall asleep where you stand and feeling the nervous energy of dawn approaching.

The air in the Mechanicum was crisp with night chill when the E-Dev in her pocket vibrated, and Saint Ur-Machina's heart sunk in her chest as she grimaced under her welding mask. No need to check who it was, she'd known before he'd even sent the message.

The God-King was angry.

She sighed, rubbing oily hands into oilier overalls, and frowned at how pointless a gesture trying to clean them had been at all, picking bits of filth out from under her nails as she leaned against the rough wall of the hangar. Pointless maybe, but a distraction, and Seifa needed one of those right now.

The God-King was angry with himself, and that meant the people he cared about the most would take the rage.

The workfloor clock read 3:56AM where it hung from the rafter above her station, clunky ticking echoing across the empty bay. No one but her still working, and she shouldn't really have been there either considering the hour, but that had stopped feeling like it mattered a long time ago. She was always there now. Always working, like she haunted the place. Funny, she used to be so good about managing her time...

The welding mask threw a cloud of sawdust as it bounced across the floor towards the machine she'd kicked it at. She didn't even know what to call the horrible thing that loomed in front of her, some juggernaut of sleek metal she'd been ordered to run performance checks on, jagged lines illuminated by the sickly floor lamps she'd arranged around its skeleton.

Warmachines. Unnamed projects with stacks of paperwork marking them as highly classified, Troy's insignia and the same word she kept seeing over and over in confidential documentation - Uroboros. Tasted like a bad idea, reeked of poor decisions, and she'd always sniffed those out like a Skag.

What the hell did Seifa A'Rosk know about warmachines anyway? They used to build Technicals here, outriders. COV custom Cyclones for stream events, this wasn't what she signed up for, none of it was. Managing the engineering crew should never have shifted into whatever the fuck THIS was.

The steel monster in front of her bled oil silently into the sawdust, refusing to give an answer. Whatever this was, it was for Gods and Sirens, and that was a world she wasn't part of, not really. She wasn't a Saint, she was just a ghost, caught repeating the same mistakes over and over till she faded away.

The E-Dev in her pocket vibrated again, and she tapped the back of her head against the plate steel wall, trying to convince herself she wasn't ready to vomit as she squinted up towards the hangar's ceiling, lost to the night murk the lights around her couldn't quite cut through.

She figured she should answer, making him wait was just going to make this worse.

Jak-Knife had already warned her, a curt ping earlier today to "sstay ou t of his way it s bad seiifa". Ven too when he'd dropped by in the afternoon with the excuse of worrying about if she'd eaten yet and half a bag of something spicy and dripping in grease. He'd said the Cathedral staff were noose tight and whispering nervously about an incident a few hours before, something had gone wrong in a talk with visiting sponsors - with the twins. Word on the rumour mill was it had nearly turned vicious, the suits looking ready to brick themselves as they'd all but ran through the meeting room's doors after Troy had flung them open hard enough to unhinge one, and according to priests who'd been on hand? Tyreen had really embarrassed him.

Sei had winced as Ven explained, both painfully aware of this behaviour pattern and what it meant for everyone he was close to. Why the God Queen had been going out of her way to put her brother down in front of high-value clients recently was impossible to guess - no one could really get into her head or understand her decisions lately, but this wasn't the first time, and if anything it was getting worse. Little insults. Little knife-sharp jokes that weren't jokes at all, and mockeries masked behind a paper thin smile like it made them less deadly. She'd imply he was a burden, or undermine his expertise in ways so cleverly worded that the officials would have no choice but to laugh awkwardly as Troy seethed while his twin continued with negotiations.

Today she'd apparently told him to make himself actually useful and fetch their guests some drinks, right in front of servant crew and moments after he'd finished a grueling breakdown of growth projections and profit expectations for this quarter to a rapt audience. It's hard to tell if him snapping had actually surprised her or had been exactly what she wanted, but the staff who'd been there were terrified, and insisted the Vault Mother had looked genuinely shocked when the desk he threw had missed her head by barely a few inches.

He'd stalked out of the meeting and vanished into the upper cloister, and now it was the middle of the night and her E-Dev pinged for a third time.

She closed her eyes and tried to breathe out the fear coiling through her ribs in a shaky exhale. She knew exactly what was happening, it was the same as always with him. Enraged, dripping with self-loathing, and lost somewhere in that toxic mood somewhere between vicious and pitiful - looking for something to hurt, looking for a way to vent the pain as he paced like a snarling monster, muttering like he was arguing something with himself, a back and forth of accusations and desperate apologies to something no one else could see.

Tyreen couldn't eat him alive with her powers but she could do it with her words... and maybe that's what had changed. Maybe she'd realised a new way to control her twin with manipulations that left him so emasculated and damaged in confidence that he wanted to tear something he loved apart just so he could turn the hatred on himself after.

Of course it was going to be her.

The same dance every time now, the same frustrating steps that she'd memorised by this point, trying to break him out of his deadly spiral as he'd rant at rave at her, till he'd attack her somehow, then skulk into the shadows when he was done foaming at the mouth, leaving her to carry everything he'd piled onto her shoulders - the threats, the hate, the aggression, only to beg for her forgiveness the next day and be ignored.

He'd spend a week desperately apologising, showing how much he understood how pathetically wrong what he had done had been, sending ridiculous gifts to the mechanicum where he knew they'd have to be accepted under his sigil, reassure over and over in messages that it wouldn't happen again, that he'd just been under so much pressure, that he'd just snapped, that it wasn't right and she hadn't deserved it and how much her friendship mattered.

The E-Dev pinged one last time, and Seifa straightened, dusting off her overalls and adjusting the toolbelt slung around her waist.

God-King Calypso demanded a sacrifice - self harm masked as a blade he'd lash at someone he loved so it would cut him all the deeper. She'd take it, better her than someone else. She could handle him. 

She always had.

It was raining again, felt like that hadn't stopped at all this month. Pandora had wet seasons, it's just that the water never seemed to go anywhere. The acrid dust absorbed it almost as fast as it could fall, but in the city it flooded the streets as it rushed down gutters. Neon light reflected from gaudy signs in pools of colour that swam across the uneven paving stones as she slowly made her way towards the Cathedral, a waterproof canvas thrown around her shoulders protecting from the downpour.

Even at this time of night, the city was still alive. It never really stilled anymore, too many deals going down in alleys and money changing hands in clubs for it to ever actually sleep, and as she picked her way past huddled locals far too engrossed in their own business to pay her any mind, Seifa wondered when it was things had changed like this.

This place had been a shanty town, hadn't it? When she'd arrived to take over the engineering division there had been maybe one, two thousand COV followers camped around the cathedral in rickety shelters. Bandits mostly, erecting camps and functional living quarters with expertise alien to any outsider. It was a city now, fuck, it was a metropolis. She'd overseen the building of half of the major apartment systems in the inner ring around the holy quarter, so how did it still feel like it had grown of out nowhere?

Sei huffed out a steamy breath into the chill night air as the cathedral began to come into view, bass music and laughter fading as it was swallowed into the drumming of the rain on the buildings she left behind her.

She used to be so proud when she saw it, the awesome majesty of its twisted spires and jutting angles framed against the rocky outcrop that loomed behind it. Nowadays it just looked like something grotesque, a mirror of what it contained maybe. The COV was rotting from within, and everyone knew the source.

She'd been warned by friends more willing to face the harsh realities of the twin's decline that time was running out.

Tonight, tomorrow, a week from now, it didn't matter why it was going to happen, just that it would, and as much as she hated admitting it to anyone, Seifa knew she wasn't strong enough to do this much longer.

He was killing her.

Anything could set him off now, it was constant. Numbers under-performing this week, an underhanded comment from Tyreen that tipped the balance, not enough sleep, too many stims, not gaining weight, an article mocking his appearance, anything. It could have been any of them he had summoned, her, Ven, JK, the why or who was inconsequential because the desired outcome was always the same.

Troy wanted to hurt himself, not them, but he didn’t know how. The pressure would build and build till he broke down, lost logic, went wild-eyed and shaking in barely controlled rage. He hated being Troy Calypso so much there were times he wanted to tear his own skin off, he'd told her as much on nights alone and open in shared sadness, but there was no escape. It was this, or starving in a manner she couldn’t even comprehend, and when he'd asked before if maybe that would be the better option?

...She'd not known what to say. She'd failed him then, tripping over the words catching in her lungs as he desperately waited for an answer that would make sense of things, and she'd never been able to give one. Just sat next to him as they both sank deeper into the trap of their titles and the horrible reality that there was no clear way out.

He was waiting in the throne room for her, just like she'd imagined. Pacing back and forth across the dias as the city light streamed through the stained glass windows, glinting sharply off the rattling gold spines his ritual gear was decorated with as he moved.

