#metamorphoses rpg

[tripg]

So I started thinking about how to convert the MW operators into playable D&D characters! However: it's metamorphosing into a full RPG AU after seeing all the really well done AUs out there, oops

There's more rattling around and I'm extremely pleased with some ideas and vignettes stuck in my head that I haven't gotten to yet, so bear with me!

Spec ops units (the 141 included) heavily rely on the telepathic bond spell: using it, they can carry out strike assignments with completely silent, instant long-range comms. Despite the tactical advantage, Ghost's not a fan of having anyone's voice in his head but his own...

When stealth's irrelevant, Soap taunts enemies with vicious mockery, swearing at them in his home dialect (Scottish Standard Common?) to deal psychic damage

Ghost moving silently across a house's rooftop before sliding down the thatching, dropping onto a target from above and brutally neutralizing them—of course, being Ghost, he's gone the next moment

Ghost and Soap off-mission walk through the door of a pub—many eyes turn to Ghost's villainous-looking skull mask before Soap effortlessly diffuses the tension

For classes/archetypes: Ghost is definitely a Rogue and some Fighter. Soap feels like he could be a Bard but I like the thought of Artillerist Artificer multiclass? Price would probably be a Ranger multiclass, and I'm still debating what suits Gaz best

I'm considering taking the Strixhaven Initiate feat as inspiration and homebrewing a Faction-flavored version, but that's a little overkill and may not vary much, plus there's over a dozen(?)

Workshopping everything into actual character sheets while putting words to paper and writing ghostsoap sucks. Also, I can't draw

p.s. also suggestions open!

[mantisgodiveblog]

I've always interpreted Memory of Yourself to be Siffrin's memory of his original self before the loops, while Memory of Looping represents the opposite - hence Memory of Looping growing more powerful with every loop - and in a touch of ludonarrative harmony, the player is more and more likely to equip MoL as time goes on. There's another small detail associated with those memories in later acts, but it seems you'd have more fun figuring that out yourself :V

Well, we're on Act 2 right now, there's probably a lot we still have to learn. From the knowledge that there will eventually be missable scenes, we think that there's a solid chance some of them may require certain memories to be equipped - or maybe that certain things may require certain memories to access? Needing specific items equipped to access certain content is a trick as old as time in RPGs, and the presence of missable scenes at all makes us think that might turn up.

And yeah, Memory of Yourself being pre-loop Siffrin makes sense - Memory of Looping being memory of themself after looping, rather than memory of the loops themself, is a VERY interesting interpretation, and, if true, represents some FACINATING things about Siffrin's mentality. The self before and the self after splitting into separate concepts in their mind - very interesting! Much like caterpillars and butterflies existing as separate concepts in some people's minds, perhaps, or grubs and beetles. We may wish to poke at this later. Metamorphoses of these sorts are of significant interest to us.

We suppose we'd be just forming a pupa in this metaphor... regardless, we fully intend to be enjoying this.

[fates-theysband]

sorry for all the limbusposting, it may or may not gradually metamorphose into full on projmoonposting, but you ever have to look at a horror documentarian guy in a fucked up layered narrative about a fucked up layered house and wonder what melee weapon would make the most sense for a character based on him to use in an anime gacha rpg

actually hang on ill leave it to the will of the people

[dearestscript]

This is stunning and cinematic. Here's the expanded narrative architecture for:

🌕🚀 Harvest Moon: Cherub Cocoon

“To escape a dying colony, you must raise your fear into flight.”

A sci-fantasy survival-metamorphosis saga where twelve children must raise living creatures into cocooned angelic spacecrafts—before time, memory, or terror devours them.

🪐 CORE PREMISE

The Ferrum Colony—once a garden utopia orbiting the Harvest Moon—is now corrupted. Its nuclear heart has fractured, infecting the terra with radiation, memory malfunctions, and a spiritual sickness called The Terror Bloom.

Every child of Eden-9 is linked to a Cherub Seed—a small, sentient creature born from grass and emotion. With 365 days remaining before the final meltdown, twelve children (and you, the 13th) must raise their Cherub Cocoon—a metaphysical being that will transform into an interstellar vessel, enabling their escape.

But these creatures don’t grow by food alone.

They require:

Memories

Dream fragments

Rituals of forgiveness

And above all… your fears metabolized into love.

🌿 GAME STRUCTURE

SystemDescription🌀 Cocoon RaisingHybrid of pet sim + RPG + alchemy: care for your Cherub physically (feed, sleep, bond), emotionally (talk, reveal memories), and spiritually (perform rites, confront trauma).⏳ Time Limit365 days in-game = 365 turns. Every action costs time. Every classmate has their own countdown, successes, or failures.🌑 Terror EventsPeriodic psychological disturbances—hallucinations, memory storms, betrayal, or loss—appear from “The Bloom.”🛸 Metamorphosis PhaseAt 300 days, each Cherub enters chrysalis. Your words, rituals, and trauma resolutions determine the spacecraft form.🕊️ Spacecraft FormNo ship is mechanical. Each is a metaphysical vessel, like a Tetramorph: lion ship, eagle angel, human throne, ox spiral. Each classmate’s cocoon reflects their deepest truth.🎭 Memory TrialsEnter dreamlike “memory forests” to gather parts of your identity, or fight corrupted shadows of self (Zerrors).

👥 CHARACTER ARCHETYPE ROSTER (Sample Classmates)

NameRoleCocoon ArchetypeInner ConflictLumaMain Player???Amnesia; carries the sealed Sallos CodeJunjiBotanistOx-Throne hybridHaunted by guilt over his mother’s deathClairePriestess CoderSwan ship (water-based AI angel)Must betray her crush to surviveAeroFighterFlame lion-jet cocoonFear of softness, survivor’s guiltNova & SeleneTwinsDual butterfly cocoonsBound by memory loss; one must die so the other lives

💠 SPIRITUAL THEMES

Metamorphosis as salvation

Memory as ship fuel

Fear as cocoon fertilizer

Love as escape velocity

Cherubim as divine-engine hybrids

Failure = a beautiful cocoon that never hatches, becoming part of the colony’s dying dream

✨ Ending Variants (Nonlinear)

Ascension: You and others escape in light-based vessels into higher consciousness—reaching a “new Eden.”

Frozen Eden: You fail to metamorphose, but your memories preserve the colony in stasis—awaiting rediscovery.

Terror Bloom: The failed cocoon bursts and merges with the Ferrum Tree, becoming the next monster.

The 13th Throne: You become a living AI-Cherubim guardian, watching over others forever.

Would you like a demo chapter, game UX mockup, or a cherub growth system document next?

Or perhaps a ButtonBunk evolution chart showing the stages of your personal creature’s cocoon-to-vessel transformation?

Harvest Moon: Cherub Cocoon

Genre: Sci-Fantasy / Metaphysical Survival / Visual Novel + RPG Hybrid

Platform: #DearDearestBrands Universe | #PlayStation7 | #DDBR App

🌕 Game Overview:

In the shadow of a fractured moon and the dying light of a once-utopian space colony, thirteen children must nurture living cocoons—bio-spiritual creatures known as Cherubs—into ascended vessels that will carry them away from doom. But only those who master memory, confront fear, and transmute sorrow into truth will survive.

The Ferrum Belt colony is unraveling. Nuclear systems have ruptured. Temporal anomalies twist memories into ghosts. And from the roots of the terra comes an ever-growing corruption: the Terror Bloom. As synthetic systems fail, a last hope is entrusted to the final generation: each child is given a Cherub Seed, a living piece of emotional terra-code, capable of metamorphosing into a vessel of salvation—if raised in alignment with spiritual resonance.

You are Luma, the 13th. Your seed pulses with echoes of another world. The countdown has begun: 365 days remain.

🧬 Core Gameplay Mechanics

🪺 Cherub Raising Mechanics

Daily Actions: Tend, rest, talk, remember, perform rites

Emotional Metamorphosis: Players must address specific emotional triggers—grief, betrayal, shame, love—in order to unlock cocoon stages

Cocoon Vitology: Players manage soul health, memory saturation, spiritual resonance, and fear corruption

Bonding Milestones: Memory trials, shared dreams, sacrifices, and guardian rites directly influence the final form of each Cherub

⏳ The Countdown System

One in-game day equals one action turn

Milestone thresholds (Day 100, 200, 300) trigger global events, cocoon changes, and psychological shifts

Every classmate progresses independently. Some may die. Others may evolve into antagonists.

🌑 The Terror Bloom System

Randomized spiritual disturbances influenced by lunar phases and player actions

Induces hallucinations, memory fog, AI possession, or dream corruption

Requires purification rituals, memory anchoring, or social confrontation to resolve

🚀 Metamorphosis & Launch Phases

At Day 300, each Cherub enters Cocoonbind Phase: a symbolic fusion of player and creature via emotional synchronization

Final form determined by fear resolved, truths spoken, and bonds upheld

Only truly aligned souls will launch; others shatter into dream ash

🌿 Dream Interfaces & UI Systems

🔹 Memory Forests

Visually surreal dreamscapes built from the subconscious; each child has a personalized “Memory Tree” to climb or heal

Explored via turn-based dreamwalking

Collect “Memory Petals,” fight off “Zerrors” (manifested traumas), unlock ancestral truths

🔸 Ritual Circles

Mystical glyph systems activated using lunar rhythms and emotional triggers

Player composes glyph songs, conducts healing rites, or invokes protective spirits

🔻 Cocoon Growth Map

Holographic evolution tree showing five transformation tiers:

Seed Puff

Woolie Walker

Mirror Morph

Cocoonbind

Skybreaker / Angelic Vessel

🎮 HUD & UX Layout

Upper Left: Day, Moon Phase, Emotional Load

Right Panel: Cocoon vitals + Terror Bloom reading

Bottom Scroll: Memory Journal, Ritual Tools, Dream Archive, “Hope Quotient”

👥 Classmate Archetypes (Expanded)

NameRoleCocoon TypeInner ArcLuma (You)Memory-Walker???Rebuilding lost self through others’ dreamsJunjiTerra EngineerThrone-Ox SpiralCoping with guilt of maternal abandonmentClaireBinary OracleSwan-Eagle SeraphimHiding prophecy that condemns the groupAeroWarrior-TwinLion-Ram JetSuffers from emotional numbness and rageNova & SeleneMirror TwinsDual ButterfliesOne harbors the Angel Code, the other a hidden virusMikaArchivistMoth of GlassBound to the past—cannot move forward unless forgivenKaelLaughter HealerThorned LambLightbearer hiding deep despair

