#one direct goal infinite curved paths

[rw-repurposed]

A n c i e n t s

So, in the first image are the five main ancients of Chasing Wind.

From left to right:

Nine Howling Vessels, Silent Night. Head of the Maintenance Council.

Darkness Befallen, Ashes Remains. Constructor of Chasing Wind, Head of the Society Council.

Four Rising Suns, One Setting Moon. Leader of the Ancient Colony, the Grand Councilor.

Stains of Shadow Over A Realm's Sorrow. Chasing Wind's Administrator.

One Direct Goal, Infinite Curved Paths. Head of the Research Council.

They will be the ancients who have the most effect on Chasing Wind and the lore as a whole.

[theres-someone-to-write-about-it]

Banshee friend helps Bella through dark days

Edward leaving crushed her, mind body and soul. When Sam pulled her out of the woods muttering and crying that he was gone. I almost went to kill him myself. I didn’t care where he was, he was an absolute asshole for doing this to her.

I couldn’t sleep those first few weeks because I couldn’t feel that she was alive.

The first three months were agony to watch her suffer. If I could have carried her through it, telling her it was going to be okay, I would have. Her night terrors and screams hurt my throat even though I know she couldn’t feel the pain.

Living next door to her was a constant battle between wanting to sneak into her room and knowing what I’d find wasn’t her. Wasn’t Bella. She was a shell, a hallowed frame with nothing inside.

I came over and brought food to Charlie under the pretense of a good neighbor. He would barley talk and I knew better than to ask.

When a flickering ember of her life finally came back, I wanted to run to her. To hug and hold her, so happy to know she was starting to be alright. But there was still so much more she needed to heal.

I stayed with her as often as I could. Even when she didn’t acknowledge I was there. I’d sit at the lunch table with her, no need for conversation. I saw she was only responding to direct questions. Not healed enough yet to be human.

Her waking up was a blessing and a curse. There was more pain, the dryness of her faint embers igniting was a hopeful sign but hard to breathe through.

I followed her and Angela to the movies. I should have just gone to her, tagged along to the trip like a normal person. But silent curiosity got the better of me. I imagined it was easier for her to believe I was just one of her normal human friends. Rather than someone who could clearly see how exactly she was hurting and what she was feeling.

Her hallucinations weren’t necessarily all in her head. They were more like psychic echos, pieces of the real Edward peaking through her shield while also being encased in them. I could see them to an extent and feel what they did to her. I never dreamed she’d use them as a lifeline and devote herself to extreme sports to witness them.

Stubborn and hurt as she was, I knew she would’ve found any reason to see her visions again. I suggested some fun times. My motorcycle wasn’t necessarily top notch in the speed department but a ride on the back got her high enough the first few times.

I taught her how to ride it next and that lasted a while before the feeling wore off again. Eventually, we were able to just sit and talk like normal people. I remember the first time I heard her laugh again so clearly, I’ll never forget it.

We were sitting on my living room floor messing with a map and haphazardly talking about the best roads to ride on the bike with. Her eyes were still only a light purple underneath as opposed to the bruise colored they were just weeks ago. I was doing most of the talking, like normal.

“This road is really good if you want to go fast, like 100 miles an hour fast. There are no cliffside or blind curves and surprisingly no cops,” I pointed to another winding highway, “This one will definitely get your thrills in, but you can’t go over 70 without the goal of jumping a cliff. Screaming weeeeee all the way down.”

I don’t know exactly what made her laugh, but my heart stopped when I heard it. It wasn’t her full laugh, but it was more than I’d heard in months. By the look on her face, it was more than she’d heard from herself too. If I didn’t have such good emotional control, bordering on ridiculous control, I would’ve cried right there in front of her.

A short pause was all I afforded myself, acting like it wasn’t such a huge thing. I made a comment about how I liked her laugh offhand. Then we, mostly me, went back to talking.

Talking about Edward or the Cullens made her feel like falling apart all over again. But I found subtle ways to try and heal her mind and heart.

When Laurent came down for the visit that almost killed her, I had to catch myself from running to help. Even from miles away, I could feel her fear and despair of being in that clearing.

There wouldn’t have been anything I could have done to save her. I’m still essentially a human with some fae gifts. No super strength or ability to take down a vampire. But damn I would have tried had the wolves not showed up.

It was some short time after that I let it slip about my not-so-human origins. Jacob Black wanted back in her life after he’d changed and it was important she knew exactly what type of world she lived in, surrounded by mythical creatures and at least one of them who loved her. Obviously I couldn’t tell her that part. I never even brought it up.

We were pacing the forest since it was hard for her to be still nowadays. As much as I tried to veer away from the path she walked that day with Edward, it was like her body had a mind of its own. I rambled on about the trees before coming upon this one particular one who was dying. I’d been searching for a segway the entire day.

I pressed my hand into the trunk that still looked alive, “This tree will be dead by next year.”

Not one to perk up at some of the weird things that come out of my mouth, Bella just nods and mutters an agreement. I thought for a moment that I’ll literally have to spell it out for her when I see a giant wolf track right next to me. Wonderful. “Wow, that’s a big paw print. What kind of wolves are they breeding up here?”

At that, her head snapped up finally. She came over to where I was and saw it instantly in the wet earth, “it’s probably a bear or something. Grizzlies can get pretty big.”  

“Or you have a particular loyal pack protecting you.” We were right beyond her yard after all. She attempted to stammer away and excuse before I cut in again, not being able to take it anymore. “I know werewolves are a thing and so are vampires.”

I hadn’t realized I turned away from her when I said it until I was facing the dying tree again. I was afraid of her reaction if she’d think I’d betrayed her after all this time. “What are you talking about?” I sighed, hanging my head with closed eyes.