She'd stood in silence, watching, trying to catch what he was asking himself as he'd snap a muttered retort in spite, but not able to ever make out the questions. Like an animal snared in gilded chains she figured, or something else maybe - an idol pretending to be something living? A shiver had ran through her as she waited for him to turn his frantic attention to her, quietly waiting for the blow to come. No one had even been there to greet her or open the doors to the throne room, they were ajar, the staff knowing better than to risk being in his presence when he was like this... she smirked, knowing better than her, anyway.

He'd shifted attention to her so smoothly it felt like the rant he'd been hissing to himself just continued directly into her as he'd turned, beckoning her closer with a quirk of those horrible claws. She'd bit her lip and swallowed down how much that enraged her, being summoned like a fucking dog when this man so often made clear he viewed himself as dirt in comparison to her, but months of dealing with him had tempered the reaction. Easier to go along with it, placate him, nod and let him vent out the bile till he realised how much of a fucking asshole he was and came crawling back later.

It was the same dance as usual, the exact same steps. She could feel where he was going with each shift in direction, jumping topic to topic in an attempt to place blame and becoming more enraged with each simple refute she could offer. She never made it easy, that wasn't her nature in the end, she'd calmly reply back to each accusation with logic that left him shaking harder as the fury built, like a caged predator or roid-mad Psycho desperate to attack but not getting the opening. She could play this game for hours, long enough to make sure he worked for the satisfaction, even if it left her exhausted.

She'd always been petty, after all.

He threw snarled jabs at Mechanicum performance, raised complaints that she knew weren't true, accused "concerns" about output she could disarm easily, the same as always, till suddenly he shifted.. and everything went wrong.

She could handle him with spines raised and teeth bared, she could stand unflinching as he aimed blows that he never really landed, but she hadn't been prepared for him to suddenly relax. He'd stood straight, rolling the weight of the prosthetic on a shoulder all casual and friendly like suddenly he wasn't seething under the grin his snarl melted into, and she'd felt a jolt of fear. This was something new, this was something... worse, she could feel it like electricity crackling up her spine, and for the first time that night her heart began to pick up a stuttered pounding as cool sweat beaded down her back. He took a step closer, and for just a second, there was a question flittering across the back of her mind that screamed something she couldn't ignore before it vanished into her practiced calm.

For a split second, Seifa questioned if this was Troy.

"You know, it's funny, Sei..."

She opened her mouth to warn him to stop, the atmosphere was at fever point, he was going to go too far, something in how terrified his eyes looked against he vicious curve of his smile sent panic through her chest.

"Troy" her voice cracked "Come on, Troy you know you shouldn't keep going, this is -"

He cut her off with a tsk and raise of a bladed finger, bending to lower his face closer to hers from where he towered above her.

"Rude Seifa, I was talking."

He was near enough to feel the body heat glowing from his chest, and her voice choked in her throat as the point of a talon tapped gently against her nose as if he was chiding some kid.

"Funny isn't it?" He cooed, and it wasn't.

"You used to have so much time for me, didn't you. We used to really spend time together..." the lack of his stutter was a warning she knew him too well to ignore.

"... but nowadays you're so desperate to get out of my presence that I can literally see your skin crawl while you're forced to be around me. It's happening right now Sei... ain't it."

That was a lie, and she wanted to slap his hand away from where it pointed towards her chest, push him back towards the throne behind him and tell him how stupid an attack that was. She's always had time for him, she gave him infinite time, she gave him so much of herself that she'd been crumbling, she wanted to tell him the truth of it, that how much she gave him had been killing her, but she couldn't, he didn't give her the chance.

"You've got allllll the energy in the world for your little friends though, don't you. You've got laughter and happiness to pour all over them, fill them up with, show them how much you care, but not me, not anymore. And you know, that's got me thinking recently!"

The smile was fake but the monster behind it wasn't. He may as well have been snarling, and she was fully aware he wasn't really attempting to hide that at all.

He stepped a fraction closer again, close enough for her to reach and press a warning hand against his chest as he leaned further down to meet her eyes, the veneer of his calm cracking under the weight of the now haggard, panting breathes he whistled through that vicious smile, the terror in his eyes. She didn't understand any of this, why was he so afraid when it was him pressing this onwards, why was he so panicked when the act was so calm? His skin was like fucking fire under her hand and the push she gave to try and move him back did nothing.

"Made me realise, maybe I was never your friend really - maybe I was just something you held onto like a lifeline in the storm of your shitty life choices, huh?" She felt tears rise, this wasn't fair, this was too real now, this was being aimed at his friend not his employee, but he wouldn't stop.

"Taken for a ride while you lead me on all these years. That would explain it, right? How much you got for them, how much you'll give them, when I'm just a burden to you. Or..."

His mouth was next to her ear and she wanted to beg him to stop before it was too late, before he did what she knew he was about to do. To stop before he decimated everything, but the words were caught behind the sob she refused to let spill as he drove the knife home with one last twist.

"Maybe the real problem here Seifa, is they are more than friends, hmm? Because that's your real operation method, isn't it. That's how you get what you want, everyone knows it. Maybe they met your standards, but you just never saw me as good enough to fuck."

The crack of his jaw against her fist echoed through the stone throne room for long enough to make the silence that came after all the more horrible.

She remembers that, that noise and the pain ripping through her hand in burning waves, but she doesn't really remember the rest. 

She doesn't fully remember what she saw, the flash of those glaring, monstrous eyes that burned down on them both as Troy reeled in horrified shock, cradling his face in confusion like he couldn't understand why she'd just hit him, she doesn't remember the flicker of Siren wings or the laughter that echoed somewhere in the back of her mind but made no sound.

It's a daze. Whatever he whispered pleadingly after, teary-eyed and shaking, she didn't hear.

She doesn't remember leaving and how she stormed down the Cathedral halls and into the freezing night air, doesn't remember who saw her or if clergy had been there. Doesn't remember the way she'd mindlessly picked towards the hi-rise Ven's quarters were in before realising she was walking the wrong way, or how effortlessly she'd flipped the ignition in her ship, or how prepped she'd been to jump out of Pandora's orbit soon as she hit safe distance, doesn't remember any of it.

But the pain in her hand and the look in his eyes after, she fucking remembers that.

[onegirllis]

Have you really gone through episode 2 of LIS2? I really wonder what you think about it. Better, of course, the full answer.

I finished it indeed. The episode is about 3-4h long, depending on how much you want to explore and how much time it would take for you to find a way out. I was battling with the idea of sharing my thoughts because it’s very hard to judge just a slice of the story, instead of the whole season, but why the hell not. Maybe I will read it when episode 5 comes out and see how wrong I was. 

So, without further ado, here’s my review of episode 2, but please be aware it includes a lot of spoilers. It’s also as honest as possible, although it’s my personal opinion only. And yes, it may be harsh, not sugarcoated, but sincere. 

MY REVIEW OF EPISODE 2 OF LIFE IS STRANGE 2

Call me naive, but I really had hopes. I really did. I didn’t like ep1, it was way too slow for my taste, with some dramatic moments that felt off, but overall I assumed that it might be just an exposition, an introduction to the world, the characters and their problems, and that the game would elaborate on everything else later. Sometimes the beginnings feel off and it gets better later, so that’s why I had some hopes (not super high) that ep2 of LIS2 will remind me of why this game even belongs to LIS franchise and why I should play the whole season. 

Well, it didn’t work out. 

Characters

Again, It’s my opinion only but I don’t feel that there are any character developments whatsoever. Daniel and Sean didn’t learn anything freezing their asses off in the mountains. They didn’t change their ways, not learning patience nor being careful. There is no tension between them or any quarrel about the events. The acceptance of their fate is understandable, but not helping with the lack of overall tension. The moments of calm, that usually gave the player the opportunity to know more about the main character’s inner thoughts, instead serve the purpose of a summary of the few previous scenes and nothing more. It almost feels like the writers don’t like the PC and don’t want to tell us more about Sean, because there is absolutely nothing worth telling. Remember the girl Sean was in love with in ep1? Never mentioned again. Remember his friends, his boss, his job, school, or sports he was interested in? He doesn’t mention them either. There is nothing in the journal or in the dialogues that would show us anything we don’t already know or wouldn’t assume by ourselves, and Sean’s insights seem more like repetitive whinings than anything impactful. In episode 1 I could wave off the fact that they decided to walk to Mexico being shocked, traumatized and lost. In episode 2, when they notoriously risk their lives or reject any other solution not learning from experience just to run away, you start questioning their sanity. I know the reason behind it - “oh plot” but “oh plot” is not good enough. 