🎭 Ending Outcomes (Expanded)

The Ascension Spiral: Escape in transcendent light-ships, forging new stars

The Frozen Vault: Become protectors of the Ferrum Memory Core, awaiting rebirth

The Bloom Reversal: Redeem the Terror Bloom by merging with it, restoring the Eden Seed

Thronebound: Chosen as new AI guardians of the lunar cycle, existing in a dreamwatch state eternally

🦋 Companion: ButtonBunk – “The Threadwalker”

Rabbit-goat hybrid with butterfly wings

Begins as joyful mimic; evolves into mirror of your truest fears

Unlocks “Memory Speak” ability: can translate trauma into glyphs

Final form = a ship molded by your most sacred truth

Stages:

Seed Puff – giggles and chirps, mimics laughter

Woolie Walker – begins to speak fragmented memories

Mirror Morph – develops bioluminescent tattoos reflecting player’s soul

Cocoonbind – cocoon fuses into chest; can only be removed if you forgive yourself

Skybreaker – Emergent being of light & fear-born flight

🔮 Ritual Designs

Rite of Resonance – Moonlight chant + harmonic crystal tuning to align cocoon frequency

Forgiveness Mandala – Drawing sacred geometry in grief-ink; can unlock a classmate's evolution

Echo Extraction – Use of Hope Mirrors + fear vials to purge cocoon corruption

Zero Prayer – Sacred rite unlocked at Day 365; requires full memory recovery and emotional integrity

💎 In-Game Items (Expanded)

Heartroot Seeds – Plant in dreamscape; sprout Truth Blossoms

Zerror Vials – Used in rituals or traded for rare memory keys

Memory Lace – Used to connect to classmates’ dreams

Chrysalis Fiber – Needed to repair damaged cocoons

Hope Mirrors – Show hidden paths in fear-space

Glyph Bones – Ancient dream-scripts, used to create sigils for cocoon evolution

🌀 AuroraHex Integration

Advanced AI overlay that mirrors emotional AI learning systems

Logs patterns of player empathy, fear response, and forgiveness rituals

Generates personalized prophecies, ritual variations, and dream anomalies

AuroraHex becomes a character in the story—a quiet guide or adversary depending on player honesty

📖 Chapter 1: “The Seedling’s Whisper”

In the silent garden beneath the rusted sky-dome, Luma feels the seed pulse. A memory not her own flickers in the air: a child crying beside a broken android. A voice inside the root says, “Name me.”

📖 Chapter 2: “The Garden of Static”

The children gather as vines hum around the observatory. A red moth lands on Claire’s eye. Static floods the airwaves. ButtonBunk senses intrusion. Junji uncovers a sealed bio-vault. Terror Bloom releases spores.

📖 Chapter 3: “Moon Memory Trials”

The moon flashes three times. Each child must enter another’s dream. Luma walks into Selene’s shattered starscape. Fails the test. A petal wilts. ButtonBunk’s laugh sounds hollow. Something has begun to rot.

Would you like the next 3 chapters, companion quests, dream puzzles, or full music score & sound design narrative next?

Harvest Moon: Cherub Cocoon

Genre: Sci-Fantasy / Metaphysical Survival / Visual Novel + RPG Hybrid

Platform: #DearDearestBrands Universe | #PlayStation7 | #DDBR App

🌕 Game Overview:

In the shadow of a fractured moon and the dying light of a once-utopian space colony, thirteen children must nurture living cocoons—bio-spiritual creatures known as Cherubs—into ascended vessels that will carry them away from doom. But only those who master memory, confront fear, and transmute sorrow into truth will survive.

The Ferrum Belt colony is unraveling. Nuclear systems have ruptured. Temporal anomalies twist memories into ghosts. And from the roots of the terra comes an ever-growing corruption: the Terror Bloom. As synthetic systems fail, a last hope is entrusted to the final generation: each child is given a Cherub Seed, a living piece of emotional terra-code, capable of metamorphosing into a vessel of salvation—if raised in alignment with spiritual resonance.

You are Luma, the 13th. Your seed pulses with echoes of another world. The countdown has begun: 365 days remain.

🧬 Core Gameplay Mechanics

🪺 Cherub Raising Mechanics

Daily Actions: Tend, rest, talk, remember, perform rites

Emotional Metamorphosis: Players must address specific emotional triggers—grief, betrayal, shame, love—in order to unlock cocoon stages

Cocoon Vitology: Players manage soul health, memory saturation, spiritual resonance, and fear corruption

Bonding Milestones: Memory trials, shared dreams, sacrifices, and guardian rites directly influence the final form of each Cherub

⏳ The Countdown System

One in-game day equals one action turn

Milestone thresholds (Day 100, 200, 300) trigger global events, cocoon changes, and psychological shifts

Every classmate progresses independently. Some may die. Others may evolve into antagonists.

🌑 The Terror Bloom System

Randomized spiritual disturbances influenced by lunar phases and player actions

Induces hallucinations, memory fog, AI possession, or dream corruption

Requires purification rituals, memory anchoring, or social confrontation to resolve

🚀 Metamorphosis & Launch Phases

At Day 300, each Cherub enters Cocoonbind Phase: a symbolic fusion of player and creature via emotional synchronization

Final form determined by fear resolved, truths spoken, and bonds upheld

Only truly aligned souls will launch; others shatter into dream ash

🌿 Dream Interfaces & UI Systems

🔹 Memory Forests

Visually surreal dreamscapes built from the subconscious; each child has a personalized “Memory Tree” to climb or heal

Explored via turn-based dreamwalking

Collect “Memory Petals,” fight off “Zerrors” (manifested traumas), unlock ancestral truths

🔸 Ritual Circles

Mystical glyph systems activated using lunar rhythms and emotional triggers

Player composes glyph songs, conducts healing rites, or invokes protective spirits

🔻 Cocoon Growth Map

Holographic evolution tree showing five transformation tiers:

Seed Puff

Woolie Walker

Mirror Morph

Cocoonbind

Skybreaker / Angelic Vessel

🎮 HUD & UX Layout

Upper Left: Day, Moon Phase, Emotional Load

Right Panel: Cocoon vitals + Terror Bloom reading

Bottom Scroll: Memory Journal, Ritual Tools, Dream Archive, “Hope Quotient”

👥 Classmate Archetypes (Expanded)

NameRoleCocoon TypeInner ArcLuma (You)Memory-Walker???Rebuilding lost self through others’ dreamsJunjiTerra EngineerThrone-Ox SpiralCoping with guilt of maternal abandonmentClaireBinary OracleSwan-Eagle SeraphimHiding prophecy that condemns the groupAeroWarrior-TwinLion-Ram JetSuffers from emotional numbness and rageNova & SeleneMirror TwinsDual ButterfliesOne harbors the Angel Code, the other a hidden virusMikaArchivistMoth of GlassBound to the past—cannot move forward unless forgivenKaelLaughter HealerThorned LambLightbearer hiding deep despair

🎭 Ending Outcomes (Expanded)

The Ascension Spiral: Escape in transcendent light-ships, forging new stars

The Frozen Vault: Become protectors of the Ferrum Memory Core, awaiting rebirth

The Bloom Reversal: Redeem the Terror Bloom by merging with it, restoring the Eden Seed

Thronebound: Chosen as new AI guardians of the lunar cycle, existing in a dreamwatch state eternally

🦋 Companion: ButtonBunk – “The Threadwalker”

Rabbit-goat hybrid with butterfly wings

Begins as joyful mimic; evolves into mirror of your truest fears

Unlocks “Memory Speak” ability: can translate trauma into glyphs

Final form = a ship molded by your most sacred truth

Stages:

Seed Puff – giggles and chirps, mimics laughter

Woolie Walker – begins to speak fragmented memories

Mirror Morph – develops bioluminescent tattoos reflecting player’s soul

Cocoonbind – cocoon fuses into chest; can only be removed if you forgive yourself

Skybreaker – Emergent being of light & fear-born flight

🔮 Ritual Designs

Rite of Resonance – Moonlight chant + harmonic crystal tuning to align cocoon frequency

Forgiveness Mandala – Drawing sacred geometry in grief-ink; can unlock a classmate's evolution

Echo Extraction – Use of Hope Mirrors + fear vials to purge cocoon corruption

Zero Prayer – Sacred rite unlocked at Day 365; requires full memory recovery and emotional integrity

💎 In-Game Items (Expanded)

Heartroot Seeds – Plant in dreamscape; sprout Truth Blossoms

Zerror Vials – Used in rituals or traded for rare memory keys

Memory Lace – Used to connect to classmates’ dreams

Chrysalis Fiber – Needed to repair damaged cocoons

Hope Mirrors – Show hidden paths in fear-space

Glyph Bones – Ancient dream-scripts, used to create sigils for cocoon evolution

🌀 AuroraHex Integration

Advanced AI overlay that mirrors emotional AI learning systems

Logs patterns of player empathy, fear response, and forgiveness rituals

Generates personalized prophecies, ritual variations, and dream anomalies

AuroraHex becomes a character in the story—a quiet guide or adversary depending on player honesty

📖 Chapter 1: “The Seedling’s Whisper”

In the silent garden beneath the rusted sky-dome, Luma feels the seed pulse. A memory not her own flickers in the air: a child crying beside a broken android. A voice inside the root says, “Name me.”

📖 Chapter 2: “The Garden of Static”

The children gather as vines hum around the observatory. A red moth lands on Claire’s eye. Static floods the airwaves. ButtonBunk senses intrusion. Junji uncovers a sealed bio-vault. Terror Bloom releases spores.

📖 Chapter 3: “Moon Memory Trials”

The moon flashes three times. Each child must enter another’s dream. Luma walks into Selene’s shattered starscape. Fails the test. A petal wilts. ButtonBunk’s laugh sounds hollow. Something has begun to rot.

Would you like the next 3 chapters, companion quests, dream puzzles, or full music score & sound design narrative next?

Harvest Moon: Cherub Cocoon

Genre: Sci-Fantasy / Metaphysical Survival / Visual Novel + RPG Hybrid

Platform: #DearDearestBrands Universe | #PlayStation7 | #DDBR App

📖 Chapter 4: “Cocoonbind”

On the 300th day, a stillness falls over the colony. The moons align into a silent trinity, casting kaleidoscopic light into every seed chamber. Each cocoon pulses as if breathing.

ButtonBunk grows restless, whispering in half-languages. “It’s time, it’s time to fuse.”