“Those aren’t the only types of legends that exist in the real world. There are other creatures and types of people. It just so happens Forks is a good a place as any for them... us... to settle down.”

“Us?” I couldn’t even look. Her emotions were going haywire trying to figure it out, process the words I was saying in a way that made sense. Probably wondering if I was a vamp sent to kill her, that particular fear cut deep.

“I’m not dangerous or hurt people. I don’t turn into an animal or anything. I’m a banshee and we see and feel death. I can see and feel the emotions of people around me and feel when someone is going to die.”

The silence was gut wrenching but I knew she had to process and it would take time. “How?” I think she asked it on a whim, the first thing that popped in her head.

“My ancestors were fae. Like fairies only a lot weirder. Eventually they came to be with humans and through a few centuries of evolution, here I am. Seeing death everywhere I go.”

“Huh.” I couldn’t tell if that was an intrigued or scared response so I peeked over to see her last in thought. Better than running for the hills I guess. “I can’t have normal human friends to save my life.”

After a moment shocked me back, we both laughed and I can tell you, I’ve never felt more free. I couldn’t tell her everything like the spirits in town or the lost souls or some of the more unsavory things. But whenever a newly dead soul came to be moved on, I told her the process as I did it. Opening the veil and leading them to the other side.

She was interested what lied beyond the veil and I told her what I’ve seen of other people’s afterlives how there are infinite possibilities depending on what you believe. I could’ve sworn she was about to say that she didn’t believe in anything after death but bit her tongue. Eventually it became easier to tell what she was thinking based on her emotions, or when I was feeling lazy, almost everything was written in her face.

After Jake wormed his way into letting her in on the secret, he became more of a permanent fixture in her life. Not that he was a bad person, he was far more loyal and slightly more understanding than the boy who said he loved her previously. But still young and volatile and unpredictable.

Meeting Jake for the first time was not what I expected or intended for that matter. Bella got the ridiculous idea of cliff diving and had the stubbornness to go alone, picking the absolute worst timing.

I was in the reservation before I knew what was happening to me, drawn there by imminent death. My soul worked on autopilot, moving my body and I guess making sure I got there in one piece even though I still can’t remember a single road sign or turn in this place I’d never been.

I arrived just after they said the prognosis wasn’t good. Regardless of how much I knew it wasn’t the cause, I felt guilty for being there. Like Harry’s death would be my fault because I could feel it before it happened. I kept my camouflage well, that way no one disturbed me or even noticed I was there when I snuck into his room.

The light was already fading from his body as his soul was ready to leave. I must have been there only in spirit because even the medical staff didn’t shoo me out of the room when he coded the first time. They paid me no mind as I held his hand. I told him everything was going to be alright, that he was safe now.

He was stubborn and wouldn’t go until he had everyone around him. His whole family, most of his friends, and others gathered around to wish him goodbye. The second time I took his hand, his soul went with me. I told him he was going somewhere wonderful and led him towards the light. It took me a while after he was gone to remember where my body was. Outside in the parking lot.

It took me what felt like hours to control the sobs grasping from my throat and even longer to realize what I felt was drowning. Bella drowning after cliff diving right before a storm. I’ll owe Sam and Jake eons for saving her even though I knew they didn’t do it for me.

As I drove to her house, I felt for her energy to know she was alright. Knowing she was with Jake made me feel marginally better. At least his werewolves strength could protect her if needed. She already felt sick with worry and guilt so no need for me to give her anymore.

We pulled up at the house at the same time. The same moment we recognized the car. I knew the presence of a Cullen and immediately went to her side of the car, holding the door before Jake could think to drive away without dragging me along the gravel

He was tense and angry and, above all, concerned. “It’s Alice.” Was all I had to say before Bella was practically running to the door, leaving Jake and I to meet officially. We’d heard enough about each other. Me from Bella and him from what seemed a mixture of places.

“You were at the hospital with Harry.” I nodded. “You didn’t kill him did you?” I shook my head, the vibrating in his shoulder decreased ever so slightly, the tension in his knuckles never ebbing. He kept watching the door, weighing his options. If it was worth breaking the treaty. For her. I would’ve.

I put my hand on his arm, almost pulling back from the heat. I knew to expect it but somehow it still surprised me. “I can go inside and make sure she’s alright and find out what Alice wants or stay out here and tell you what she feels.”

He blinked a couple times, not exactly sure what I meant. “I’m a Banshee. Which is how I know you need to be assured she’s alright, ideally in a way that doesn’t involve you hulking out. So I can either stay here with you and tell you that she’s feeling incredibly relieved and happy to see Alice or go inside and get the full story then report back out here. Your choice.”

“I think I’ll go look for myself thanks.” Typical dude bro. I rolled my eyes and easily kept pace with him even when clearly he tried to beat me to the door.

Alices energy was always different than the others and I never could tell if she had a blind spot for me too with her visions or if I just seemed another insignificant human to her.

When I walked through the door, with Jake shortly behind, Alices eyes went cold and threatening. Bella got in between us and assured Alice we were safe. Introductions were made and things were civil for Alice and I. Alice and Jake were like hot oil and water, sputtering and tense.

Bella explained the wolves and my being a banshee really quickly, trying to get it over with so she could hear about why Alice was actually there. Upon hearing what I was, Alice looked at me a bit harder, trying to get a read on me and my future. She clicked her tongue in some sort of verdict and explained about seeing Bella jump and the stupidity.

Things happened pretty quickly after that. Alice got the call from Rosalie and how Edward knew something happened to Bella. I tried to stop Jake from answering the phone but the moron did it anyway. The tension in his posture and tone told me all I needed to know as I ripped the phone from his hand. He barley had time to say ‘funeral’ before I said his name.