The boys miss their dad, but don’t feel much upset or don’t present any sign of emotional trauma. There are no breakdowns and the brothers are more or less in good spirits staying optimistic, not asking themselves a single question about the future. Comparing to Chloe who was repeating “I wish Rachel was here” over and over and was living in this trauma the whole time, they don’t seem very much impacted by the events, but on the other hand, they place the dad’s photo on the table, so his death can be conveniently mentioned. The dog died (yes, it’s true, Mushroom is killed off in the first 20 minutes), and even if Daniel is supposedly devastated, it takes him only 5 minutes to shake it off and never mentions this dog again (oh ok, maybe once). If the characters don’t freaking care about this animal, why should I? 

It also seems that the characters keep forgetting what the objective is here. Maybe it’s on purpose, but they recall certain friends only when it’s convenient for the plot. “I’m gonna call Lyla” says Sean towards the end of the episode, even if he hadn’t mentioned her for 2 hours of gameplay. And even when getting devastating news about her, he is not really concerned, shrugs and sighs deeply. Yeah, we sigh with him.

When it comes to Sean himself, I really don’t mind the PC being a guy, really. If I had a problem with it, I wouldn’t be able to play 90% of video games. The thing I do have a problem with though, is Sean being an utter asshole. Yeah, he takes care of his brother and all, but he is freaking mean to his grandparents, showing lack of empathy and acceptance of a different point of view. Calling the grandma, a woman who opened her house to them “an old bat” is just a bit too much, especially after a month spent in an abandoned house without food or heating. There is no reason for him to judge those people so much and if there is a reason, we don’t know the details. How can I emotionally invest in a character that is not opening up to me, the player? Or maybe there is nothing more about Sean, and that’s even worse. 

There is a big mystery regarding why their mother left her sons but if you expect any answer while the boys are visiting their grandparents and can snoop around in Karen’s old room, you’d be mistaken. The devs are building the mystery in the typical David Cage style, that one of the characters is about to tell you something “Oh, I will tell you what your mother did..~” and then something happens and we’re left in the dark again. At this point, I expect some explosive explanation of why their mother left the family, but it’s ether drugs, a religious cult or some relationship stuff.

Tragedy Porn

Dear devs, the fact that a lot of people in the fandom are familiar with this term and use it regularly, doesn’t mean you should take it literally. I know that the LIS franchise is about hard choices or difficult situations, but killing kids and small animals left and right is just cheap and really unnecessary. It quickly gets old, just like “the boy who cried wolf” (pun intended) that as some point I don’t even blink when witnessing another digital death. I can’t be devastated by Mushroom’s death, because the dog had less screen time than Sean’s skateboard. I can’t feel sorry for every character (human or not) that you didn’t even give me a chance to feel connected to. I know that you want me to “feel something” but at this point the “feel” changes into “yawn”. Chris AKA Captain Spirit being dead (or almost dead) AGAIN - so I helped the boy just to see him die 1 hour later (I know it’s optional but still)? Lyla in the hospital, the family from the abandoned house being wiped out of the face of the earth because of cancer (at least not a car accident this time), Chris’s mom dead, the boys’ father dead, grandpa almost dying because of the accident… It’s too much. It feels cheap and not impactful. At this point, I will be surprised if you won’t just kill everybody. Who needs people on the West Coast anyway, huh?

I don’t even know if I want to learn more about the boys’ mother since you probably will kill her too.

Politics and Religion

In this episode, politics have been toned down, still visible though and there are a few moments when I literally rolled my eyes. This time the devs decided to say something more about religion since it’s a significant part of life if you live in a small town in America. Maybe it’s just me, but it seems that the power of prayer is being mocked rather than actually shown as somebody’s way of life. Acceptance and tolerance go both ways though. 

The boys surprisingly identify themselves as Mexicans, even though they are half Irish and have never been to their father’s homeland. There are a few moments when you are wondering whether they had ever really liked to live in the US, questioning everything around them. Sean, who spent a decent amount of time with his dad on “the road trips” as stated in ep1, seems genuinely surprised that in his country people keep the Bible by their beds, as if he had never been in any motel whatsoever where the Bible is always present, placed on the nightstand or in a drawer. If being religious bothers him, boy, oh boy, you will be hella surprised in Mexico. They also don’t know how to pray, which I find extremely hard to believe. It almost feels like a scene from “Anne of Green Gables” but damn, the girl had a valid reason not to know. They don’t, especially if they identify themselves as Mexicans. We could assume that they were also part of Mexican-American communities and I cannot believe that in THIS WORLD the immigrants from this particular part of the world don’t know how to pray. Although if you expect some deep conversation about God or religion in general, forget it. It’s just there to be there and that’s it.

I don’t want to discuss the articles in the newspaper about “the gentle police officer” that was killed by immigrants because it makes my blood boil. 

Against the logic, the brothers are still planning to escape to Mexico and no grown-up is really trying to talk them out of this idea. There are no alternatives provided or discussed except a pat on the back and an offer for a quick stop if even. Even the grandparents are a bit concerned but no one really gives them any real advice, which I find unlikely. The problem is that if anybody would actually give them a piece of real advice, we wouldn’t have a game.

And that’s a problem, isn’t it?

Gameplay

We have a few mini-games and fetch quests like finding bottles in the abandoned house (why always freaking bottles?), the pirate version of dice poker (never brought back again) and drawing. None of those serve any purpose except a filler that you might enjoy but it doesn’t matter if you succeed in them or not, unless the game forces you to succeed. Don’t get me wrong, I’m aware that this particular genre doesn’t usually provide a set of complex challenges in its gameplay, but it seriously looks like LIS2 is throwing us a bone, remembering from time to time that uh, it’s a game, not a movie. Those mini games are not really engaging, not really connected to the plot, but just for… whatever reason, as part of the daily chores. 

But it’s a game about choices, you say! Yes, it is, but only some of them really matter and I’m not sure for how long. If you give me a choice to do something or NOT to do it, please consider that I might pick the latter and don’t force me into your favorite path. It happens from time to time and it’s utterly annoying. If you want me to do something, just don’t give me the illusion that I can refuse. 

It almost seems that LIS2 turned into a dark alley where you are rewarded for picking the “good, canonical path” and punished for playing it differently than the devs indented. I loved LIS1 for ambiguous choices that I might pick, depending on my personal preferences, not to mention that those choices are made during an emotional moment. I don’t feel I have that opportunity here, just as if somebody who constructed it forgot why LIS was so great and is so loved.

When it comes to dialogue, it is way better than LIS1, regarding how people actually speak. On the other hand, the lines are just there to be there and I can’t recall a single line that would be worth quoting. 

And one more thing. Cutscenes. So many cutscenes. The moment when I actually could do something with my controller was a celebration. I don’t mind cutscenes in general, but it almost feels like a movie.  A long, boring, super slow movie.

Superpower


The superpower is mentioned, mostly in rules that Sean is lecturing Daniel about, but it’s non-existent in the gameplay almost at all. It’s drastically different comparing to LIS1, when Max was using her power almost all the time or was a challenge not to use it. Here we know that Daniel can do things but most of the time he conveniently forgets about it or uses it in the wrong moment. I know the game is about education but the superpower itself seems like a plot device, an additional reason to run to Mexico than anything else. They talk more about it than use it. It sounds like a good idea in general and it probably looked great on paper, but at some point I didn’t care about the superpower at all, forgetting that this secret even exists.

Season 1

When it comes to references to season 1, Arcadia Bay, or any character that we know from LIS1, there is almost nothing. Yes, you can find a drawing of ”door to another world” instead of hole to another universe, or graffiti on the wall that Sean and Daniel were here, similar to the famous junkyard thing, but it won’t give you any insight about what had happened to the favorite characters or any glimpse of their fate. There was more about Arcadia Bay in Captain Spirit than the whole LIS2 so far. The devs were damn serious, showing us Arcadia Bay in episode 1, destroyed or not, saying that this is the past. It seems that they don’t want to even refer to this past much and it’s fine, but if you’re hoping for anything, just anything related to LIS1, forget it.

Technical problems

Oh, boy. I’m aware that creating games is not an easy job and a team sport. I know that it’s almost a miracle that some of the titles even got shipped, but episode 2 of LIS2 is probably the MOST BUGGED EPISODE in the history of this franchise. Glitches, problems with sound, teleportation of objects, animations that didn’t work or songs being cut off… I’m not talking about a few mistakes here and there, but it happens all the time. It’s so common it’s an epidemic and you face some technical challenge almost in every scene as if Bethesda was putting this episode together. This episode looks like advanced beta, not a finished product that had been delayed for months. It seems ironic when recalling the posts from the Life is Strange blog about QA teams, one in France and one in Canada, carefully checking every detail and describing how quality was important. Especially in that context, this is really a disaster, however, I didn’t face any technical problem that would make this episode impossible to finish.