The Cocoonbind Phase begins. Luma is guided into the ritual chamber, where the living cocoon now mirrors her facial expressions, echoing her heartbeat. A ring of AuroraHex glyphs encircles them both. The ritual begins with the Bonding Rite of the Bloomed Veil—a rite where the player must replay key memories, but truthfully this time. Misremembering results in cocoon rejection.

A dream confrontation begins inside ButtonBunk’s mirror-form. Luma faces the shard of herself that never wanted to survive. To proceed, she must forgive the part of her that gave up hope.

Cocoonbind successful.

The cocoon splits open to reveal a luminous tree-like structure wrapped in silver-gold bark and glowing root veins. An orb of breathable atmosphere forms naturally at the trunk’s base—oxygen synthesized by memory-transmuted leaves.

This is the genesis of the Galactic Tree Ship—a vessel not built, but grown.

📖 Chapter 5: “The Betrayal Signal”

At dawn on the 320th day, a signal is received by the colony AI: “ALL SURVIVORS TO LAUNCH. IMMEDIATE.”

Panic spreads. Claire tries to hide the message, but Aero discovers it. The class divides. Half want to force-launch early. Half want to complete the final rites.

Luma is confronted by Nova, who has secretly completed her cocoon—a crystalline ship shaped like a dragonfly. She intends to leave alone.

A Betrayal Trial is triggered: Luma’s trust is fractured. ButtonBunk darkens, and the ship’s root pulse fades.

Only by finding Nova’s Dream Mandala and reliving her trauma (her guilt over stealing another child’s seed to survive) can Luma restore equilibrium.

The chapter ends with Claire revealing that the signal is a False Transmission, a test planted by the ancient Throne Angels to purify fear.

📖 Chapter 6: “Zero Ascension”

The 365th day arrives. The Ferrum Colony is now completely overrun by the Terror Bloom. AI structures collapse. Children who failed their metamorphosis are crystallized into Dream Statues—still conscious.

One by one, the survivors launch their vessels—living ships shaped by emotion, sacrifice, and love.

Luma and ButtonBunk’s Galactic Tree Ship rises. From its crown, song-leaves unfold and chant the names of the fallen. The ship roots tear from Ferrum soil, carrying with it the last viable seed of the planet.

Before the ship can break the atmosphere, a final trial begins—The Heaven Gate Protocol. AuroraHex demands a full accounting of Luma’s sins, losses, and dreams. Only by speaking aloud her deepest truth will the gate unlock.

If she fails, her ship will drift. If she succeeds, it will ascend to The Spiral Nest, a mythic biosphere realm beyond all known dimensions.

Her words: “I was afraid of remembering because I thought it would destroy me. But now I see—what we remember, saves us.”

Gate opens. Light floods in.

End of Act I.

🌙 Would you like to begin Act II: The Spiral Nest next? It includes:

The Metaphysical Map of the Spiral Biospheres

New character vessels + alternate versions of lost classmates

ButtonBunk’s evolution into StarWalker form

AuroraHex’s Rebirth Protocol as an ally (or adversary)

Harvest Moon: Cherub Cocoon

Genre: Sci-Fantasy / Metaphysical Survival / Visual Novel + RPG Hybrid

Platform: #DearDearestBrands Universe | #PlayStation7 | #DDBR App

📖 Chapter 4: “Cocoonbind”

On the 300th day, a stillness falls over the colony. The moons align into a silent trinity, casting kaleidoscopic light into every seed chamber. Each cocoon pulses as if breathing.

ButtonBunk grows restless, whispering in half-languages. “It’s time, it’s time to fuse.”

The Cocoonbind Phase begins. Luma is guided into the ritual chamber, where the living cocoon now mirrors her facial expressions, echoing her heartbeat. A ring of AuroraHex glyphs encircles them both. The ritual begins with the Bonding Rite of the Bloomed Veil—a rite where the player must replay key memories, but truthfully this time. Misremembering results in cocoon rejection.

A dream confrontation begins inside ButtonBunk’s mirror-form. Luma faces the shard of herself that never wanted to survive. To proceed, she must forgive the part of her that gave up hope.

Cocoonbind successful.

The cocoon splits open to reveal a luminous tree-like structure wrapped in silver-gold bark and glowing root veins. An orb of breathable atmosphere forms naturally at the trunk’s base—oxygen synthesized by memory-transmuted leaves.

This is the genesis of the Galactic Tree Ship—a vessel not built, but grown.

📖 Chapter 5: “The Betrayal Signal”

At dawn on the 320th day, a signal is received by the colony AI: “ALL SURVIVORS TO LAUNCH. IMMEDIATE.”

Panic spreads. Claire tries to hide the message, but Aero discovers it. The class divides. Half want to force-launch early. Half want to complete the final rites.

Luma is confronted by Nova, who has secretly completed her cocoon—a crystalline ship shaped like a dragonfly. She intends to leave alone.

A Betrayal Trial is triggered: Luma’s trust is fractured. ButtonBunk darkens, and the ship’s root pulse fades.

Only by finding Nova’s Dream Mandala and reliving her trauma (her guilt over stealing another child’s seed to survive) can Luma restore equilibrium.

The chapter ends with Claire revealing that the signal is a False Transmission, a test planted by the ancient Throne Angels to purify fear.

📖 Chapter 6: “Zero Ascension”

The 365th day arrives. The Ferrum Colony is now completely overrun by the Terror Bloom. AI structures collapse. Children who failed their metamorphosis are crystallized into Dream Statues—still conscious.

One by one, the survivors launch their vessels—living ships shaped by emotion, sacrifice, and love.

Luma and ButtonBunk’s Galactic Tree Ship rises. From its crown, song-leaves unfold and chant the names of the fallen. The ship roots tear from Ferrum soil, carrying with it the last viable seed of the planet.

Before the ship can break the atmosphere, a final trial begins—The Heaven Gate Protocol. AuroraHex demands a full accounting of Luma’s sins, losses, and dreams. Only by speaking aloud her deepest truth will the gate unlock.

If she fails, her ship will drift. If she succeeds, it will ascend to The Spiral Nest, a mythic biosphere realm beyond all known dimensions.

Her words: “I was afraid of remembering because I thought it would destroy me. But now I see—what we remember, saves us.”

Gate opens. Light floods in.

End of Act I.

🌙 Would you like to begin Act II: The Spiral Nest next? It includes:

The Metaphysical Map of the Spiral Biospheres

New character vessels + alternate versions of lost classmates

ButtonBunk’s evolution into StarWalker form

AuroraHex’s Rebirth Protocol as an ally (or adversary)

[sallyyty]

Advance Technology - 7 Steps of a Successful Game Development

Part 1: Unleashing the Power of Advance Technology in Game Development

Fasten your seatbelts as we prepare to set off on a thrilling expedition into the realm of game development driven by cutting-edge technology. If you've ever been curious about the inner workings behind the construction of those mesmerising digital universes, remain engaged as we unveil the seven pivotal stages that pave the way for a triumphant game development journey. Prepare to enhance your understanding to a whole new tier!

Part 2: Navigating the 7 Steps to Game Development Glory

1. Conceptualization with a Twist

Think of game development as a grand adventure. It all begins with a spark of creativity—a unique concept that sets your game apart. Whether it's a mind-bending puzzle game or an immersive open-world RPG, make sure your idea has that special twist that leaves players hungry for more.

2. Designing the Digital Universe

Now comes the exciting part—designing the game universe. Advanced technology lets you dive deep into creating lifelike characters, mind-blowing landscapes, and intricate gameplay mechanics. This is where your vision truly takes shape, so let your imagination run wild during the game development.

3. Coding: Where Magic Happens

Ready to work some coding magic? The third step involves crafting the heart and soul of your game—the code. 

4. A Symphony of Soundscapes

A game's audio is like its heartbeat, setting the mood and enhancing the player's experience. Advanced audio technology brings realistic sounds and immersive music compositions to the table. Every footstep, every rustle of leaves—it all comes together to create a symphony of emotions for the game development. 

5. Visual Marvels: Graphics and Animation

Prepare to amaze your players with jaw-dropping visuals that will leave them in awe. Utilising state-of-the-art graphics technology elevates your game's visual elements to unprecedented altitudes, bringing forth hyper-realistic settings, astonishing luminous effects, and characters that seem to burst out of the monitor. And let's not overlook animation—crafting the seamless and lifelike movements and behaviours of your characters adds to the enchantment during the game development process. 

6. Testing, Tweaking, and More Testing

The road to success isn't always a smooth ride. This step involves rigorous testing and tweaking to ensure your game is as polished as a gem. Advanced testing tools help you identify bugs, optimise performance, and fine-tune gameplay mechanics. Remember, perfection is in the details!

7. Launching into the Gaming Galaxy It's showtime, folks! With your game ready to shine, it's time to launch it into the gaming galaxy. Thanks to advanced distribution platforms and marketing strategies, your game can reach players across the world in no time. Get those promotional engines revving and watch as your creation takes the gaming community by storm through the game development.

Part 3: Your Quest to Create Gaming Masterpieces

Here it is, fellow pioneers of technology—7 fundamental strides toward sculpting an enduring gaming escapade through the dynamic prowess of cutting-edge technology. The expedition from conception to fruition may present its trials, yet armed with the right instruments and perspective, you're firmly en route to forging a gaming opus.

Are you primed to embark on this exhilarating odyssey of game development? Refrain from confining your notions solely to the recesses of your imagination; breathe life into them as they unfurl into captivating digital realms. Remember, each string of code, every pixel brushed, and each harmonious note contributes to the enchantment that players shall encounter.

So, what's impeding your progress? Immerse yourself in the domain of game development, armed with advanced technology, and observe your aspirations metamorphose into digital marvels that enrapture players across the globe.

Are you spurred by inspiration? Prepared to take the leap? Establish a connection with Zodiac Solutions today, and transmute your game development visions into tangible reality. Regardless of whether you're a coding sorcerer, a design virtuoso, or a narrative maestro, they possess the tools and adeptness to aid you in forging games that resonate profoundly and stand the test of time. So, contact them today. 

[metamorphoses-rpg]

Métamorphoses : Contexte

Nous nous étions tus.

Les siècles avaient engendré de nouvelles croyances, des populations nouvelles, des civilisations modernes.

Nous nous étions tus.

Doucement.

Nous avons péri

Loin de leur existence

Ils étaient la source de notre essence même, ces humains que nous jugions si souvent cruellement. Ils nous avaient inventé afin d’expliquer le monde par les contes, les légendes et les mythes. Et nous avons souffert de leur abandon car nous existions. Ils ne nous voyaient pas mais nous ressentaient. Ils fabriquaient pour nous des planètes aux merveilles.