“She’s okay. She’s alive. Bella is safe. Reasonably.” I couldn’t hear breathing or feel anything but I willed him to hear me. “Harry died. Bella is okay.” The line went dead.

I could fear Bella breaking all over again and I didn’t hold myself back from holding her as she almost fell to the ground.

At least he knew she wasn’t dead. Gods know what he would do if he thought so. I prayed with everything in and around me that he could know I was telling the truth.

I left her with Alice for the night, pulling Jake behind me practically by the scruff. They needed time alone. She explained Victoria and the wolves protecting her. I didn’t pay attention to if she bothered explaining me. I was afraid of what she’d say.

One thing we all did learn from Alice was that they were planning on coming back. All of them. I wish I’d burned their house down.

Edwards return felt more dramatic than it was. And all the drama was second hand to me. All I focused on was how to help Bella. How to help her see this wasn’t healthy. She was stubborn and independent and amazing. She deserved so much more.

I arrived at their house around ten minutes before he arrived. The Cullens were surprised, especially Alice. It was a first for her. I guess she couldn’t see me after all. Good to know.

I waited outside until I was invited in, civilized and cordial. They all gathered in the living room, in the middle of dusting off the home they’d emptied out of. “I want to talk about you all returning to Bella’s life.”

Carlisle nodded, speaking up for his family. “It is only Bella’s decision whether she accepts us back.”

“I’m aware. Personally, I have no problem with any of you. I’m not sure what you’ve ever heard about Banshees but I’m not here as a representative of my kind. I’m here as someone who... loves Bella very much. All I ask is an audience with Edward before he sees her. To give him some information and ask questions about his return.”

They let me sit on the couch for what felt like years before he walked in the door. He was ragged and haggard. I tried not to have some sick satisfaction with that. But it was a fraction of what Bella suffered.

“She’ll kill me when she finds out I’m here.” Edward nodded, confused and concerned that he can’t read my mind. “I’m a Banshee. We have some shielding ability to keep our thoughts private. Can we talk?”

He only nodded again. “Good. Do you think you could handle some pain right now? A glimpse into the last six months. What happened after you left?”

His voice was so strained and ragged, “I deserve it.”

“I don’t necessarily disagree but right now I don’t think it’s the best time...” I played everything over in my head of what I think would happen. His only relief would be Bella and her him. It was inevitable they’d be back together and she’ll want to forget any of this ever happened while he went on always feeling guilty.

“You left her to keep her safe. Believing a life without you would be best. You were wrong.”

[benjaminkido]

Wrote this about a a year or so ago, should I finish it?

He sees all within his path

Past, present, future

Not many have been able to undermine his ability

Realities play in his head like songs, each predictable. Verse, chorus, bridge, end.

He was waiting for the right tune.

There was a song he saw that he could not ignore

The tune could not shake him

He knew that this had to play out, no skipping, no saving for later.

He had to cross paths with the Seeker of Limitless Passion

The seeker would not give up on his quest. His love almost infinite, only relenting to the fact that it could not be returned fully. The seeker was granted many abilities to achieve his goal. The voice of a siren, the eyes of a hawk, the legs of a gazelle, all arranged and aligned to allow him to travel great distances, impress those who may have been worthy, and to find any flaw that would be unacceptable. The seeker knew not of the future like the Ruler did, but knew that his goal would be achieved through faith.

The seeker left the land he called home for his quest was not over. It was a xcx dparadise. Water and fruit was abundant. Riches were at his disposal for the man the seeker last embraced was a King. He reigned over swaths of land filled with gold, silver, and people of many talents. The king was grateful for his bounty and ruled fairly. Thus the flaw came for when his love for his people wained against his love for

the seeker, it caused the king to view his lands and people as possessions and not responsibilities. The seeker knew that the king's love was not limitless for he could forsake his own people for him. In the dead of night, under the three moons that race across the sky like shooting stars, he fled. He was not fearful of the King's wrath for he knew that he would place his heart back unto his people and that vengeance was not a trait of his now former love. He traversed the barren desert that extended for miles and miles trying to escape the heartbreak and move onto his true mate. Then he is suddenly stopped in his tracks. A figure approaches and strikes him with a feeling he has yet to grasp. The seeker could not move, for he knew this figure was important. The ruler was coming into view, and the seeker was drawn into his aura. The ruler stopped feet away from the seeker, his hands clasped together and robes fluttering across the landscape like an apparition, making him seem all the more mystical, intriguing.

The ruler gestured calmy and spoke

"I know who you are and what you need. I come bringing just that" the Ruler said with a reassuring smile.

"Who are you? What brings you to me and makes you this confident that you are what you say you are" the seeker says inquisitively, still frozen

"I am a Ruler, unlike the one you are fleeing now"

The seeker is now even more mystified by this creature that has appeared in front of him. The red robes almost envelope all of his line of sight. He stands in front of him with a confidence that he cannot describe. He does not understand how he knows him, but his instinct tells him to listen more, he is no threat. His skin smooth like silk, almost blending in with the sands surrounding them both. His eyes were like topaz surrounded by onyx, nothing like he had ever seen. The seeker is not easily impressed, yet He wanted to know what this ruler has that the last one didnt.

"What land do you rule? If you are what you say, where are your armies? Surely you come to take the King's most prized possessions, including me." Says the seeker, trying to match the Ruler's confidence.

"I rule destiny, my kingdom is not physical, yet it takes form with every second that passes and comes. I sense your hesitation, and understand your hearts journey. I've come only for you and do not see you as a possession, but as a companion."

"Destiny?" The seeker scoffs.