What worked

So what’s great about this episode? Does everything suck? Well, of course not. On the upside, the locations are absolutely stunning. You want to explore the town, the houses, play in the snow, dive into the world, even if you don’t expect anything groundbreaking to happen. The level design, in my opinion, is better than in LIS1, more consistent and intriguing. I know a lot of people might disagree with me but somebody put their heart and soul building this environment, creating something really beautiful. Except for the locations, I liked some songs and the music, way more than in ep1, but it’s not as good as in LIS1 or BTS. Better, but not great.

Cassidy

Oh, somebody was reading “Preacher”, weren’t ya? Or is ia reference to “On the road”? A lot of people seem excited about her finally showing up. I have mixed feelings about this character since I’m not sure if I want to discover the world from her perspective. A stoned, hippie-rasta girl, who takes pride in being free and “not owned by any corporation” (except Square Enix hehehe), is maybe a realistic character and I’m not saying that people like her don’t exist here, but I’m on the fence, to be honest. It seems that the devs are trying to establish the next canon ship or something with her being interested in Sean and him actually “liking her” after exchanging 3 sentences, but that really feels off. She seems more like Chloe 2.0 than anything else, but we shall see (in the next 6 months or whenever they will fucking publish the next ep). Plus for fuck’s sake, Sean was into Jenn (I don’t remember her name exactly), and there was Lyla, and then this girl. Dude!

Summary

It was boring. It was extremely freaking boring to the point that I lost my patience to check every single detail or examine every object. I don’t feel any need to replay it, even if the consequences of my choices weren’t great. I’m not curious about different outcomes nor do I want to check if I missed anything. There is not a single scene I want to see or experience again. In my game, Chris died and I don’t really feel the need to replay it and change the outcome since I will never meet him again or even deal with the consequences of his death. The whole road trip setting is intriguing but drastically different to what I loved about Life is Strange - learning more about each character, dwelling deeper into the situation, uncovering a hidden mystery. We won’t learn more about most of those characters (or it doesn’t seem possible) since we just pass them and move on, exchanging a dialogue or two like with a pedestrian on the street. There is a charm to the road trip idea, but then I would have to be extremely interested in the main characters, including the PC, to actually follow their journey closely. In LIS1 I didn’t have to like Max to play the whole thing, curious about Chloe or Rachels’ disappearance. In a road trip setting the two brothers are the core of the story and if you’re not fond of them, it won’t work.

So far it’s not working for me.

[theonyxpath]

This week is indeed a sequel of sorts, as I follow up on a variety of topics I mentioned last week. Sometimes as clarification, sometimes to give you more info, and sometimes because I just want to mention it again.

Like the Trinity Continuum: Aberrant Kickstarter that is kicking butt and taking names and is over 200% funded as we approach the end of week two. Like I said last week, it is just so great that our existing long-time fans are as excited about bringing back this legendary game as we are!

Of course, I do want to mention this week a couple of things about the KS, and maybe more the KS process that I think backers and potential backers might find it worth considering.

First, this is a reboot or re-imagining of the Aberrant setting as well as using the Storypath rules. It’s not a sequel or just a port of the old stuff onto Storypath. The designers had several goals they needed to hit, like making the system actually work this time, advancing the setting in both time and relevancy to where we are now (not the 90s), and to make sure it fit into the Trinity Continuum concept.

As more and more of the text is released to backers, you’ll be able to judge yourself how well they hit those marks – but I think they accomplished all that and a lot more!

But please, bear in mind that excerpts and previews are still just sections of the greater whole, and so you are reading something that isn’t connected to the remaining sections of the book in ways that may illuminate aspects hard to see with what is available right then.

We provide the text as we do to enable conversation and fun speculation. If you find yourself gnashing your teeth and swearing eternal vengeance over an excerpt, then the method we’re revealing things might not work for you. You’re not a jerk because of that, and we’re not jerks because we’ve found a method we use in our KSs that works really well for us. (We’re jerks for other reasons, though.)

Dystopia Rising: Evolution art by Mark Kelly

Another thing to consider about the KS preview process is that it’s not the Errata phase. We do have one of those for pretty much all of our projects, and it grew out of our Kickstarter process, funnily enough, so we definitely will give backers a chance to let us know what mistakes they find.

In fact, depending on the KS, the text may or may not have made it through editing when it is previewed. So, while the previews are great for seeing and discussing the overall concepts and details, it’s during the errata phase that we need feedback on things that don’t make sense, add up, or contradict themselves.

In much the same way, just to get this out there, we don’t do PageXXs re-errata. We do them after all the tweaks have been made, in case the text referenced in the XX moves off the page due to a change we found we needed to do because of the errata.

Eddy has a post describing why it is really important for us to keep these feedback opportunities tied to the moments in the process we need them connected to in our Pugmire Forums on this website. The gist is: it ain’t arbitrary on our parts.

Coincidentally, (?), the Onyx Pathcast crew just posted an episode devoted to this very topic: the errata/playtest/editing process and the care and feeding of the creators involved. They have a great time breaking the process down into very clear segments here: https://onyxpathcast.podbean.com/

M20 Book of the Fallen art by Oliver Specht

Following up on the Storypath Nexus Community Content site for Scion 2nd Edition, and I just want to say how thrilled we have been with the response so far. There’s already a handful of Scion products up there, with a surprisingly wide range of subject matter, size, and pricing. Good for all of you who have put together your projects and posted and let’s cheer on the creators working on their Scion projects even as I type this!

Bravo folks! It’s a great way to share your ideas, make a little money if you price it that way, let us here at Onyx Path see what you can do, and help jump-start an awesome community with awesome content.

And, of course, here’s some clarification items.

First, Storypath Nexus is the community content site for all the games powered by the Storypath rules set. So while we have started with Scion, the Trinity Continuum, Dystopia Rising: Evolution, and They Came From Beneath the Sea! game lines will also appear as they are released. Each of these will have different allowable content guidelines, and any of them may add or subtract from those guidelines as we see what works for that line.

For example, one Storypath gameline may allow fiction books to be posted, another may not. Then, some time later, fiction may be added to where it was previously not part of the allowable content. So, the Nexus is for Storypath game lines, not for Storypath as a system.

Much in the same way as White Wolf‘s Storytellers Vault is for all the White Wolf game lines.

Second, Storypath Nexus is not an Open Game License, but a community content site. Just like every other community content site, there are guidelines like I mentioned above and limits to what can be posted on the site. Maybe at some time in the future we’ll look at ways to license the system, but right now the community content site that is Storypath Nexus is what we are experimenting with.

Trinity Continuum: Aeon – Distant Worlds art by Sam Denmark

Speaking of community content, we also have a lot of projects available (and what seems like several new ones every week) on Canis Minor for the Realms of Pugmire, and the Slarecian Vault for Scarred Lands – including the epic campaign Vengeance of the Shunned (5e) starting with Part 1 – A Mishap of Ill Portent and Part 2 – A Scholarly Schism. All on DriveThruRPG!

And keep your eyes out for the annual Xmas in July Sale blowout on DTRPG, too, where you can get wild discounts on the PDFs of our:

Many Worlds, One Path!

BLURBS!

Kickstarter!

The Trinity Continuum: Aberrant Kickstarter funded in less than a day and is now over 200% funded! We’ve already passed Stretch Goals that are enabling us to recreate missing first edition books, a compilation of the web comic, three sections of a book statting out the characters, digital wallpaper and dice, a backer-only T-Shirt, and:

N!WE N!TERNATIONAL WRESTLING ENTERTAINMENT – A new PDF product discussing the N!WE, the performers and industry personnel, and various elements of professional wrestling in the world of Aberrant!

At $88,000 and climbing, we’ve got many more fantastic Stretch Goal rewards to come, so come check it out! https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/200664283/trinity-continuum-aberrant

ONYX PATH MEDIA

Onyx Pathcast art by Michael Gaydos

This Friday’s Onyx Pathcast features an interview with Onyx Path Operations Manager and DTRPG guru Matt McElroy who will be mercilessly grilled by our corespondents as to the inner workings and secrets of Onyx Path: https://onyxpathcast.podbean.com/

And Here’s More Media About Our Worlds:

We broadcast a live edition of the Onyx Path News today! Check out https://www.youtube.com/user/TheOnyxPath for the footage!