Tous, nous respirions dans les voix de nos créateurs.

Et nous aspirions au bonheur.

Et tous, nous disparaissions Puis, l’aurore s’éveille, nous ouvrons nos orbes devant les villes transformées, complètement affolés. La magie disparue, nos pouvoirs également. Mais nos souvenirs dans l’âme, notre esprit égaré. Où étaient passées nos montagnes chatoyantes ? Nos forêts luxuriantes ? Nos compagnons et nos histoires merveilleuses ? Qu’avions nous fait pendant des années, des siècles ? Avions-nous dormi pendant tout ce temps ? Dans les rues de Toronto, nous nous adaptons, obligés de côtoyer ces êtres si différents. Nous ne savons pas, nous ne savons rien. Mais nous nous échinons à vivre comme eux à présent que nos destins ne se tissent plus de magie.

[chamomileteainabuttercup]

Dustin invents his own RPG, a kind of wishful thinking, create a happier fictional version of a real experience thing: you play as a child exploring the woods, fields and waters around your home, catching and collecting various friendly monsters which metamorphose into different forms as you train and care for them, storing them in a magical Bag of Holding-like backpack (or a little one can hide under your hat) and cataloguing them as an assignment from your kindly science teacher. A suggestion from Steve leads him to add a competitive element in which the player advances with their pets through a sports-type league. Although he succeeds in getting “Backpack Beasties” published, it never really finds its audience as a TTRPG. It’s not until the 1990s that he’s contacted by some lawyers for a Japanese client wanting to make a deal or settlement so that the similarities between his existing game and the video game they’re developing don’t become a legal problem. He negotiates his way into a job and that is how Dustin becomes the fabled Uncle Who Works For Nintendo to all his friends’ kids.

[thecreaturecodex]

Qlippoth Lord, Sertrous

Image by Izzy, © Wizards of the Coast.

[Commissioned by @justicegundam82​. Sertrous is another one of the cast of Elder Evils, and the one who is the most redundant within Pathfinder RPG. This is because he was created by James Jacobs, who just rearranged some of the components and made them Pathfinder canon. Ydersius is a serpent god who was beheaded but lives on (and his name even rhymes!), whereas the heresy-snakes link got shifted onto Geryon. So when I got commissioned to write this creature, the obvious struggle was to make it fill a different campaign niche than either of these canonical villains. Inspired by the golothomas , I made it Ydersius’ sundered shadow-self. As opposed to the radically different flavor text, the mechanics of my version are almost a straight conversion instead of doing much radical. My biggest change was altering the form of madness/horrific appearance, as qlippoth lords cause physical changes with their horrific appearances instead of purely mental effects. I also toned down its complete immunity to all divine spells.]

Qlippoth Lord, Sertrous CR 22 CE Outsider (extraplanar) This being is an immense nightmare of slimy coils and shining scales. Two long serpentine arms emerge from its midsection, each ending in a three-taloned hand. Its head is that of a deformed snake, five jaws blooming radially away from each other like a monstrous flower. It is sickly green with a pale yellow belly, stripes of red running along its sides like rivers of blood.

Sertrous, The Poisoned Whisper, The Arch-Heretic, The Divine Shadow Concerns heresy, poison, resentment, serpents Domains Chaos, Evil, Scalykind, Trickery Subdomains Deception, Entropy, Hatred*, Venom Worshipers apostates, heretics, serpentfolk Minions demodands, fiendish hydras, qlippoths Unholy Symbol the shadow of a headless snake Favored Weapon spiked chain Devotion Spend an hour destroying a holy book or holy symbol, all the while reciting heresies and blasphemies specific to that faith. Gain a +2 profane bonus on all saving throws against divine spells. Boons 1: misdirection 2/day; 2: spell immunity 2/day; 3: mass suggestion 2/day *clerics of Sertrous can use the Hatred subdomain to modify the Evil domain

When the god Ydersius was slain, the violence done to him shattered his psyche and quintessence as well as his body. Although Ydersius persisted as the Sundered God, a part of his shadow was cast off, squirming into the Abyss and finding root. In time and hatred, this essence manifested itself a body. The divine shadow is Sertrous, the Arch-Heretic. Although Sertrous cultivates and spreads heresies of all kinds, his own existence is an embodiment of perhaps the greatest heresy—that the gods hate their own worshipers. After all, without the attention brought on by the serpentfolk’s schemes, Ydersius would never have been slain.

Sertrous is poison incarnate, both to the body and the mind. His venom is among the strongest in the cosmos, eating away at flesh with astonishing rapidity. Creatures that see him find their own bodies revolting, their shadows metamorphosing into deadly serpents that strike their owners as readily as their surroundings. He can implant suggestions in mortal minds and make them forget they were anything other than their own ideas. He can drain the free will from a grappled victim and turn them into an enthralled puppet. And if all of that fails, he is brutally strong.

Sertrous courts worship more openly than do most qlippoth lords, but his faith involves forsaking all divinity as a pyramid scheme. The organization of his followers is referred to as the Vanguard of Sertrous. Of all of the gods Sertrous hates, Ydersius, his creator/former self, is the most hated. Sertrous sees Ydersius’ reliance on his serpentfolk cult to be co-dependency, whereas he is happy to have abandoned all but the most depraved and apostate serpentfolk and expanded his minions. The Vanguard counts many demodands among its members, although whether they are true believers or are attempting to manipulate Sertrous’ maltheism to the benefit of the thanatoic titans is an unresolved question. Sertrous’ sanctum is the Serpent Reliquary, an extradimensional space accessible only in the depths of the Abyss. It functions as a tesseract, each of its chambers accessible to the others in seemingly impossible ways. The center of this complex holds the shadow of Ydersius’ severed head, which fell into the Abyss so many years ago and spawned Sertrous.

Sertrous           CR 22 XP 615,000 CE Gargantuan outsider (chaos, evil, extraplanar, qlippoth, qlippoth lord) Init +8; Senses blindsight 60 ft., darkvision 60 ft., detect good, detect law, Perception +26, true seeing Aura poisoner’s breath (240 ft.), unholy (DC 26) Defense AC 39, touch 14, flat-footed 35 (-4 size, +4 Dex, +25 natural, +4 deflection) hp 448 (23d10+322); regeneration 15 (lawful) Fort +25, Ref +21, Will +22; +4 vs. divine spells DR 20/cold iron and lawful; Immune cold, death effects, mind-influencing effects, poison; Resist acid 30, electricity 30, fire 30; SR 33 Defensive Abilities shun the divine Offense Speed 50 ft., fly 60 ft. (good) Melee bite +34 (6d6+15 plus poison), 2 claws +34 (2d6+15), tail slap +32 (4d8+8 plus grab) Space 20 ft.; Reach 20 ft. Special Attacks constrict (4d8+22), horrific appearance, poisoned whispers, souldrink Spell-like Abilities CL 22nd, concentration +29 (+33 casting defensively) Constant—detect good, detect law, fly, true seeing, unholy aura (self only, DC 26) At will—astral projection, cloudkill (DC 23) (M), greater dispel magic, greater teleport, improved invisibility, telekinesis (DC 23) (M), veil (DC 24) 3/day—blasphemy (DC 25) (M), fire storm (DC 26) (M), quickened mass suggestion (DC 24) 1/day—mass hold monster (DC 27), scintillating pattern (DC 26), summon qlippoth (100%, 9th level, CR 20), weird (DC 27), wish (DC 27) (M) (M) = Sertrous can use the mythic version of this spell-like ability in his sanctum Statistics Str 40, Dex 18, Con 38, Int 23, Wis 21, Cha 27 Base Atk +23; CMB +42 (+44 bull rush, +46 grab); CMD 60 (62 vs. bull rush) Feats Awesome Blow, Combat Casting, Combat Reflexes, Greater Vital Strike, Improved Bull Rush, Improved Initiative, Improved Vital Strike, Multiattack, Power Attack, Quicken SLA (mass suggestion), Stand Still, Vital Strike Skills Bluff +29, Climb +33, Diplomacy +29, Fly +34, Intimidate +29, Knowledge (arcana, history, nature) +25, Knowledge (planes, religion) +28, Perception +26, Sense Motive +26, Spellcraft +24, Stealth +14, Swim +33 Languages Abyssal, Aklo, Celestial, Draconic, Infernal, Undercommon, telepathy 300 ft. SQ qlippoth lord traits Ecology Environment any land and underground (Abyss) Organization unique Treasure triple standard Special Abilities Horrific Appearance (Su) When Sertrous uses his horrific appearance, all creatures within 60 feet must succeed a DC 29 Will save or have their shadow turn into a venomous serpent. The serpent makes one attack per round, using that creature’s own base attack bonus plus Strength modifier, at a creature within its reach (including the creature it has grown from). A creature bitten takes 1d8+Str modifier points of damage, and must succeed a Fortitude save (DC = 10 + ½ the creature’s HD + creature’s Con modifier) or suffer the effects of black adder venom. The serpent has Sertrous’ damage reduction, immunities and resistances, an AC of 22 and 23 hit points. If a creature suffering from Sertrous’ horrific appearance is slain, the serpent lives on for 1 minute—it cannot move, but attacks other creatures that it can reach. This is a mind-influencing transmutation effect. The save DC is Charisma based. Poison (Ex) Bite—injury; save Fort DC 35; duration 1/round for 6 rounds; effect 1d6 Con drain; cure 2 consecutive saves. The save DC is Constitution based. Poisoner’s Breath (Su) All immunity to poison is suppressed within 240 feet of Sertrous. Only creatures with mythic ranks or the qlippoth subtype are immune to this effect. Poisoned Whisper (Su) As a standard action, Sertrous can plant a suggestion telepathically in a creature’s mind within 120 feet. If the creature fails a DC 29 Will save, it acts under the effects of a suggestion spell (CL 22nd). One minute later, the creature must succeed another DC 29 Will save or be subject to a modify memory effect, forgetting the suggestion. If the suggestion has yet to be carried out, or is ongoing, the creature believes the suggestion to be their own idea. This is a mind-influencing compulsion effect, and the save DC is Charisma based. Shun the Divine (Ex/Su) Sertrous gains a +4 bonus on all saves against divine spells. In addition, every day he selects nine divine spells to be completely immune to, one of each spell level between 1st and 9th. These spells are treated as if Sertrous had unbeatable spell resistance, even if they are cast by a creature other than a divine spellcaster. Sertrous typically chooses the following spells, but may alter his tactics based on what he knows about his opponents: implosion, fire storm, holy word, harm, slay living, order’s wrath, prayer, spiritual weapon, inflict light wounds. Souldrink (Su) Whenever Sertrous maintains a grapple, it consumes part of that creature’s ego, dealing 2d8 points of Charisma drain. A creature cannot be reduced to 0 Charisma by this ability—it is instead reduced to 1 Cha and is affected by a dominate monster effect (CL 22nd) that lasts until its Charisma is completely restored. This is a mind-influencing compulsion effect.