"Riddles are futile, I see past flowery words and phrases. How do you know I flee my King and what I seek?"

"You are the Seeker of Limitless Passion. Your heart cannot fully love if you cannot find one who loves equally like you. You flee your King as his love was only enough for you and not his people. I'm here first to assure you that you have made the right decision, and second to give you the love you seek." Says the ruler, with a voice that nearly weakens the seeker. The ruler does have a way with words, he doesn't want to give away too much, but just enough to sway the seeker into his understanding.

"Are you a spy? A medium? How do you know this"

"I am the Ruler of Cosmic Vision." He gives in to the seeker

"I have already seen the effect you will have on me and I, you. I have seen all realities with you and know that you will be mine, and I yours. Can I be any clearer?" The ruler says with a smile that's returned by the Seeker.

"I'm not convinced" the seeker says, testing the ruler to see if he can predict his next move

"You plan to test my strengths, ok" the ruler says, and in an instant he is only a breath away from the seeker

The seeker turns to run the opposite direction as he never seen anyone move like this. He no longer feels safe and begins to run. He turns back after 10 strides and the Ruler never leaves where he stood. When he turns back around the Ruler grabs him by his waist, the momentum of his run throwing his lips onto his. At this moment the seeker sees everything. The Ruler of Cosmic Vision has existed since the beginning. There have been many forms of him, his current lasting the longest. The seeker sees a lifetime a second and is so overwhelmed everything goes black. The seeker awakes to a beautiful melody. He remembers everything in an instant and leaps from the bed he lays. His clothes had been changed. He turns and sees a harp taller than 3 men, playing on it's own as if an invisible giant had been playing. The room is bathed in indigo, canary, and rouge, like the new clothes he wears. The fabric felt like the clouds he touched in his first home on the peaks of the greatest ranges in the land. He too much didnt care for the colors, but he felt a strange peace where he was. Reality kicks in.

"I know not where I am or who this man is to keep me like this" the seeker ponders to himself

"There must me truth to him for no man could move like he does, but why me? He could have anyone. What makes my goal so important if he can see all realities and all lifetimes?"

"It is because my destiny cannot avoid yours" says the ruler.

This time he has a piece of fabric that completely encases him, showing every curve and angle of his frame. The same shades of indigo, rouge and canary are splayed across his body. All that is exposed is his face, his hair, and his hands and feet. He had locs that cascaded down to his knees and his eyes were more piercing than ever.

Again checking back into reality the seeker exclaims

"Is this how you show love? Stealing me away like a thief in the night? What is this trickery you do. How do instruments play without hands? What do..." the seeker is cut off by the ruler who again is in front of him without taking a step..

"You wanted to be stolen. You seek limitless passion and I have it for you here in my home. Your heart is destined to belong to me. It's like a song I cannot stop hearing. This melody, is my love for you. I made this to represent what you have, are and will be to me, for you have strummed me long before you could lay one finger on me. This reality, this life, is what you have already asked for and been given, and I cannot avoid this any longer, and neither should you"

The seeker cannot understand.

"I believe what you are now, but why now, if you love me like you say, why allow me to lie with the King? With the Hunter? With the Sorceress?"

"Would you know what you seek had u not been with them? I cannot interfere with what you are meant to experience, only guide you to what you are deserved" the ruler says, arms open showing the seeker the true expanse of his realm.

"Your treasures mean nothing to me for it is the heart that I cherish more than anything else"

"My heart is where you are my love"

The seeker is frozen. What does he mean? He thinks to himself

"The King took you for he knew you would flee him. He poisoned you and knew that the harder you ran, the faster you would perish" says the ruler, with a tear trickling down his face"

"You are not dead, yet you are not alive in the physical realm"

"BLASPHEMY!!!!" The seeker screams. This is becoming a nightmare for him and he does not want to continue with this anymore, and just like that he wakes up.

"My love" whispers the King as the seeker jumps out of the bed startled.

"Have I frightened you? My love dont be afraid, you had a bad dream, come lay with me. I will bring you back to the world you belong to"

The seeker is still startled, thinking to himself it felt so real....

The seeker was distant for most of the day. He sat on the throne with his King while the daily duties were taken care of. The smile that the seeker loved to share with his people was nowhere to be found, and the king was not pleased with this as his heart was attached to his. Whatever the seeker felt, so did he.

"What disturbs you my love? My heartaches when yours does, I cannot allow you to be this way... what can I do to make you feel at ease?"

"I feel that I have overstayed my welcome" the seeker says, completely taking the king from anguish to anger

"Your welcome? You have stayed too long with me? The love of your life?"

"You look too much into what I care, why do you not tend to your people out west? Beyond the river? They need you more than me. Why wait on me like a servant?"

The king is now enraged

"Surely you dont mean this? You question my authority and scold me for making you my companion? For making you king of my heart?"

"No, I know your love for me, but you have forgotten your people in exchange for it and I cannot allow it."

"Who has your heart? For I feel you have given it to someone else! I never hear u speak this until now!"

The king cannot take anymore from his love. The logic the seeker gives is unsatisfactory and he feels his heart breaking, slowly turning cold. His jealousy rarely shows its face but he can only come to this conclusion based on his past loves and does not know how else to react. He has the seeker taken back to their room and locked away until he understands that he is his and his alone.

The seeker never wanted to end it like this. He knows that some men cannot be confronted with their flaws for they only fight back in an uglier way. Now he, too is heartbroken.

"Was it all really a dream? I don't understand it, any of it, will I ever find what I seek? How long will I be in this room? How could I escape?"

The king suddenly opens the door, carrying a large flask of the seeker's favorite wine.