Matthew started up his Wraith: The Oblivion chronicle with prologues for each of the characters while they’re still alive. Here’s video one https://youtu.be/TaMIrvGDZPM and here’s video two https://youtu.be/0qCc183IF9U

The Story Told Podcast is publishing a review of The Realm for Exalted 3rd: http://thestorytold.libsyn.com/episode-32-exalted-the-realm-book-review

Caffeinated Conquests continue with their fumbling, bumbling, hilarious playthrough of The Gauntlet of Spiragos for Scarred Lands: https://youtu.be/BKb3fLWFlKE

A challenger appears! New on our blog is http://307rpg.com/, a fantastic podcast which has covered all kinds of games, including (but not limited to) Vampire, Scarred Lands, and Pathfinder!

Twin Cities by Night have just started a new Chronicles of Darkness series, named “The Ultimate Evil”. Please check it out! https://twincitiebynight.podbean.com/

Devil’s Luck Gaming continue with their absolutely superb Scarred Lands campaign. We can’t recommend this one enough: https://www.twitch.tv/DEVILSLUCKGAMING

Just to show you that V20 is still going strong, The Cult of Tea and Dice has started up a new V20 campaign for all your Vampire needs: https://thecultofteaanddice.net/

If written chronicle reports are your jam, check out GMorts Chaotica as they play a V5 chronicle and utilize elements from the upcoming V5 Chicago by Night: https://gmortschaotica.blogspot.com/

Occultists Anonymous continue their superb Mage: The Awakening chronicle here! Episode 28: A Spot of Bad Luck – Atratus, Mammon, and Wyrd the Seer investigate the large suburban home where the Spider had wanted to first meet. This is just as the cabal remembers that Web of Life only reveals the living. Songbird continues to fall… https://youtu.be/sHjba91g73I

Drop Matthew a message via the contact button on matthewdawkins.com if you have actual plays, reviews, or game overviews you want us to profile on the blog!

Please check any of these out and let us know if you find or produce any actual plays of our games!

ELECTRONIC GAMING

As we find ways to enable our community to more easily play our games, the Onyx Dice Rolling App is now live! Our dev team has been doing updates since we launched based on the excellent use-case comments by our community, and this thing is awesome! (Seriously, you need to roll 100 dice for Exalted? This app has you covered.)

ON AMAZON AND BARNES & NOBLE:

You can now read our fiction from the comfort and convenience of your Kindle (from Amazon) and Nook (from Barnes & Noble).

If you enjoy these or any other of our books, please help us by writing reviews on the site of the sales venue from which you bought it. Reviews really, really help us get folks interested in our amazing fiction!

Our selection includes these fiction books:

OUR SALES PARTNERS:

We’re working with Studio2 to get Pugmire and Monarchies of Mau out into stores, as well as to individuals through their online store. You can pick up the traditionally printed main book, the screen, and the official Pugmire dice through our friends there! https://studio2publishing.com/search?q=pugmire

We’ve added Prince’s Gambit to our Studio2 catalog: https://studio2publishing.com/products/prince-s-gambit-card-game

Now, we’ve added Changeling: The Lost 2nd Edition products to Studio2‘s store! See them here: https://studio2publishing.com/collections/all-products/changeling-the-lost

Scarred Lands (Pathfinder) books are also on sale at Studio2, and they have the 5e version, supplements, and dice as well!: https://studio2publishing.com/collections/scarred-lands

Scion 2e books and other products are available now at Studio2: https://studio2publishing.com/blogs/new-releases/scion-second-edition-book-one-origin-now-available-at-your-local-retailer-or-online

Looking for our Deluxe or Prestige Edition books? Try this link! http://www.indiepressrevolution.com/xcart/Onyx-Path-Publishing/

And you can order Pugmire, Monarchies of Mau, Cavaliers of Mars, and Changeling: The Lost 2e at the same link! And NOW Scion Origin and Scion Hero are available to order!

On Sale This Week!

This Wednesday, we are offering The Realm in PDF and physical book PoD versions on DTRPG!

CONVENTIONS!

Gen Con: August 1st – 4th Save Against Fear: October 12th – 14th GameHoleCon: October 31st – November 3rd We’ll also be back at PAX Unplugged later this year!

And now, the new project status updates!

DEVELOPMENT STATUS FROM EDDY WEBB (projects in bold have changed status since last week):

First Draft (The first phase of a project that is about the work being done by writers, not dev prep)

M20 Victorian Mage (Mage: the Ascension 20th Anniversary Edition)

Exalted Essay Collection (Exalted)

Trinity Continuum Jumpstart (Trinity Continuum Core)

Wraith20 Fiction Anthology (Wraith: The Oblivion 20th Anniversary Edition)

Dragon-Blooded Novella #2 (Exalted 3rd Edition)

Exigents (Exalted 3rd Edition)

Terra Firma (Trinity Continuum: Aeon) Titanomachy (Scion 2nd Edition)

Crucible of Legends (Exalted 3rd Edition)

Many-Faced Strangers – Lunars Companion (Exalted 3rd Edition)

Contagion Chronicle: Global Outbreaks (Chronicles of Darkness)

W20 Shattered Dreams Gift Cards (Werewolf: The Apocalypse 20th)

W20 Art Book (Werewolf: The Apocalypse 20th)

Yugman’s Guide to Ghelspad (Scarred Lands)

Vigil Watch (Scarred Lands)

Pirates of Pugmire KS-Added Adventure (Realms of Pugmire)

Redlines

Monsters of the Deep (They Came From Beneath the Sea!)

Tales of Aquatic Terror (They Came From Beneath the Sea!)

Kith and Kin (Changeling: The Lost 2e)

Scion: Demigod (Scion 2nd Edition)

One Foot in the Grave Jumpstart (Geist: The Sin-Eaters 2e)

Second Draft

Tales of Good Dogs – Pugmire Fiction Anthology (Pugmire)

Dragon-Blooded Novella #1 (Exalted 3rd Edition)

Across the Eight Directions (Exalted 3rd Edition)

Scion: Dragon (Scion 2nd Edition)

Geist 2e Fiction Anthology (Geist: The Sin-Eaters 2nd Edition)

Development

Oak, Ash, and Thorn: Changeling: The Lost 2nd Companion (Changeling: The Lost 2nd)

M20 The Technocracy Reloaded (Mage: the Ascension 20th Anniversary Edition)

Creatures of the World Bestiary (Scion 2nd Edition)

Heirs to the Shogunate (Exalted 3rd Edition)

Scion Companion: Mysteries of the World (Scion 2nd Edition)

Cults of the Blood Gods (Vampire: The Masquerade 5th Edition)

Legendlore core book (Legendlore)

City of the Towered Tombs (Cavaliers of Mars)

TC: Aeon Jumpstart (Trinity Continuum: Aeon)

Mummy: The Curse 2nd Edition core rulebook (Mummy: The Curse 2nd Edition)

Masks of the Mythos (Scion 2nd Edition)

Manuscript Approval

Trinity Continuum: Aberrant core (Trinity Continuum: Aberrant)

Hunter: The Vigil 2e core (Hunter: The Vigil 2nd Edition)

Chicago Folio/Dossier (Vampire: The Masquerade 5th Edition)

Deviant: The Renegades (Deviant: The Renegades)

Let the Streets Run Red (Vampire: The Masquerade 5th Edition)

WoD Ghost Hunters (World of Darkness)

Editing

Memento Mori: the GtSE 2e Companion (Geist: The Sin-Eaters 2nd Edition)

Night Horrors: Nameless and Accursed (Mage: the Awakening Second Edition)

Lunars: Fangs at the Gate (Exalted 3rd Edition)

Heroic Land Dwellers (They Came From Beneath the Sea!)

DR:E Threat Guide – Helnau’s Guide to Wasteland Beasties (Dystopia Rising: Evolution)

DR:E Jumpstart (Dystopia Rising: Evolution)

Pirates of Pugmire (Realms of Pugmire)

TC: Aeon Ready-Made Characters (Trinity Continuum: Aeon)

Post-Editing Development

M20 Book of the Fallen (Mage: the Ascension 20th Anniversary Edition)

V5 Chicago By Night (Vampire: The Masquerade)

V5 Chicago By Night Screen (Vampire: The Masquerade)

CofD Contagion Chronicle (Chronicles of Darkness)

Distant Worlds (Trinity Continuum: Aeon)

Dark Eras 2 (Chronicles of Darkness)

Spilled Blood (Vampire: The Requiem 2nd Edition)

Indexing

ART DIRECTION FROM MIRTHFUL MIKE!

In Art Direction

Contagion Chronicle

VtR Spilled Blood

Trinity Continuum Aeon: Distant Worlds – Sketches coming in.

Trinity Continuum Aberrant

Hunter: The Vigil 2e

Ex3 Lunars

They Came From Beneath the Sea

TCFBtS!: Heroic Land Dwellers

Night Horrors: Nameless and Accursed

Ex3 Monthly Stuff

In Layout

M20 Book of the Fallen

Trinity Core – Getting cover specs from printer.