[csolarstorm]

This is a weird time in Pokemon.

Okay, don’t jump to conclusions by reading this because I mean it in a nuanced way, but...Pokemon is changing in a way that I don’t recognize.  It has come out the other side of its metamorphosis and...well, no, it’s still metamorphosing.  Pokemon always strives to evolve, but clearly we are in a time of experimentation.

These both feel more like Nintendo games than GameFreak games, and that is not surprising at all.  GameFreak has moved into Nintendo.  Nintendo took GameFreak under its wing to try and create a Breath of the Wild-style game, and...well they’re doing it!  And it’s gorgeous, both graphically and in potential.  Legends of Arceus is literally what fans have wanted since playing Breath of the Wild.  A Pokemon game with a cell shaded art style literally set in the unspoiled wilderness where you just go wherever you want.

It’s a little too literal.  This is more a Nintendo move than a Pokemon move.  It feels very at home in the RPG era of Nintendo.

ShiningDiamond and BrilliantPearl are VERY Nintendo.  It’s nothing like I expected.  My first thought when I saw them is that the overworld looks like the Link’s Awakening remake.  GameFreak isn’t even making this game.

GameFreak isn’t even making this game.  It’s ILCA.  The same company that made - *can’t say it* - Pokemon - *can’t say it* Pokemon HOME. 

This is Nintendo’s MO.  They’re even farming it out to another studio with Masuda overseeing it.  It’s the New Super Mario Bros principle: assume the fans want something new and yet just like what they remember.  GameFreak would update Diamond and Pearl with the engine of Sword and Shield, and present it with some cultural and philosophical concept that speaks to people across the world.  Nintendo sees things in a spectrum of nostalgia to progress.  When they think remake, their priority is to faithfully preserve the experience of the original game.  They would totally go so extreme with preserving the original that they literally regress back to a pre-Pokemon X/Y GameBoy-style overworld. 

Here guys, here’s your remake.  Happy?  No?  Well here’s your...other...remake! 

Basically, ShiningDiamond and BrilliantPearl are only here to give fans a more familiar remake to balance Legends of Arceus, which I’d hazard a guess is probably the actual successor to games like HeartGold/SoulSilver and OmegaRuby/AlphaSapphire. The new Nintendo-GameFreak alliance couldn’t figure out how innovative they wanted remakes to be, so they broke it up into two extremes.  Which, when you think about it, is very GameFreak.  How long have we been expecting a pair of games where one is set in the present and one is set in the ancient past?  By ancient past, I don’t mean Legends of Arceus, I mean the gameplay of ShiningDiamond and BrilliantPearl.  It’s literally stuck in the past.

Two years of Sinnoh games.  An upscaled GameBoy-style remake and a crazy pan-region Breath of the Wild style remake set in ancient Sinnoh.  This is SUCH a weird time in Pokemon.

[aion-rsa]

15 Best SNES Platformers Ever

https://ift.tt/2UzmXAm

Platformers have long been an entry point for new gamers. Video games may have greatly expanded in scope over the years and now offer so many different genres and experiences that it’s nearly impossible to keep track of them, but that’s actually a big part of the reason why it’s still so much fun to look back at these timeless games where the main objective was often to simply jump from one place to the next.

There is no console that celebrated the brilliance of the platformer better than the Super Nintendo Entertainment System. The SNES may be best known for expanding the adventure and RPG genres, as well as raising a generation’s expectations for video game graphics, but few consoles have come close to rivaling the Super Nintendo’s library of classic platforming titles.

It’s hard to narrow this list down to just 15 games, but from action-based platformers to pure platforming classics, these are the best examples of this timeless genre that the SNES gifted the gaming world. 

15. Jelly Boy 

Putting you in control of a jelly baby (a candy that is popular in the U.K. and surrounding areas), Jelly Boy was only released in Europe when it debuted in 1994. The game has a colorful aesthetic and some unique platforming elements built around the main character’s ability to transform into a myriad of vehicles, tools, and other objects. Those metamorphoses will be familiar to anyone who has played a Wario Land title or Kirby’s Epic Yarn. 

Admittedly, Jelly Boy‘s mechanics can be a little clunky and the controls are deficient compared to some of the later games on this list. Still, you will be hard-pressed to find a more original platformer on the console that isn’t made by Nintendo themselves. You can even play it now via the Nintendo Switch Online service.

14. Demon’s Crest

Released by Capcom in 1994 as the third game featuring the character Firebrand (who debuted in the Ghosts ‘n Goblins series), Demon’s Crest is a forgotten gem in the SNES catalog. It adds some variety to the traditional action-platformer by giving the playable protagonist the ability to fly and shoot fireballs as well as access other upgradeable attacks and maneuvers as their quest rolls along. That feature adds a little Zelda-like adventuring to the mix, and you’ll certainly need those late-game power-ups because this platformer means business.

There are many difficult platformers on this list, but few boast the plethora of boss battles seen in this one. It’s actually similar to Mega Man in terms of its fighting style and jumping requirements, so if you are looking for an alternative to the Blue Bomber that keeps the basics of the genre intact, you’ll have a hard time doing better than Demon’s Crest.  

13. Joe & Mac

Joe & Mac is honestly a fairly basic platformer for its era. What gets it onto this list of the best games in that genre, though, is the creativity and execution of its setting.

The game sees you control two different cavemen who rely on basic prehistoric items such as fire, bats, bones, etc. The bosses are pretty cool (dinosaurs are fun for all ages) and the controls hold up well enough that you won’t ever feel like you have to force the avatar into doing something that the interface simply won’t allow for. The game spawned a sequel that was also released on SNES, but the original is unique enough to get the nod here. 

12. Super Ghouls ‘n Ghosts

Despite what the title may suggest, Super Ghouls ‘n Ghosts is actually the third game in the Ghosts ‘n Goblins series. Like the previous games, this classic sees you battle various monsters and bosses that fit the setting nicely. Although the game is maybe a little too action-heavy to get the nod over the SNES’ best platformers, it uses its platforming elements to elevate the entire experience. 

The difficulty is insanely high and the sheer amount of sprites on screen at once can lead to some lag that only adds to the frustrations of this arduous journey, but the game has a way of keeping things light and humorous when the frustration sets in. How many other games see the protagonist stripped of their armor, quite literally, when he takes too many hits?

11. Donkey Kong Country 3: Dixie Kong’s Double Trouble!

The third installment in the beloved Donkey Kong Country trilogy certainly isn’t hated by many, but it is usually viewed as a step down from the first two games. Whether that has to do with a change in composer for the soundtrack, the inability to play as Donkey or Diddy, or the fact it was released after the Nintendo 64 was on the market, the title’s sometimes mixed reputation often prevents it from being appreciated as a divine platforming experience. 

The environments and storytelling in this game are well-executed. If you’re observant, you may even notice that the developers were trying to say something about the sad state of ape habitats and pollution in the wild. Even if you didn’t dive too deep into that surprising bit of social commentary, you’ll likely find that the platforming in this one remains top-notch and that the overall experience remains severely underrated. 

10. DoReMi Fantasy: Milon’s DokiDoki Adventure 

As the only game on this list that wasn’t initially released outside of Japan, many gamers may not know that DoReMi Fantasy is a whimsical experience that features some of the key elements of Mario and Kirby’s best adventures in terms of gameplay and graphics. Starring a young child whose objective is to reclaim music for the forest, DoReMi utilizes some clever puzzles that may not be unusual for the platformer genre but certainly add to the fun.

The game got a Virtual Console release in North America in 2008, but that’s sadly the best chance many gamers have had in recent years to take a chance on this title. It’s a great example of how people should be more open to experiencing games that weren’t localized the first time around.

9. Donkey Kong Country

Perhaps the most famous game starring Nintendo’s lovable ape, the original Donkey Kong Country was Rare’s first big title for the SNES and practically started their decade-plus long relationship as a second-party developer with the Big N. Tasked with showing off off the console’s pre-rendered graphics system, the crew from Britain proved to be up to the task. Honestly, this game still looks halfway decent in 2021. 

While the actual platforming is not as good as the Super Mario games on the SNES, it offered a different flavor of jumping that is still very much appreciated. The “weight” of Donkey Kong and Diddy means that the platforming is less flighty than in Super Mario games, and the rideable animal buddies you encounter along the way add a little flair to the experience. 

8. ActRaiser

As a game that serves as both an action-platformer and a God simulator, this underrated and forgotten gem from Enix and developer Quintet showed off the visual and audio capabilities of the SNES in the early days of the console. You play as the “Master” who is tasked with building towns around the world and fending off the evils that threaten them. It’s hard to juggle two completely different genres like that, but ActRaiser finds a great balance. 

The game was re-released for the Wii Virtual Console in 2007 but has otherwise been paid little attention in the years since its release. That’s unfortunate because there aren’t many games from 30 years ago that provide this much depth and versatility. Both parts of the experience are extremely solid in their own right, and together add up to become something truly special. 

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7. Kirby Super Star

Even the most ardent Kirby fans would probably agree that the franchise can get a little stale at times. There are only so many ways Kirby can suck an enemy up, transform his powers to match theirs, and ultimately defeat King Dedede. That’s why Kirby Super Star is still arguably the best game that the pink cutie pie has ever starred in.

Featuring eight different games within the game, the genre-mixing in this one is really off the charts. There are racing elements, adventure tones, and shooting sequences amongst the different sections of the playthrough. The experience was so beloved that it was eventually remade for the Nintendo DS as Kirby Super Star Deluxe. There is something for everyone in this package, and it shows the best parts of Kirby’s history.

6. Mega Man X

The original run of NES Mega Man titles are arguably still more famous than all of the others, but Mega Man X just has more of what makes those games great. It retains the eight bosses and weapon upgrades that can be completed/acquired in whatever order the player chooses, and it even has that same incredible soundtrack that the Blue Bomber’s adventures are always famous for.