"I've come to beg forgiveness my love. I do not know where your heart is, but I know mine is in your ownership, and I cannot allow you to return it"

The seeker feels slight relief, then the dream comes back to him

"I accept your apology my love, but my soul has been through a great deal today. Just lay with me, all is forgiven"

The king hesitates "Are u sure my love? My token of gratitude will go to waste if we just lay with it full"

"Yes my King, I have no appetite for wine" The king relents and they lay together, yet the seeker never closes his eyes.....

Title: The Ruler Of Cosmic Vision

[snoozing-but-not-losing-blo-blog]

Geometrical simulacrum

Life is often described as a head-scratching ascending and descending differential graph; a marathon where you have to knuckle down, climb up some lofty slippy-slide hills, cascade down them and well, keep going. I do not resent this sentiment. I actually think it’s quite a delightful description and have actually written as so about it. I was just thinking though that maybe, just maybe, along those curves, on a higher dimension, that there’s also a maze you have to enigmatize through - a maze, be it a standard, circular or other known type. Considering life’s path like this may aptly frame the facet of choices, questioning and challenges most people’s experience every second, minute, hour, day and so on– you can go on and on with this standardized time thingy. A curve/vector is a tempting metaphor because magnitude and direction are conventionally employed aspects and we get to see the bigger picture; the trend, like the ones we see/learn about in class; but singular lines alone slay realistic acumen. A curve/vector like element superimposed with a labyrinthic maze may be more appropriate to the dimension we perceive and could be the host platform we lucidly seek to paint reality with all its shades of colour and adventure (Deverich, 2013).

We are unexpectedly brought when born, probably by those storks (not pelicans Mr and Mrs Pedantics) we see in cartoons carrying babies, into a point of time and space in this maze- a point/section where most of the time our parent(s)/guardian(s) are. We are then bound to follow them until we develop the ability to stand, egotize, fall, inquire and explore. Obviously, a certain percentage of individuals cling on longer to others than others, doing the first four but not independently inking out the definition of “exploration”. This classic scouting may initially be driven by pressures of parent(s)/guardian(s), norms of society and sometimes simply by the blind hoisting of time but it can be steered by needs and wants (Deverich, 2013). Of course, you’re certain to take wrong turns, hit dead ends, lose time, meander in all types of traps and twists to unexpected places; unless you’ve somehow studied the fates of time or have unprecedented luck. This maze doesn’t have clear signs, maps or guides. How could it, as the options seem infinite. We can however try to learn about how to navigate it by the various learning methods enforced or availed when living (Emberton, 2017) or at least understand when we’re progressing uphill or tumbling down the curves.

Now some people for whatever reason are satisfied going down the first independent pathway they encounter, simply because it seemed easier and logical at the time, with others going down the alternatives up ahead. The thought that it’s their own choice and/or hence the right one at the moment is enough to accept the outcome irrespective of what it is. The choice could be defended by intuition, impulses, hopes or a scratch of knowledge but the idea that it may lead down to a dead end has to be accepted. The dilemma comes if they reach such a point. To go back suggests failure: that our judgement was flawed, that time was wasted, that the other paths could also have worse twists and turns and round-and-round in circles you will have to go. And the painful thing is – that’s usually agonizingly true (Emberton, 2017). The maze just is agonizingly unfair. An unknown number of people settle despite this, not glancing back, be it for effort or pride, with the aspect of not even glancing over the surrounding walls/hedges. Others back up, turn and refuse to live in such a trap, going back into the labyrinth to try other routes. The latter choice might be tedious with turn backs, repetitive outcomes and mistakes but the possibility of finding a unicursal path and route to whatever life is about still remains elusive and learning the jest of this I think is key to individual development. As people, I know we’re really good at soaring for miles forward but we hate or are literally fearful of backtracking (Emberton, 2017). The choice concludes with your alludes: Is it going to be constancy or a puzzle to liberation? Sometimes we cling on to others or follow the bread crumbs of successful people who “made it”, but the conclusion might not be the same. It might never be. Some of those people worked or had been granted opportunistic openings in their times and space which will remain closed or shifted when others come. The walls or hedges were also short enough for others to jump over and take shortcuts but grew taller and can only be pole vaulted over now. It’s a predicament but I still think the greatest mistake is standing still especially if you haven’t fulfilled the true end goal. Do not unnecessarily be an immovable object when there are no strict unstoppable forces around you. You’re allowed to snooze this time, try making the best of such a rare gifted opportunity and restart.

So, what is this end goal? Certainly, we are oriented to seek comfort zones and materialistic resources. Become rich and/or famous. But what if these were just simply geographic locations in the maze— a great tourist site to live or visit? We are all looking for such places but these false trajectories or accolades alone will only satisfy impulses, desires and ego stroking. I think the most important end goal, irrespective of whether you reach such places is knowing that the movement in this journey is to find awareness, enlightenment, appreciation, wisdom and conjure your true self and calling - all true tools for the exploration notion. No location within the maze without this can be the end goal/purpose because time will taper you off, the walls/hedges might close down and the undisputed heavy weight champion Death will knock you out whenever it feels like, even if your physically, mentally and socially not ready for this. This nevertheless won’t be such a painful loss if you have discovered these named aspects and truly may have figured out part of the maze (Deverich, 2013).  