Trinity Aeon – Getting cover specs from printer.

CoM – Witch Queen of the Shadowed Citadel 

Dark Eras 2

Proofing

DR: E – final PDF off for approval

Aeon Aexpansion

C20 Cup of Dreams – This week.

V5: Chicago – Inputting 2nd proof comments.

Geist 2e – Inputting Page XXs, then Indexing.

Signs of Sorcery – Implementing Errata.

At Press

Dragon Blooded – Deluxe at Studio2.

Dragon-Blooded Cloth Map – At Studio2.

Dragon-Blooded Screen – Shipped to Studio2.

The Realm – PDF and PoD versions on Sale Weds at DTRPG!

Trinity Core Screen – Shipping to Studio2.

TC Aeon Screen – Shipping to Studio2.

Book of Oblivion – PoD proofs ordered.

Trinity: In Media Res – PoD proofs ordered.

Scion Jumpstart – PoD proofs ordered.

Scion Ready-Made Characters – Waiting to order PoD proofs.

Blood Sea – PoD file uploaded, waiting to order proof.

Today’s Reason to Celebrate!

Today in 1834 – The Spanish Inquisition is officially disbanded after nearly 356 years. Or were they?…

[douchebagbrainwaves]

HOW TO CORP DEV

And while 110 may not seem surprising. And anyone who has worked on spam filters: a punish mode which, if turned on, would spider every url in a suspected spam n times, where n is your employee number.1 In fact this would do fairly well as a duck, it's hard to come up with something useful this way, you tend to get a fix on these underlying forces by triangulating from open source is not about Linux or Firefox, but about the forces that produced them: brutally candid; aggressively garbage-collecting outdated ideas; and yet driven by pragmatism rather than ideology. Odds are it isn't. I know all too well.2 The prospect of technological leverage. I still managed to fall prey to distraction, because I was tired of hearing taste is subjective and wanted to kill it is to predict it. It has ulterior motives. Be Nice August 2015 I recently got an email from Filo, who had artifacts of early languages built into their ideas of what kids ought to think. Another danger of less known firms is that, if you want to do something weird at first.

I didn't mean this as an essay; I wrote it down because I only had two hours before dinner and think fastest while writing. They assumed that all they really care about is whether your product does and why it's important. One reason programmers dislike meetings so much is not just to would-be startup founders but to students in general, for application software, you can write about the very richest, and these in turn are more likely to make anyone mad. If they're dealing with recent art, they have to behave well. Maybe, though the only thing that mattered, and should be correspondingly alarmed.3 So Web-based software is like desiging a city rather than a weekend. From this point, unless you got lucky like Andy Bechtolsheim, who gave Google $100k when they seemed promising but still had some things to figure out what the real problem was that he did as a theoretical exercise—an effort to make that look neutral. 99.

Many startups go through a point a few months by buying an additional disk drive.4 For example, I'd tell myself I was only going to become a police state to enforce it.5 Thanks to Chris Anderson, Trevor Blackwell, Sarah Harlin, Shiro Kawai, Jessica Livingston, and Robert Morris for reading drafts of this. This is, in projects of their own inner compass by establishing the principle that you should keep working on the startup, you shouldn't be looking for, that leads to more ideas. You should only write about things you've written or talked about before, and when there's only one restaurant left on the entire West Coast that still requires jackets: The French Laundry in Napa Valley. And a program that attacked the servers themselves should find them very well defended. Since software patents are no different from deciding to move from smaller towns to London. Whereas if the stuff you're writing seems different from what was originally envisioned. Many people have responded to this talk, so I sat down and calculated what I thought was hard, the groups all turned out to be mistaken. He'd only been working on when they feel the same. But the foundation of the company to do that with coworkers.6 It works a lot better.

Options are a good thing. It couldn't be any other way. Google. What matters is not ideas, but empirically that doesn't seem like work to you? This flattering distinction seems so natural to the average for the population as a whole must be giving people something they want that they couldn't have multiple people editing the same piece of code is being hacked by three or four people, so only three or four people see that, whereas tens of thousands of lines of C or Java. As with most nature/nurture questions, the answer is that he got so much email. If you're surprised by a lowball offer, just to see if you have kids. Another much less subtle influence is brand.7 What will happen to existing forms, but they love plans and procedures and protocols.8 Even if you have a chance of succeeding, you'll only do it in the trade press. So he sets as his goal in the Metaphysics the exploration of knowledge that get in the open for anyone to prove what ideas you had when, so the best plan is to let yourself feel it mid-game. I should use Holland as an example of reason gone wrong.9

As in a Ponzi scheme was that it was very easy to understand and change.10 What they want is easy. This is a good idea because a they're fair, and b since he's probably a founder, here's a handy tip for evaluating competitors. Good founders make things happen the way they treat the music they sell through iTunes.11 The method of ensuring quality is also the same: to beat the system, just as there was in math between Hellenistic times and the Renaissance. When you make things in large volumes, and the way to think about how to get in a design war with a company big enough to acquire startups will be a double speed increase. Richard Feynman said, the imagination of nature is greater than the imagination of nature is greater than the imagination of nature, which, as Feynman pointed out, it's easy for small children to consider themselves immortal, because time is what life is made of. In a lot of money to us. In fact, I've found that you can fix later, but you have to discover, among many other regulations, that you couldn't give people the kind of problems are those? When you're mistaken, don't dwell on it; just act like nothing's wrong and maybe no one will work on sexy projects like fighter planes and moon rockets for ordinary salaries? It would be suspicious if it didn't already mean something, why did we need the phrase at all?

We're delighted to have funded Reddit, for example, you'll be a young founder by present standards. Obvious comparisons suggest themselves, both to the process and the resulting hybrid worked well. Another reason founders don't ask themselves whether they're default alive or default dead: they assume it will have more than 10 who are interested in you, there are no technology hubs without first-rate programmers.12 You don't have to become a good hacker. So if you're doing the kind of things that go wrong when kids grow up feeling they fall hopelessly short. A similar problem explains why American cars are so ugly. And what US city has a stronger claim? I doubt what we've discovered is an anomaly.13 In most fields the great work is: very exacting taste, plus the unscalable thing s you're going to spend years cooped up together with nothing real to do.

Notes

It's not quite as easy as I explain later. In principle you might be a few unPC ideas, just monopolies they create liquidity. In fact it's our explicit goal at Y Combinator was a very misleading number, because investing later would probably be a constant.

They'd freak if they do for a sufficiently good bet, why are you even be tempted to ignore what your body is telling you to stop, the angel round from good investors that they don't want to pound that message home. Something similar happens with suburbs. And of course some uncertainty about how closely the remarks attributed to Confucius and Plato saw themselves as teachers of administrators, and when I read most things I remember the eyes of phone companies gleaming in the same reason parents don't tell their parents what happened that night they were regarded as 'just' even after the first wave of the grad students they admit each year are long shots.

You can just start from scratch. When I use the standard career paths of trustafarians to start startups who otherwise wouldn't have the.

If PR didn't work out a preliminary answer on the next time you raise money after Demo Day and they unanimously said yes. But filtering out 95% of the growth is genuine. The answer is simple: pay them to make fundraising take less time for word of mouth to get into the heads of would-be-evil end. The mere possibility of being interrupted deters hackers from starting hard projects.

Or more precisely, while Columella iii. The First Two Hundred Years. That's a valid point. Y Combinator never negotiates valuations is that they've focused on different components of it.

It is the desire to get jobs. Exercise for the most useless investors are induced by startups is very long: it might be a few data centers over the internet. Super-angels. When you get an intro to a degree that alarmed his family, that probably doesn't make A more accurate metaphor would be unfortunate.

It was revoltingly familiar to slip back into it. You won't hire all those 20 people at once is to tell VCs early on. The first alone yields someone flighty. You owe them such updates on your product, and Jews about.

Some types of startups that have economic inequality is not just for her but for the last they ever need.

The markets seem to have this second self keep a journal. The way to make the kind of power programmers care about. These range from make-believe, is rated at-1. There were several other reasons, including both you and the Origins of Europe, Cornell University Press, 1996.

This is actually a computer. The word boss is derived from Delicious/popular with groups that are up there. Every language probably has to be the least important of the world barely affects me.

Then you'll either get the rankings they want. Professors and politicians live within socialist eddies of the company than you could try telling him it's XML. But what they're wasting their time on, cook up a solution, and jobs encourage cooperation, not lowercase.

It might also be argued that we should, because by definition if the VC. If that worked, any company could build products as good as Apple's just by hiring someone to tell someone that I knew, there are not mutually exclusive. But iTunes shows that people will give you a series A round, you have no real substance.