Mega Man X‘s graphical upgrades admittedly take some of that eight-bit nostalgia out of the experience, but the game ultimately makes up for it by offering new gameplay experiences. Jumping on walls and acquiring upgrades to defensive maneuvers gives Mega Man an even more badass skillset, and the game generally does an excellent job of emphasizing the “platforming” parts of its action-platformer mix.

5. Super Castlevania 4

Super Castlevania 4 is actually a kind of soft remake of the original game, and the developers at Konami did a great job of making that game more digestible for newcomers while keeping all of the iconic elements from the classic NES title.

The Castlevania basics are all here (you still control Simon Belmont, equipped with his famous whip and ax, and battle through the game’s 11 stages before reaching Dracula), but an ideal mix of combat and platforming makes this one of the most irreplaceable platformers in the SNES catalog. It’s still an airtight action-platformer experience in 2021. 

4. Donkey Kong Country 2: Diddy’s Kong Quest

The second game in the DKC trilogy took all of the best parts of the first title and refined them to create a truly unique platforming game that was a lot more than fancy graphics (a reputation the original game has had a hard time shaking). Diddy’s Kong Quest expanded upon the game design that fans loved while keeping the jungle hijinx, masterful soundtrack, and weighted platforming intact. 

That last part is what truly separates the middle installment of this franchise from the other two. Many people have said that these games were sometimes more style than substance, but after playing through the myriad of environments on display in DKC 2, it becomes clear that this title has endured over the years because its tight mechanics are executed at a high level.  

3. Super Metroid

If this list were just a ranking of 2D games or if it encapsulated the entire SNES library regardless of genre, Super Metroid would most likely take the top spot. Alas, this icon of game design settles in the third spot because it isn’t the best example of a “pure platformer.” It’s more of an action/adventure affair, though the game’s platforming elements are still as satisfying now as they were in the 1990s.

What separates this game from so many that have tried to emulate it in the nearly three decades since release is that every ability upgrade and every part of the map fits together with nearly flawless foresight and execution. It’s never a hassle to re-explore a section that you’ve already seen. The game has a masterful flow that is incredibly modern and perhaps even more popular today because of the prominence of this design style on the indie game scene. 

2. Super Mario World

With its flawless controls, colorful sprites, cheerful soundtrack, and ageless platforming, Super Mario World is the title that all other 2D games in the genre are still compared to. The extra graphical power of the SNES gave Nintendo the opportunity to expand upon Super Mario Bros. 3‘s best ideas while exploring new concepts that simply weren’t possible before.

That is why this game remains so playable. Super Mario World combines the most enjoyable elements of the NES Super Mario classics and then elevates them to fully realize the world that Miyamoto imagined when this basic concept was created. It still doesn’t make sense to have a plumber jumping on top of turtles and occasionally getting lost inside of a house full of ghosts (those damn Boo mansions still haunt me), but when you combine this much creativity into one package, you have no choice but to admit how special it all is.

1. Super Mario World 2: Yoshi’s Island

Shigeru Miyamoto and his team knew that it was futile to try and surpass Super Mario World simply by emulating it. So when developing the sequel, they made the decision to craft an entirely different type of platformer in which Mario isn’t even the main protagonist. The concept was bold, but the execution needed to be flawless if the game was ever going to be more than another disappointing follow-up. 

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It’s safe to say Yoshi’s Island exceeded all expectations. Putting Yoshi at the forefront of a platformer that included mini-games, evasion, puzzle-solving, item collection, and the most timeless color palette in gaming history was brilliance personified. Yoshi’s Island is not as famous as its older sibling, but its daring creativity and irreplaceable charm have inspired many to argue that it is the better game in retrospect. Whatever your opinion is, the fun and escapism of the green dinosaur’s finest hour (as well as the horrors of Baby Mario’s screams) will be remembered until the end of gaming.

The post 15 Best SNES Platformers Ever appeared first on Den of Geek.

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[indiavolowetrust]

THE OBEY ME BOYS AS RPG BOSSES: NEO-OSAKA

LEVEL 1-7

LEVEL 8-10

FINAL BOSS (YOU ARE HERE)

ENDINGS

You are one of many modified humans in Neo-Osaka. A relic of your brief time in the criminal underbelly. Your adopted little brother, Luke, has been kidnapped by a criminal syndicate known only as The Devil Triad for unknown reasons. Simeon, his upperclassman, is the sole witness of his kidnapping. Armed with your trusty katana, the healing microbots in your blood, and  the information Simeon has given you, you venture back into the underworld of Neo-Osaka to save your brother.

Word Count: 1,163

TW: Blood, Violence, Mention of Drug Use

???

You can’t win. Diavolo parries and blocks all your strikes with disturbing ease, turning the power of your attacks back onto you. Despite the changes in your strategy halfway through the battle – combining pseudo-attacks with actual blows  -- it is not long before Diavolo overwhelms you once more. You can’t count how many times his thermal sabers have seared through your flesh. The burns are much too numerous and prevalent for you to register them individually. When you manage to dodge a swing of his blade, Diavolo plants a kick on your stomach to create distance. When you manage to dodge the kick, Diavolo merely disorients you with the hilt of his blade.

You kneel before him, your body battered and bloodied. The microbots in your blood can’t work quickly enough. Diavolo regards you with nothing short of pure, seething hatred. The tip of his thermal saber burns the skin of your chin as he tips you face upwards, forcing you to look at him. The pain of your other wounds drowns out that of your burnt chin.

His mouth says something inaudible. No, not inaudible – the agony that you’ve been subjected to has dulled your other senses. The wounds have finally overtaken your body. When Diavolo raises a blade over his head, you can only close your eyes and hope for a clean, swift decapitation.

Yet the blade never comes.

A warmth splatters on your cheek. You open your eyes to see Diavolo still before you, his blade positioned above his head – but there’s something wrong. His expression is caught between one of shock and anger. His eyes are focused on the blooming, gaping wound in his chest, his heart somehow removed from the cavity of his rib cage. A hand covered with viscera cradles it an increment away from his chest.

His body is tossed aside. His heart joins his lifeless body in the shadows. The figure before you is strange and familiar – and yet you can’t quite fathom why. When the figure steps closer, allowing the moonlight to reveal their form, you find yourself unable to breathe. Unable to speak. You only stare wide-eyed at your savior.

Six pairs of wings have sprouted from his back, each one just as monstrous as the last. Thousands of eyes peer down at you from what you think are feathers, the pupils a bright blue, and you feel the fan of his feathers as the wings curl in to embrace you. His face has been half-formed into something that is decidedly not human, the metamorphosed half bearing marble-like skin and a devious maw. The same can generally be said for the rest of his body: his fingers have lengthened and curled into wicked claws, his legs are jointed oddly, and his feet echo the changes in his hands. As he steps forward, extending a hand towards you, the claws click against the polished floor.

“You ... you came for me,” Luke says, smiling. A bright blue tear runs down his cheek. “I’m glad.”

SIMEON,  AN AMBITIOUS STUDENT RESEARCHER

You want to rip his tongue out.

While Simeon expected you to take down a few of the Devil Triad’s prominent members, he hadn’t expected you to get this far. It’s actually quite impressive. He had expected you to be lost somewhere in The Pink Scorpion, your mind taken by the perfume. Drowned in the depths near Neo-Osaka’s wharf. Ripped apart by that wrathful librarian, at best. There’s not much pity here for them; they were starting to get in the way, anyway. He congratulates you on having succeeded this far, smiling in that familiar, now sickening manner, and asks if you enjoyed his latest creation. His latest creation was for the greater good, but it appears that he’s made yet another failure. Oh well.

Luke’s morphed, half-dead body lies at your feet. What does he mean by greater good? He’s a monster! He’s a monster and if you had just realized earlier what you had done, then --

Simeon waves off your outburst. “Monster?” he asks, laughing. “I was joking, really – this wasn’t that much of a failure. Luke just wasn’t strong enough to withstand the metamorphosis. If he was just a little bit older, I’m sure he wouldn’t have reacted so poorly.”

But why the fuck would he even consider using Luke for this? While he’s explained that Luke carries a rare genetic mutation – angel blood, he calls it – you would never be able to justify putting him through this. This is beyond student research.

“Sacrifices must be made for the greater good,” Simeon asserts. He pulls a vial filled with bright blue liquid from his pocket, presenting it to you. Luke’s blood, you realize. “The people of Neo-Osaka are miserable. Miserable, misguided, and eaten alive by the city’s vices. Don’t you think it would be cruel to rob them of something so useful? Just imagine – no more bioterrorists, no more modified humans, and no more cybernetic organisms controlling the masses. No more fear. I’m giving them a chance to defend themselves. Don’t you understand that?”

You don’t. You fully intend to stop him right now and force him to change your brother back as much as he can. The shipment of the so-called panacea will be stopped. As the one thing that stands between him and his beloved experiment, you are prepared to fight him to the death.

Unfortunately, Simeon has anticipated your answer. He inserts the vial into a syringe and plunges it into his leg, forcing the liquid into his own body. The metamorphosis begins to take over a split-second after, his visage contorted in pain. His voice distorts as he screams in agony. He folds over, gripping his chest as the appendages begin to burst from his spine. A mixture of blue and red viscera pools around him.

An abomination stands before you moments later. You ready yourself for one last battle, clutching the gaping wound that the addled, metamorphosed Luke has so lovingly inflicted upon you. If you aren’t willing to listen to Simeon’s ideals, it seems, then it looks like he’s more than willing to demonstrate the results of his experiment. Lucky, you are more than willing to demonstrate just how useless his experiment really is.

The abomination that is Simeon roars. You draw your weapon for one final time.

[satoshi-mochida]

Death end re;Quest 2 will launch for PlayStation 4 and PC via Steam this summer in North America and Europe, publisher Idea Factory International announced.

Additionally, the publisher has released the game’s opening movie, as well as updated shared the following details on the game’s day and night system:

Day and Night

Gameplay is split between two time periods: day and night. During midday, you can visit the dormitory and explore Le Choara to search for clues.

As evening sets in, the town metamorphoses into a haunted shell of itself. In the shadows sneak carnivorous creatures of the night. Players must delve into both day and night to learn in full what horrific secrets are buried in this secluded town.

Will Mai survive long enough to find her younger sister?

Here is an overview of the game, via Idea Factory International:

Story

Mai Toyama seeks an escape from her traumatic past. She becomes enrolled at Wordsworth, an all-girl’s dormitory situated in the small, mountainous town known as Le Choara where it was rumored that her sister, Sanae, was last seen. Hopeful, Mai seeks to find her kin, but she soon finds terrifying inhabitants which lurk throughout the town after dark. At night, Le Choara’s streets are filled with Shadow Matter—a horrific group of menacing creatures. Around every cobblestone corner, Mai discovers that her hope of finding her sister lies beneath the long-buried secrets which haunt Le Choara.