The maze indeed continues to thwart, push or pull but sometimes supports voyaged progress. Our progress is cut short or blocked by all the -isms, prejudice, self-esteems, knowledge barriers and discouragement. When we start out, very few of us know exactly what, when and where we want to end up. We spend time a lot of time hopelessly floating, fulfilling others’ expectations, exploring career and relationship paths that may be accidental, abrupt, futile, or disappointing cul-de-sacs. Sometimes we are pulled “off the track” to help others, get scarred, damaged or heartbroken but these detours and escapades may actually build you and direct you to divine paths. Even if we know what we want and how to get there, we are not always given the necessary resources and access. Exploring all the nooks, crooks, crannies and hidden alcoves to do so I think gives more reason for existing, breathing, moving, and living. Awareness gives rise to questions of self which is believed to distinguish yourself from other animate and inanimate things. Sometimes defining self is an outwardly active process, building a family, pursuing a career, attempting a physical feat or giving in to relationships. Other times it’s an inward process, listening and learning what is authentically you and what is projected onto you from others and society. Are you this, that or are you what other people called you? Generated enlightenment, appreciation and wisdom also help answer these, as well as the existential question of who we are and what does it matter? It’s all basically a daunting quest but let’s start to like the challenge. Discovering your calling can also give deeper and richer meaning to your experiences. It can also stop the wandering and provide bona fide guidance to your next move (Deverich, 2013).  

Life’s maze does have more inception-like complexities in it. Take our labyrinthic minds: They are mazes within this maze and others, that of course allow us to experience everything but only after our trapped thoughts, opinions and creativity pick outlets within unconsciousness and subconsciousness to be channelled to consciousness. Another example is our lost souls finding a story in their catacombs and fiddled riddle of love also add deeper reconnaissance.

I don’t know if there is a true entrance or exit to this maze but the purpose of this writing, like others have tried is to help with journeys. There could also be a “centre” to this maze; a sort of godhead core of knowledge, centre perspective, outcome to salvation, where one could as well experience life like no other like the way the man in black in the Westworld show thinks there is. I’m once again not sure. I guess you have to strap your boots and gloves tight and continue to fight to find out.  Life has a maze. You were meant to live, to see that the challenge is felt and meant to be (Tracey, 2015). You have to try, not settle easily, because of you don’t try, well, you may, have not lived life at all (Meet Joe Black, 1998).

-by Pavanraj Singh Chana  

    References

Deverich, A. (2013, Sep 26). Life’s Path Is a Maze, Not a Straight Line. Retrieved from

HuffPost: http://www.huffingtonpost.com/amanda-deverich/life-lessons_b_3994327.html

Emberton, O. (2017). Life is a maze, not a marathon. Retrieved from Oliver Emberton:

https://oliveremberton.com/2014/life-is-a-maze-not-a-marathon/ Meet Meet Joe Black (1998). [Motion Picture].

Tracey, A. (2015, Aug). The Maze. Retrieved from Family Friend Poems:

https://www.familyfriendpoems.com/poem/the-maze

[spookyspaghettisundae]

Those Who Dare Disturb My Rest

The sun set over the desert, turning windswept dunes crimson red—then painting them in a dark blue hue. When the divine light disappeared beyond the horizon, the sky darkened and made way to a firmament filled with stars. The blistering heat of day vanished quickly and cutting winds carried cold air across the shifting sands.

In their wake, they swept away the tracks of a lonesome wanderer, step by step. A trail of footsteps left behind by a single person, staggering through the desert, disappearing into the entrance of an old tomb with crumbling statues flanking its entrance. And the tracks had vanished completely come dead of night.

The person who had left them awoke. Her eyes fluttered open and her environment startled her. The nightmares had reflected both her fears and her past, and the shock of awakening returned her to the nightmares of the now. She sat up and leaned against her own knee, tracing over her chapped lips with a finger. Seeing the khopesh—her husband’s curved blade of battle—and shield on the cool stone floor by her side reminded her of the grim reality she lived in.

Of her quest.

Neith was her name, an irony now lurking within its meaning: water.

She rose to her feet and struggled to keep her balance. No stranger to hunger, she could cope with that. But the dehydration robbed her of her strength and coordination. Strapping the shield back onto her arm and picking up the sword, she left the deserted tomb’s antechamber and exited the ancient ruin.

Not more long, and she would reach the tomb of Thesh. She hoped. Prayed—for the mercy of the god of the sun. The cold still made her shiver. No matter how long she slept during daytime to escape the brutal light, fatigue had become her constant companion. She sensed her current condition all too acutely—on the edge of starvation and due to her deadly thirst, walking along the threshold between the world of the living and the underworld.

As she stumbled ahead, up and down the dunes, ever forward toward her goal, she struggled to hold on to whatever happy thoughts she retained of her family.

The only thing that kept her wandering. The solitude of the accursed desert weighed against it, like a feather in the balance against her heart. Heartbeats, breaths, minutes, hours—the time dragged on as steadily and slowly as her sandaled feet moving her onwards. There was not one single creature she saw out here.

Half-buried skeletons stuck out of the sands by rocks and crumbled ruins that she passed by, bleached and bright-white in the moonlight. Grave robbers and other strange folk had ventured here before to plunder the treasures of the tomb she sought, but this land was forbidden by the high priests—and forsaken by the gods.

No one returned alive.

She was not sure if she would make the journey back herself, but she was determined to die trying. Back home, her beloved had already succumbed to the wracking disease that now also caused her daughter to waste away in a most slow and painful process. If anything could save them, it was the Offering from Thesh’s burial chambers. A relic of divine power that could heal any ailment, any injury—and even bring back dead souls from the underworld.

Such power that the pharaoh had it buried with him, so no unworthy mortals may misuse it and upset the balance of the world.

She was not educated, and knew not how much farther she would have to go. She was not of strong constitution, either, and knew not how much longer she would be able to walk before death claimed her as well. But she would not give up. Even now that her mind began to play tricks on her, even though she sensed that hallucinations were beginning to rob her even of her mind.