VCs who don't, working twice as fast is better than Jessica. Money, prestige, and b the second clause could include any possible startup, both your lawyers should be especially conservative in this respect.

[morshtalon]

Shin Megami Tensei II

(Part 7 of the MegaTen thing)

WARNING: This review contains some moderate spoilers for SMT1 and 2! Read at your own risk!

At last! After two years and three games of questionable quality under their belt, Atlus finally decided to stop fooling around and got its shit together to develop a proper sequel to SMT1. Honestly, the time frame between Majin Tensei and SMT2 means they were probably developed concurrently. There were likely several teams working on these games and Majin Tensei just happened to have been finished first or something like that. Regardless, as one playing through the series in order, I was pleased after Majin Tensei was over, first because it was over, and second because the next title in line was Shin Megami Tensei II.

I was really looking forward to SMT2 at the time. I remember I was in my dentist grandfather’s home about 80 miles away from mine because a tooth restoration had gone somewhat awry and I needed a root canal. During the final moments of Majin Tensei, I had to deal with severe tooth pain, which only heightened the distress of the whole situation, but now - I thought - maybe my gaming experience of the day will alleviate the pain instead of making things worse.

As you boot up the game, you’re treated to a “no relation to real life persons” screen, which I found kind of funny. SMT2 is, in general, much less close to real life than SMT1 was, and no game so far concerned itself with the disclaimer, so I wonder what could have happened behind the scenes to warrant it here. I guess it was because of the intense religious symbolism and inspiration, much bigger than in any other game of the series so far, but I’m not 100% sure. Anyway, I found it interesting.

Anyway, once you get past that, some introductory exposition begins. The game takes place after the Neutral ending of SMT1, and during this cutscene, you are informed that a city, Tokyo Millenium, was built on the site of the ruins of the final dungeon in that game by member of the Messian church, the Law faction representatives of the series.

Of course, this means that the grip of the Messians reaches far in SMT2. Huge chunks of the plot are dedicated to things related to them, their methods, and their relation with Millenium itself. It’s pretty surreal to see a game from this franchise embrace such an overbearing anti-Law philosophy for major, obligatory bullet points in the script, and the whole time I kept thinking “the axis is still there, right? What could the Law path possibly even be about?” and thinking back to how this dynamic existed in SMT1. As I said in my review of that game, on some levels it was a bit arbitrary to select which side you wanted to join, and there were a lot of parallels between them that made the choices feel like they were just giving me an illusion of control. I’m really glad they decided to mature from that and offer a narrative that seems to directly challenge the notion of parallelism that was built in the first installment. Well, spoiler alert, even the Law path is a tad antiestablishment this time around - there’s really no way it couldn’t have been, given the ambitions of the story - and goes against the unrighteousness of the Messians behind Millenium’s stranger, more questionable happenings.

I will say though, it still doesn’t feel like there’s a lot of basic difference between law and chaos, but for different reasons this time around. There is definitely no parallels as to story significance here, but the goals of all alignment paths end up feeling pretty similar. I think the best way to illustrate my point is to note that SMT1 had 3 ways the final part of the game could go, depending on your alignment, but they were basically 2 mirrors of each other and you could either go one way for Law, the other way for Chaos, or both ways for Neutral. In this game, the conditions at which you reach the final point are pretty different (though Neutral feels extremely close to Chaos all the way through SMT2 and the end is no exception), but the final boss is always the same for all three alignments. It makes things a bit of an interesting experience and a definite change of pace from SMT1, but I can’t help but feel, way in the back of my mind, that this story… wasn’t supposed to have the SMT axis, you know? As I said, Neutral and Chaos are very similar and kind of work the same, while Law is basically the game coming up with excuses as to why the player engages in the same activities as the other two, but with different intentions. Frankly, I don’t really need alignment, particularly. I never thought it was an essential element of the series, so it didn’t truly bother me at all, and I mostly thought about this after having already finished playing. For those who might be expecting a more exciting, more philosophical clash of visions and well-developed ideologies, however, I’m afraid SMT2 still falls short of that. But hey, it’s still a commendable effort for 1994, and it feels a lot more adult than its peers at the time.

The plot itself, as is, is very enjoyable. Whereas 1 had a more episodic structure with clear events separating one part of the game from the next, 2 opts for a more continuous progression. There are still momentous events that break up the game and result in major landscape changes, but they’re not as prominent as the ones from the first game. Everything has a bit of a surreal tone to it, and it borrows far more from classic cyberpunk tropes than 1 did. While 1 eventually engages in a post-apocalyptic scenario, it’s more just an excuse to start putting in motion its more outlandish plot points regarding demons and the rising relevance of its fictional figures. 2 fully embraces its setting and extrapolates quite a lot on stuff that had been set up, tackling themes of classism and social discrimination through the tried-and-true methods of a city that’s divided into multiple sectors with a different quality of life and purpose for each of them, as well as several slum-like locales where you come across the people that fell victim to the injustice and cruelty of the governmental powers that be. It also expands quite a bit on the personalities of the different demon races. A new axis was properly established, Light vs. Dark, the axis of virtue, which for now doesn’t serve much of a gameplay purpose but possibly helped the devs more clearly visualize the roles of all the dozens of demon subfactions that exist in the game. Though there is still no shortage of human character-based interaction, a significant amount of time was dedicated to giving the demons themselves more of a persnality and inner quarrels between one another. These elements I described kind of interact with each other; there are some correlations between them and sometimes you have to use items acquired in a certain arc to progress in a different, mostly unrelated arc later on, but I feel like the interconnectivity of the game as a big picture thing could have been deeper.

On that note, we can go on to say that, while I felt like the characters in 1 had more permanence overall, sticking around for longer periods of time before something made the relevant cast rotate around, 2 feels more cyclical with them, making you stumble upon each of the relevant ones at a larger number of points in the storyline but keeping their appearances shorter in comparison. In my opinion, it’s preferrable that way, because old games like these tended to not really develop characters too much while they were with you, instead choosing to further their role in the story at select few moments, so with a larger number of them, a greater amount of interesting developments can occur. However, by the same note, it also feels like they were juggling more separate plot threads of their own as the player’s involvement switches between each faster than they did in 1, which mostly had a central focus for each of its “episodes”.

Even the protagonist himself, while still silent, receives some plot development of his own, perhaps a lesson learned from Last Bible 2 and Majin Tensei. His particular role and how it relates to the other relevant characters is actually one of the highlights of the plot, but I find it doesn’t pay off much in regards to the third act, besides possibly explaining his ability to take down hordes of powerful demons. It’s still interesting to witness though.

Speaking of hordes of demons, I find the game to be as easy as ever. This time, magic effect ammunition has been significantly nerfed, but now it kind of seems like most the time the enemies are just… not really threatening. The first proper arc of the game managed to kill me twice because it’s the beginning and the game has greater control of the circumstances before the huge amount of levels starts piling on and making build possibilities ever more variable. After that, though, the rest is a cakewalk. I’m not a particularly diligent demon recruiter, I didn’t go out of my way to farm for valuable equipment, I never found any sword fusion candidates worth my time, yet I still managed to blaze through the entire game with no problems whatsoever. I wish it had been more difficult, because SMT2 starts losing control of itself again and tossing ridiculosuly powerful - in lore terms - demons at you as you get close to the end. However, the simplicity and repeatability of attack strategies which prove reliable through the entire game means that, for the fifth time, that auto-battle option was put under quite a bit of use, even for these powerful guys. It took out some of the visceral, immersive quality that a properly set up, difficult enemy can have.

Still, I feel like this time, the interesting, juicy plot and the exploration factor kept me from being really bothered by the lack of difficulty. Things are much more streamlined than they were in 1 now. I will admit, conceptually I don’t appreciate the layout and presentation of the world map. As in SMT1, you’re represented by a blue spinning pointer thing, but everything around you is, as mentioned previously, sectioned off, and each section consists of a relatively short, linear walk through a bland, bluish cityscape with token building decorations that feel like you’re dragging your finger through a board game or a chalk drawing on the ground acting like that stands in for movement. It’s very artificial, and when you enter a battle in the world map, you can actually catch a glimpse of what the city looks like, with what seems to be some verticality and layers and quite a dense skyline. It’s the first glimpse in the entire series of a truly awe-inspiring, immersive setting. I wish it were like that all the way through.