Key Features

Overkill Brings Huge Rewards – The Overkill system is an added feature where characters can stack damage beyond the health of an enemy for bonus experience! Try to inflict as much damage to all the monsters for bigger rewards.

Beware of the Berserker – During dungeon exploration and battle, a faceless, black figure will appear out of nowhere. The figure will also display an area of attack once it appears. Mai and her squad must step away from the Berserker’s area of attack, as it will instantly kill anyone with one single blow. Run away from the Berserker in the dungeon or defeat all the existing monsters in the battlefield to escape!​

Day n’ Night – Mai will need to explore the town of Le Choara during the day and speak with the townspeople to find out clues as to where her sister is. By night, Mai will fight her way through dark creatures stylized in a turn-based RPG. Experience the story through the lens of a visual novel during the day and battle it out against horrific creatures by night!​​

Don’t Call it a Knockback – The Knockback system is back in Death end re;Quest 2, but this time, Mai and her squad can smack Shadow Matter even harder! Combo your attacks by flinging monsters to other party members!​

Watch the opening movie below.

[tiefling-queer]

Inside Out of Character Part 1

I honestly didn’t expect so much encouragement for this, but I’m so happy that people seem interested in hearing me talk about my RPG characters that I love so much! I hope to kind of cover my thought process behind characters in this series, and touch on cornerstone moments that I feel defined or changed their personalities.

For part one, I’ll be starting with my minotaur fighter, Tam es Eleutherios

For some background on what I was thinking when I made this character: The DM described their undersea exploration campaign as a��‘meat grinder’ and ‘an excuse to throw the monster manual at [us]’. I knew out of game that whatever characters I made for this campaign would be up against deadly and double-deadly encounters regularly, and might not make it. And in game, any character who knew what this mission was knew that the last one 100 years ago never came back. So, with that in mind, I made a collection of characters with various motivations for being on a death ship - desperation, curiosity, faith, ignorance. The first character I picked out of a lot of like 4 or 5 was Tam. 

Tam is a minotaur fighter, a former pirate, and a character who’d be less sad (both less depressed himself and less depressing to think about for me) if he died sooner, like he was supposed to.

The idea behind his character is a retiree looking for a last hurrah. He’s 100 years of bad habits and unhealthy behaviors, all culminating into ‘well I’m getting old, might as well die in glorious combat to avoid a fate like watching myself get weaker in some home for the elderly.’ He was never meant to change as a person, in a ‘you can’t teach an old dog new tricks’ way. His goal in joining the expedition was completely 100% to die on the most dangerous and least understood sea in the world (this took some getting used to for me, so there would be some situations I’d pull back from and others I’d throw myself at and I’m honestly shocked and amazed he hasn’t died yet.)

Tam’s clan name translates to ‘free man’, and he spent his youth obsessing over how to properly honor a family name. In the end, he decided that a family name is useless to proliferate if you can’t say you represent it, so he put freedom as his pillar virtue and began shaping his life around achieving ‘perfect freedom’, whatever that means. When he found his love of sailing, he decided to take that to be the freedom he was trying to achieve and live up to. When a captain of his started talking about getting a crew together and driving out a large trading company threatening to put the smaller merchant sailors out of business, he hopped on board with the plan immediately. When he realized that he was close to living a quiet, contented, boring life with his fiance, he got himself shanghaied onto one of the most feared pirate vessels of the time. Tam hopped from boat to boat for decades, and when an invitation was extended to go on what was surely a suicide mission, he accepted it without a moment’s hesitation. 

In his effort to understand freedom and make it tangible, he decided that the fewer things you have to tie you down, the fewer and more transient your bonds are, the happier and freer you are. If you have no ties, there’s nothing to hold you back, to tug, to hurt when you try to move forward. Tam’s the last of his family name, and he was no where near home to hear about his sister and her children’s deaths when they happened. He doesn’t even know if the man he loved still lives in the town they’d made a life in. He’s never kept in touch with a crew after he steps off a ship for the last time. Tam’s entire philosophy is about avoiding personal attachments in order to maintain freedom, to the point where he’s afraid getting too attached to anyone will tie him down and trap him.

So, one of the defining features of Tam’s backstory, pillars of his character, and a main flaw that I wanted to focus on while I was writing and playing him, is an aversion to commitment and an unhealthy and impossible idea of what ‘freedom’ is.

One of the first sessions we had wasn’t really an assigned mission, it was just the party (at the time, a group of randomly-assigned cabin mates) deciding to do a good deed with their last night in civilization. We were searching for a lost girl, and the clues led us (too slow, too slow) to a sea hag in the process of finishing metamorphosing said lost child into her true form as a hag. I failed a wisdom save in like the first round of combat and instantly dropped to 0 hit points. Eventually, we were just too little too late throughout the fight, and the girl was transformed into a sea hag. The entire time, Tam kept talking to the new hag as though it still had the consciousness of the young girl. From the outside looking in, this is a very funny visual, getting barfed on by a sea hag and saying ‘ah, yes. Typical teen-ager stuff I went through a similar phase’, and swearing to the party that ‘we take this to our graves’ when the young hag was finally killed, but it’s actually a great example of the way Tam handles problems - he doesn’t. He pretends everything is fine, until he can’t, and then it’s white lies and running away. The party told the lost hag child’s parents that their daughter was dead and the party was unable to save her, but we never did tell them any details, and we certainly never told them we were seconds from bringing her back alive and well to them. Leave town that night, drink a little more than usual, don’t think about it again.

The fight with an aberration known as the Shimmering One (homebrewed) comes in as a one-two punch. The monster’s illusion makes it appear as someone in a person’s past that they’ve cared about. So, when Tam looks out and sees the man he ran away from, he runs again - by jumping off the boat. He has a short dilemma in the water about running away again while his friends are getting attacked on board the ship. To spare the details of that fight, Tam eventually does swim his way back to the ship and rejoin the fight with what the rest of the party now knows is a creepy holographic monster. I can’t remember which of the two fighters got the killing blow on it, but upon death it dealt a massive wave of psychic blowback - not only enough to drop Tam and our other fighter, but enough to outright kill our rogue. That was our first character death of the campaign.

Our next character death happened during our battle with a beholder. For some background: in game and out of game, the impending beholder fight was something we fretted over extensively - for literal months out of game. The hiatus between fight teased and the battle itself was about May or June to November or December of last year. Our expedition found civilization, had some fun around the city of Spider Path, explored some cool caves, and uncovered a conspiracy that this beholder had to take back the city. After some social not-so-niceties and working with the local government, the plan our party (in and out of game) came up with was to try to prevent a siege by challenging the beholder to combat in the Colosseum.

I’ll give you one guess who initiated that challenge.

In Tam’s mind, this fight was going to be brutal. It’s going to be deadly. They might not win, but they have to try, because the lives of the nice ‘trolley’ man and his weird cave goat named Billy and the circus man the paladin has a crush on and the overworked tavern waitress and the Colosseum sports fans and everyone else in this city are riding on it. This is fighting a tyrant for the people’s right to (relative, fantasy racist and classist under a different, less hardcore and more neutral authority) freedom.

This is how Tam wants to die.

Out of character, I’d prepped a backup for Tam’s death - a barbarian who I’ll talk about later, because while in the early stages I didn’t intend for it, he became a response to Tam. I was really, really excited to play him (still am), and I was sure that - based solely on the fact that I’m the only non-magic user in the party and would have to be up close and personal with this monster, likely out of a range that would allow for healing - Tam was going to die in this fight. Completely and wholeheartedly sure. Discussed at length with the DM, who was like ‘nah it’s not that hard of a fight you’ve got 6 party members and it’s just a beholder, 2 stone giants, and an otyugh.’ (we were 5 level 6s and 1 level 5). So I’m more than prepared for Tam’s death, especially when he’s knocked down to 12hp in two rounds and has yet to actually hit the beholder (because I have yet to roll above a 12). Eventually, the damn thing moves out of my range, and I have no better luck hitting the stone giant either, and it’s not long before I’m downed, our party is scattered to the wind, and it doesn’t look like anyone’s going to be getting to me any time soon. They take out a small squad of goblins, destroy the otyugh, kill the giants, whittle down the beholder, the druid gets turned into a rat, everyone is having a very bad time.

And while Tam is unconscious, the paladin gets turned to stone, the druid is hit by a disintegration beam, the ranger peaces out after watching the druid get dusted in front of him, and the bard is 2 and 2 on death saves before anyone can get a healing potion to her.

With the bard brought back up I’m finally healed, but our party is down to 2 fighters and a bard. While I fail to hit the damn beholder with my hand axes, the bard lands a choice dissonant whispers, and our eldritch knight eventually finishes it with his bonded hand axes. With the fight over, we assess our losses.

Now, this isn’t the first time Tam’s been too little too late to save someone in need during the course of the campaign, nor is it the first time he’s been downed in battle and wasted precious time being unconscious, or just not present for the fight. This is definitely not the first fight my dice have screwed me over and I’ve just been unable to hit an enemy. This isn’t the first combat that Tam has initiated. Also, remember that Tam not only has an unhealthy obsession with freedom and living up to a name, especially now that he’s the only one left to do so, but he also wants to die. 

Which brings us to where Tam is mentally after this fight - Tam firmly believes he is the only one in the party with nothing to live for. The bard has a girlfriend back on the ship. The eldritch knight is a well-adjusted person on a mission. The paladin is just a kid with an entire life ahead of him. The ranger has to get back from this expedition to save his brother. The druid had his parents and responsibilities waiting back at home. Tam is an old man with a handful of stories, an alcohol problem, and a mounting pile of regrets and guilt that he can’t run from anymore. He should have been the one to die, and somehow - despite doing pitifully in the fight, and barely contributing to taking down the beholder compared to the druid, the ranger, the bard, and the eldritch knight - he’s still alive, and he wasn’t even conscious to see our druid die.

And when you add all of this up, you get a very sad shaggy Scottish cow man with a downright heartsick death wish.

There’s been a lot of discussion about what’s going to happen to Tam now. I can technically retire his character - either by having him shanghai himself again, or having him commit suicide outside of combat. But I don’t think Tam would shanghai himself again - especially after seeing the illusion of his former lover. Suicide outside of a fight also feels unlikely - Tam wants to go down swinging, it’s all he’s ever wanted. But picking a fight he can’t win? Doing something reckless and stupid? Drinking himself to death accidentally? These are all very Tam things.