The wind carried whispers—some urging her to turn around, others luring her closer and closer. The wind also carried corns of sand, and with the cold air they cut across her skin like flurries of tiny knives. Every instinct told her that she drew closer and closer to her death.

When she saw a shrouded figure atop a dune in the distance, beckoning and awaiting her, she dragged her feet less. But when she arrived there and raised her weary head, she blinked to unblur her vision and found herself alone. No soul stood there, nothing whatsoever. Not even a pile of rocks that remotely resembled the person she had imagined.

Just the cruel cold wind howling around her. And a sea of sand all around, as far as she could see from the top of this dune.

She imagined that the Offering possessed such power that an oasis and wellspring of water would have formed around Thesh’s burial grounds. The thought of such a wonder kept her going. Not only the figment of a means of saving her family from the jaws of death, but the taste of crystal clear water, flowing past her lips and down her throat, giving her the life she needed to carry on. One foot after the other, she carried on.

And so, more time passed. Her muscles burned, blood collected in her lower extremities, and her head swam. Never stopping, her mind drifted in and out of conscious thoughts of her goal, savoring fantasies of all that might be, and trying to push back the horrors of the reality she lived—both the one she had left behind to pursue this quest, and the sense of imminent death that this infinite desert instilled in her heart.

Whenever her pace slowed down, she forced herself to pick it up again. She reminded herself: she had never done anything wrong. Nor had her family. The pestilence was a great injustice, and her plight—her march to the pharaoh’s tomb—a righteous undertaking. She would not give up. The forces of nature would have to rob her of every last ounce of strength. She would not enter the underworld without putting up a fight first. She believed her heart would prove to be feather-light.

The shield chafed against her arm. The blade weighed heavily in her hand, almost as heavy as her legs. She gripped the weapon tightly and told herself not to let go. One of the few things her husband had left behind, she refused to leave the khopesh behind. And if the legends were true, she would need it—for the ancient dead did not take kindly to those who dared disturb their rest. She had no blessings of priests to live by, only the bronze blade that had cut down countless men and could fell countless more.

She blinked again, fighting against the blurring and clouding of her strained eyesight. Her consciousness faded. Every breath of air that passed her throat was akin to liquid fire. No matter how much willpower she possessed or how determined she was, her flesh and bones teetered on the brink of surrendering to the unforgiving desert.

Every fiber of her body screamed at her, telling her to just lie down and rest—that everything would be alright. But she knew of this madness, that following its deceptive advice would spell out certain doom.

She looked over her shoulder and blinked and winced and blinked again, pushing back the shadows that encroached from the edges of her field of vision. Shadows that followed her, but were never really there. The trail of her footsteps in the sand weaved back and forth, nearly turning and giving her doubt. She wondered if she had been straying from her path.

She shook her head and refused. Neith could not afford to doubt now, and could not afford to waste any single breath or moment. Her eyes burned and her forehead creased as she made another effort to stare ahead and walk as straight of a path as she could manage.

When she ascended to the top of the next dune, she blinked again. Her mind—playing tricks on her again. It had to be. For she now beheld a strange set of statues carved into the face of large boulders, flanking the entrance to some subterranean crypt, surrounded by lush vegetation. Too far away for the sounds to be real, she imagined to hear the trickle of water from the pool in the middle of those trees and ferns. She swallowed emptily just imagining how she would drink greedily from oasis water. Another gust of cold wind made her shiver.

Continuing to stand atop the dune, her tired gaze swept back and forth over this strange place. But what she beheld proved to be no illusion. She stumbled forward, fighting back the tears. She could not afford to cry, could not risk shedding any more water with her salvation and destination turning out to be within such sudden reach. It seemed too good to be true. If this was an illusion, after all, she would need to steel herself for what came next.

The moments passed slowly despite her pace accelerating. She drew closer and closer to the pharaoh’s rest—and to that crystal-clear lifeblood in form of a shining pool of water.

She would live. The reflection of the moonlit sky in the water absorbed all her attention. It served as a beacon, leading her down the most direct path.

The leaves of plants rustled as she passed through them and let them slip by between her trembling fingers while she approached the body of water with tired steps. Collapsing to her knees, she unstrapped the shield from her arm and discarded it with the blade. She leaned forwards, staring into the reflection of the moon.

She leaned forward while cupping her hands and drew water from the source. Neith drank. She did so with care, first wetting her lips, then taking first sips. She knew better, knew to not be too greedy, to not shock her body with this sudden change in state. Neith saw stars when the inside of her mouth turned icy cold and she felt the water go down her gullet.

She savored the sips of water, swaying back and forth without noticing the passage of time. With no sense for her surroundings, she took all the time in the world, forgetting everything around her for those moments. This clear fresh water revived her.

Dates grew from the palm trees overhead, but once Neith caught herself eyeing them with hungry desire, she remembered her quest and her purpose of being here. She closed her eyes and took deep breaths, gathering whatever remaining strength she could muster, knowing that some water alone had only prevented her death, not empowered her beyond her mortal frailty. She took each breath with more force than the last until her nostrils flared and she had worked up the courage she needed to proceed.

With deliberate care, she strapped the shield to her arm once more and rose to her feet with the khopesh in hand. In an almost ceremonial display of reverence, she crossed the arms in front of her as she marched towards the entrance to Thesh’s tomb.

Standing in front of the impenetrable darkness beyond that entrance, she hesitated after all. The sheer size of the arc overhead loomed far above her, dwarfing her. Were Thesh and his loyal subjects giants? The entrance to this tomb sure made it look that way.

Once more, she steeled herself with a series of fiercely deep breaths and took the first step into the darkness beyond. A gust of cold wind blew past her, urging her to press on and go deeper inside. Pace by pace, she descended down wide stone steps. Neith narrowed her eyes, waiting for them to adjust and straining to see around the shadow the moonlight cast from her own body—but not once pausing in her descent.