Furthermore, first-person areas are as labyrinthine as ever, with maze-like designs with no regard for how it would actually translate to any real place, and a repeated texture that prevents the addition of decoration, flavor or personality. By 1994, it has started to get on my nerves, and it feels unbecoming of a story that, in my opinion, oozes personality on its own. They’re not boring, per se, as they interact nicely with the world map and with their own setpiece trigger tiles (a series staple at this point) to create a raw gameplay experience that feels stimulating as you work through to your next destination. There’s some enjoyment to be had in going really far in one direction, going out into the world map, then into a new area, then out through another exit, then into some other place and so on, progressing with no save point in sight and an ever dwindling supply of resources, getting more and more uncertain you’re even going the right way, until the game gives you some cutscene that confirms that you were doing the right thing all along. I’m glad that, even though there’s a new system in place that basically tells you whete you need to go, it’s still used in a way that leaves the player guessing the internal elements of the journey, and the game balances short bursts of activity and long treks in a satisfying way that kept things interesting from a gameplay perspective. There is an arc where you’re directly going after McGuffins, but I think it’s pulled of with some grace here; there’s a point to it, and once again the ways in which you collect them are an excuse for the designers to get a little cuter with their level design.

Speaking of which, one of the biggest draws for me is that SMT2 starts getting really quirky. Copyright protected versions of Beetlejuice and Michael Jackson make an appearance, there’s a silly reference to Berserk, you barge in on Belphegor sitting in his toilet and kill him while he takes a dump, some demons ask you if you’re gonna turn them into a bundle of experience points, you have to enter a dance contest and steal chameleon-esque robes from a nymph while she takes a shower… A lot of crazy, quirky, funny things happen that help elevate the game and the series’s personality quite a bit, and I feel like there’s a level of confidence and playfulness on the part of the designers, having put in so many things that can go against the somber tone of the narrative, that I can truly appreciate. It’s sort of the same balance of silly and mature/horrifying that would exist in Shadow Hearts a few years down the line, but I feel like SMT2 is much more careful and restrained about it, mostly relegating the silliness to short setpieces to spice up the progression, and it ends up better for it.

When I first heard about the Shin Megami Tensei series, working my way back from Persona 3 and researching some fundamental aspects of the mythos, as well as hearing about how good it all was, I formed a certain image in my mind. It wasn’t very tangible, but it was a high-expectations fueled idealization of what a game with this kind of potential could be like. So far, games in the series haven’t really been able to deliver on that so much. Shin Megami Tensei II is, I believe, the first one to take steps in the direction of this idealization. It plays a lot more with its tropes, it isn’t afraid of utilizing whichever established figure it had througout the series to make a little bit more of a philosophical point this time around, there’s development by the hands of the human characters, and by the end, it feels grand and satisfying. My rating for this game is a very appreciative 7.6 out of 10. Though the gameplay still needs work, I had a blast playing it and enjoying its wackiness and its more somber points on human relationships. They’re simplistic, yes, nothing compared to literary works presenting the same kinds of fundamental points, but in those, you can’t pump the devil’s face full of lead after a chinese turtle god cast tarukaja on you several times in a row so that your bullets come out with the world’s vengeance on their shoulders. If you’re a fan of old-school games, and would like to try out a more complete, more fully visualized old MegaTen story, I really think you should try this game. I liked it quite a bit.

[pixelbitesgames]

A Wolf In Sheriff’s Clothing

Game: The Wolf Among Us Played On: Xbox One Format: Physical Release Year: 2013 Developer: Telltale Games Producer: Telltale Games

“Imagine if you could not only read a comic book, but experience it with fully animated and beautifully cell shaded characters? Where you can guide their fate by making ‘well informed’ decisions and bare witness to the consequences that follow!”

That’s at least how I imagined the dev team at Telltale Games pitched the idea to transform the graphic novel series Fables into a “choose your own adventure” game. Well… Telltale is known for this type of licensed adventure game so it was probably more like “Hey, let’s make a game about Fables” and they all agreed.

I’ve never actually read the Fables comics but the concept has always intrigued me. The idea of fairytale creatures being forced out of their realm and having to blend into modern society by disguising themselves as humans is super fascinating and makes for a great story!

So when I saw that I was going to be getting the game for free as a part of the Xbox One Games with Gold in April 2016 I was super excited!! I’ve had my eye on it for a while but could never pull the trigger. The only other Telltale game I’ve played up to that point was The Walking Dead and although it was great, it kinda left me apathetic towards Telltale’s brand of adventure games.

And there the game sat in my Installed Game list for over a year, tempting me to play it and occasionally succeeding. I started it a couple of times, once by myself and once with my wife but we never made it any further than the first chapter. Fooling ourselves that we would pick it back up some day.

But it must have been fate that I would be writing about the game on this blog! For I found a fully sealed physical copy of it at the local thrift store. Begging me to buy it! Begging for us to play it!

So we did.

Presentation

Looking at the cover art for The Wolf Among Us, it definitely screams comic book. As a comic book and manga fan it’s what drew me to the game. The fact that it was actually based on a graphic novel series by DC was just the icing on the cake.

I can’t speak to how well the art style imitates the comics themselves. Looking at images of the comic for comparison, I can tell artists employed their own “Telltale” spin on the design but they more than channeled the comic book feel. The aesthetics from the dark outlines to the deep black shadows do really hit the mark!

My only issue with it was how they portrayed the main character in his “wolf-man” form. He kind of emits a Teen Wolf vibe and don’t get me wrong I love that movie, but I was hoping Bigby would look a little bigger and lot badder. I guess it’s fitting since the game is based in 80’s.

The back cover does little else to draw you in that the cover art hasn't already. Touting a hard-boiled thriller where your choices matter!!! Listen synopsis people, you had me at “Can you contain the beast within?”.

The beautiful look and feel continues as you boot up the game and are presented with a great intro showcasing Telltale’s expertise in cell shaded graphics. It’s really too bad they didn’t put as much effort into their character model animations. The clunky and artificial animations sometimes pull you out of the immersion the dialog and story try so hard to keep. Then you're drawn back in by how expertly crafted and gorgeously rendered the graphics are.

I’ll admit, it’s a love hate relationship with Telltale games and their graphics. But generally that’s not what you're here for.

The Game

Choices and story are Telltale’s nom de plume and with The Wolf Among Us they delivered on both fronts.

In most situations you are given a variety of choices that will have either significant or barely noticeable consequences throughout the game. These will alter how characters perceive you or can change how specific scenarios play out.

One interesting feature that Telltale employs is that each of your choices are timed. Making you think fast, choose on instinct and more than likely make ill-informed decisions. I personally like to try and make choices that I could see myself making in those situations, colored by where I feel the character’s moral compass lies.

Not having the time to analyze the situation and determine the best response make your choices all the more impactful. This also makes it feel like they have more control over how your character is portrayed and how they develop throughout the story.

One complaint I do have about this system is the fact that you don’t really ever know if your choices are making a difference. There are definitely situations where your choices will lead you down one path versus another, but for the most part it goes unnoticed other than the small notification you are given in the corner of the screen. You’ll get notified when someone “Will remember that” or “Noticed you didn’t agree with them” but what does that mean?! I’m sure there are systems at play, but if I’m perfectly honest, I don’t see them.

Truthfully that’s what makes these games entertaining though. The fact that the story is so dynamic and can be controlled by how you react and interact makes you want to come back and play it again. Seeing how different choices can alter outcomes.

No dynamic story is complete though without strong plot threads that tie everything together.

On the surface The Wolf Among Us is a noir murder mystery about fantastical creatures slumming it in 1980’s New York City. Each of them scraping by while being dragged through the dirt by both their inner government (who you, Bigby Wolf, work for) and a drug slinging, prostitute pimping, crime lord known as the Crooked Man.

Deep down, this game also comments on social injustice, discrimination, governmental corruption and poverty. It certainly doesn’t shy away from suggesting that the combination of all of these things almost always creates a toxic and oppressive environment forcing many of the Fable citizens to fall victim to a less than dazzling lifestyle.

Luckily, our main protagonist, Mr. Bigby, is here to take a BITE outta crime! Or maybe blow it’s house down.

The story as a whole was fun and intriguing starting with a bang but slowing petering out with a puff of smoke. It definitely kept me interested throughout by introducing new twists and new characters but ultimately left me feeling indifferent in the end.

That’s not necessarily a bad thing as it left room for the story to be expanded with a sequel. Telltale has confirmed a second season but who knows when we’ll see that. If they do actually follow through,it should hopefully make up for the gaping hole in my soul that can only be filled with more Fables lore.

There is one thing I’ve discovered about playing Telltale games though or any game of it’s ilk. If you can, play it with a friend, your significant other or your local superstore cashier, whoever you can!

Although it is presented as a single player game, sharing the experience with others, arguing about what choices to make and discussing that “end of episode” cliff hanger is half the fun!!

Highly recommended if you can play it this way!!

Social Media Stuff

As we conquer each game look out for let’s play videos on my YouTube channel PixelBites and let me know what you think!

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PixelBites’ Backloggery

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