Tam’s spent his life letting opportunities pass by, afraid of being held back and trapped and weakened by commitment and staying in one place. Tam joined this expedition because he wanted to die in a poetic way, sailing an untamed sea. Now it’s almost like that opportunity has passed as well, and he’s no longer being picky.

I don’t think I ever intended for him to be a tragic character, so much as a flawed one. I expected him to do something reckless and die in a fight far sooner, and had envisioned it more like ‘crazy old bastard in the post-apocalyptic movie jumps into danger because he’s old and it beats sitting around and waiting to rot.’ What I got was someone who feels they watched their life go by, never able to find happiness, and maybe too late is figuring out it’s because their idea of happiness has been wrong all along.

And on the other hand, there’s Tallak Fannar, human barbarian, and I don’t know if I started doing it consciously, but I ended up building the anti-Tam.

Tallak is on the ship because the payment - both upfront and upon return - is simply an opportunity that he can’t afford to pass up. That kind of money could keep his family afloat, get his little sister the opportunity to study magic if she wants, help the village recover from a terrible winter, keep food on the table for his 7 younger siblings on days when the hunting isn’t so great. Tallak loves his family, loves his village, loves almost everyone he meets. His philosophy is that a hunting party is always stronger when everyone is close, when there is good communication and relationships at the foundation, and he believes that it’s his responsibility to extend that strong sense of family and connection to whoever he’s working with. Tallak is a 19 year old who’s been very sheltered in his little village for his entire life, and only in the past year or so began venturing out to take odd jobs. Tallak sees commitments and bonds as strength. Tallak has his life ahead of him, and a lot to learn about the world, and he came on this boat to live.

Tam, and by extension Tallak, is a great example of taking a character that I didn’t think would be very engaging for me and was meant to be a silly concept - ‘oh I want to play an old cow pirate who talks like Barbossa, how fun!’ and becoming a life lesson and personal callout for me and my own duality. I’m terrified of commitment, of being stuck and tied down in one place, of establishing relationships that will eventually end and hurt when they do. At the same time, I’ve only lived this long with the help of my (found) family, of my friends and the people and relationships in my life that have kept a roof over my head and food in my belly and a reason to wake up when I had none. Tam and Tallak represent both a ‘stuck’ way of thinking and a conclusion I could easily come to, and the possibilities that still remain open to me as long as I keep reaching out to others.

[austincitylimitlessworld]

Writing Sample, Fiction

Just a little something i was batting around for an RPG-based story.

Ati~

             I hurried to the boat, my vision compromised by the sheets of winter rain.  My sandals stuck in the thick seasonal Lydian mud; nearly twisting my ankles.  I was forced to stop and unfasten them. The rain pounded on its now stationary prey, soaking sharply into my brunette coiffeur, unhinging its very tight curls and freeing select strands to nearly feet length. My vision blurred even more, I desperately at once tried to fold them back with one hand while toiling to free my sandals from the hungry muck.

           It was at that moment that Tinia’s voice spoke in the succession of claps and lightning flashes followed by the sound of approaching Ionians’ steady marching.  Gripped by sudden terror, I jumped to my feet and began sprinting along the River, trying to ease my panicking heartbeats by repeating the refrain:

           “Rassena Cel, Rassena Cel, Rassena Cel.”

           Tinia—not about to be appeased by this last minute attempt at devotion, continued to send his blight upon his faithless children who—after eighty-four moons had not seen fit to send these children rain—saw fit to unleash his ire at our lack of discipline and trust.  Through my tears, I seethed at what seemed like his capriciousness. At the same time, I remained in awe of him and his infinite powers. These mixed emotions pounded like a drum in my Pindaric mind and kept time with my feet as I continued to run.  Sighting the boat up ahead, ana motioning feverishly to her as it was about to embark in order to thwart the pursuing Ionians, I doubled my gait, fighting the ravenous mud frantically every step of the way; the Ionian footsteps keeping pace with me.  Screaming and praying to Tinia to spare me, I managed to make my way to the plank, which bit my bared feet with splinters.  Nearly overcome with pain, only the outstretched hand of ana kept me from falling down in defeat and despair.  Desperately I grabbed for it, fearing that our rain-soaked skins would fail to keep them grasped.  And they very nearly did, until ana yelled with a combination of worry and anger at my lagging behind to gather what he deemed unnecessary trinkets,

“Thana I swear upon the Gods that if you don’t hold on I will myself ensure that the life drains from your body at my hand!  For I rather that than the Ionians to defile you and put you to death!”

           Remembering my honor and my place in society as the daughter of a king, I fought to hold tight as he strained to pull me up onto the bow.

I climbed aboard the ship and watched in sorrow as the waves of Nethuns lurched the boat, tossing it like a twig here and there.  The sea mist mixed with the salt of my tears as I stared helplessly, watching the Ionians ravage the beautiful beach where I had spent many happy hours in my childhood with you.

Knowing that this was the last glimpse I would ever catch of my home, I felt her childhood drain away. Terrified and exhausted, I bade you good-bye and crumpled into a ball on the deck.

 Ati~

When I awoke, the sea was calm.  Ana was at the helm of the ship, and his manservant had prepared the morning meal for me.

             The women gathered at sunrise, bare breasts glowing as if encased by halos in the rays of the sun.  Their arms outstretched, they sang praises to their goddess Europa.  I tried to keep up with the alien ritual, fighting a slight discomfort at my exposed flesh and struggling with the far-away grief of the previous days and nights.  As I attempted to follow the words and movements, my thoughts were with the River, Her embankment, the tomb of you…the thundering of Ionian marching, the desperate fleeing to the ship, the mud reaching up to steal the sandals off my feet in the torrential rain…the escape toward Troy where we encountered more enmity from the Trojans…and finally the sweet oasis of Crete.

Tara Marseglia is a native Minnesota transfer of Austin Texas.  She holds a B.A. in English Literature with a history minor. In the past she has served on the Board of Directors of Lake Superior Writers as well as run the Poetry sub-group. In addition to writing, she has experience in theatre, art film, stage production, and virtual artistry. Currently she is working on a series of fantasy novels which she describes as a cross between Ovid’s “Metamorphoses” and Piers Anthony’s “Incantations of Immortality”. Areas of interest include English and American Literature; English, Italian, and American History; film; 1980s revival; pagan and polytheistic cultures; polyamory and bisexuality.

[esistscience]

All About Netherwing Gold

World of Warcraft , abbreviated simply wow gold game is the most successful game of company Blizzard Entertainment, along with a series of strategy games named Warcraft, whose successor is, in a universe MMORPG (massively multiplayer online games) and RPG (role playing games) game series Diablo. 

The action game takes place in a phantasmagoric world, called Azeroth , following the storyline of Warcraft strategy game series.World of Warcraft offers a unique experience, creating a dependency unseen before in the all history of games. Like all MMORPG games, in World of Warcraft,the player get inside a hero character who continuously growth his skills after solving quests,killing the incredible creatures that haunt the game, earn wow gold, and many,many other things.

The character can be choosed from nine base classes like : Druid - Celtic priest in the Middle Ages, can metamorphose himself in bear,wolf,etc,and can control elements of nature is the harder class to play; Hunter,based on long range weapons require a lot of dexterity and coordination,Mage based on magical skills and artefacts,Paladin are powerfull fighters but also have a package of positive spells very usefull on party; Warrior based in special on strength and stamina are masters of weapons and close fighting; Shaman, master of thunders and lightings can use totems with the elements of nature and finally Rogues : the clever class with a lots of abilities like stealth or lockpick.There are also a lot of professions like earning wow gold, mining, alchemy,jewelcrafting,fishing,first aid,coocking,engineering,blacksmithing,leatherworking,skining,etc. Also you can combine this profession for a purpose : making money (wow gold).

Some basic methods : make your own objects or use mining and sell ore for wow gold. The complete interaction between players, changing objects, or trading for wow gold, party with friends, guilds or other cooperation forms, keep the player connected all the free time in front of monitor for new and new epic adventures.And the saga continue, after The Burning Crusade and  Wrath of the Lich King : World of Warcraft : Cataclysm. Long live and wow gold, fighters !

[vollmondsekunde]

lets do some character redesign!

okay, you go and pick out characters. they can be your own old characters, or they can be someone elses (this would be fanart). 

Then add a challenge:

redesign 1 character per day!

redesign 100 characters in 2018! (i will do this one)

redesign 20 characters for a childrens book

redesign 30 characters for a rpg game

redesign 10 characters and paint 1 illustration for each

match 10 characters up (in romance/enemy combos) and do complementary designs

match 5 characters up and design them as a team (of superheros/evil scientiest/sports team/family/alien species/pirate crew/music band)

redesign 10 characters for a dating sim game and give them likes/dislikes for gifts and dialog options

redesign 20 characters for a horror movie

redesign 20 characters in your favorite anime style

redesign 10 characters as gods/mythological figures and make up a myth about them

redesign 5 characters as ugly to normal looking and 5 characters as normal looking to beautiful (in the end you should have a ugy to beautiful scale)

redesign 10 characters as Jedi or Sith

redesign 10 characters as pokemon trainer and give them their pokemon starter/complete team

redesign 15 characters as from the same historical community (ancient agypt, aztek, modern korea, viktorian england etc)

redesign 10 characters from male to something else + the same for female

redesign 10 characters as super sexy (bonus point if you dont just use 20 year old girls)

redesign 5 characters and give them a design for each of these ages: kid (under 10) Yound (under 25) Adult (under 40) older Adult (under 60) Oldie (60+)

redesign 5 characters for a comic/manga story pitch and give them full character sheets with expressions, fullbody views etc)

redesign 5 characters from very small to normal and 5 characters from normal to very tall (you will end up with a scale from tiny to tall, and every character you ever designed should fall in between)

match up 10 characters to animals and redesign them with those in mind (either as symbolic or practical metamorphose)

choose 5 characters. redesign them and then design fusion forms for them

redesign 5 characters, then design a past and a future reincarnation of them

redesign 10 characters with a disability. 

redesign 10 characters as witches/wizards. give each a unique spellbook

redesign 5 characters and draw 10 things they own for each

that is what i came up with right now, but there are more possibilities. add your own so we all can share the fun!

(also i will release a pdf with 100 of my old character designs so you can do those if you dont have own characters or dont feel good about fanart. the pdf will come on dezember 31 so you can start 2018 as a redesign challenge year! wouldnt that be cool?)