The final steps that took her to a solid ground at the feet of the stairs ended in grit and gravel crunching underneath the sole of her sandal. The tiny sound echoed in this monolithic hall. The silence that followed was deafening, even more oppressive than the sense of certain death and solitude of the desert that Neith had left behind her.

With the little light that poured in from the entrance, she could not make out the hieroglyphs and paintings on the walls. Bronze braziers set along them shone with reflections of the dim remnants of moonlight. Small rolls of cloth rested in between the braziers. The hall extended so far that darkness swallowed all light the farther she looked, obscuring how long this antechamber truly was.

She stood there for moments that could have been an eternity, lost in thought. So close and yet so far from the Offering that she sought. The hairs on the back of her neck stood up straight and when she looked down to her side, she caught her hand holding the khopesh to be trembling. She swallowed to rediscover the bravery that had carried her this far, despite all odds.

And then a shuffling sound broke the silence. Her eyes darted to the source and every muscle in her body turned as tense as steel. She had not thought, only reacted, now staring over the edge of the shield into this ominous darkness.

Another sound followed, the rustling of fabric sweeping over cold stone. The rolls of cloth along the walls moved. First only a finger’s width, then more. The absence of light remained, but the hallway awoke and Neith’s blood drained from her face, the dread surging through her limbs and sweat breaking out of every pore.

The rolls of cloth moved until they rose, revealing gaunt figures that turned and stared. A cloth fell completely from one and floated to the ground with an almost gentle slowness, another pulled at the decaying fabric and revealed skin with a texture so dull that no human should show. A dozen faces stared at her, eyeless, featureless, with mouths agape, and not breathing—only exhaling. The air that escaped the lips sounded like the final breaths of the dying—some in peace, some in agony, and some in terror.

Then they began to move, taking a single step each towards Neith and startling her in their eerie uniform timing. The step she took back caused more sand and dirt to crunch underfoot, and the sound of it echoed again, deafening now in contrast to how quiet this moment had been. And with that, the living dead walked, then stumbled, then ran. Right at her.

She turned to flee, slipping on one step and catching herself and looking back just in time. They had caught up to her, reaching out with spindly arms and skeletal hands, grabbing at her with a force that defied nature, with a hidden strength that revealed sinister purpose.

She swung the khopesh, but with all the strength the desert had sapped from her, the blade barely cut, it only clubbed into them and pushed these undead assailants back. Neith seized the opportunity and retreated back up as many steps as she could. With neither time nor pride to spare, a terrified scream escaped her lips before she gritted her teeth and swung at the walking dead once more, missing this time as they slowed down with an intelligence resembling that of feral beasts, now wary that their prey was willing and able to fight back.

The mummies exhaled again, spraying dust and the smell of death and recoiling like wildcats readying themselves to pounce, only awaiting the proper moment to attack again. Neith backed up the stairsteps, swinging each time and cutting the air before her to keep these menaces at bay, raising her shield whenever they paused their pursuit of her.

As hollow as the eye sockets that stared at her—through her—she felt a burning dread lurking within their darkness, a hatred for the living. Something old and angry. Ensnared souls that had been chained to dessicated corpses, left behind in one final act of slavery to guard this tomb. Those bone-dry withered hands swiped and pawed and clawed at her, always just outside of reach, with uncanny precision and suggesting a ferocious hunger for living flesh and soft innards.

Halfway up, the first lunged at her and she lashed out with her shield’s edge. It gave way like papyrus and mud would and emitted only a soft crack, but the force sufficed to push it back. As it went reeling and then tumbling back down from whence it came, others charged past, right into the sweeping swing of her blade. It kept them at bay for the next few steps but she slipped once more and felt the searing pain of pointy fingertips digging into the skin around her sternum and drawing blood. The mummies were upon her and she thrashed wildly to push them back once more, dragging herself up the steps and feeling one scratch open fresh wounds along the length of her calf.

Neith had suffered too much to get here and was unwilling to die now, so a cold fury gripped her heart and escaped her in form of a furious shriek as she pushed them back once more. The khopesh broke through dried skin and bones as she chopped into an arm attached to the hand that held her by an ankle. She thrashed with all her might to gain some space and crawled up more steps, fending off more mummified hands from grabbing her by hiding behind the shield as best she could.

Hands clawed past her side, parting skin to make way for blood to pour out and open painful injuries. The horde of undead proved their relentlessness despite each swing of the blade she took to make them keep their distance. No matter how much Neith struggled to fend them off, they were so many that it felt like she was drowning in a sea of living corpses, only inching away from them. With another yell, she heaved herself back onto her feet and ascended more while kicking and swinging at them without any sense of accuracy.

She stumbled once more but caught herself this time as she had reached the top of the stairs and her heels dug into the sand covering the stone plates in front of the tomb’s entrance. The undead pursuers continued outwards and emitted those ghastly sounds of exhaling, never inhaling, like a chorus of wheezing labored breathing of many dying men. Each time she swung with the weapon, they recoiled again, but there were so many. Her panic and their movement made it impossible to count. They swarmed out of the entrance, fanning out and surrounding her.

As another freezing gust of wind caught and engulfed her, Neith’s jaw quivered and her teeth rattled. Her eyes darted back and forth, she swiveled and pivoted as quickly as she could to ensure that none of them got too close. For as soon as one of them would grab her, it would all be over, so many had emerged from the depths to surround her here. The darkness within those dozens of hollow eye sockets appeared even more depraved and unfathomable than it had before. The mouths of the mummies stood agape, for no matter their devotion to Thesh in life, they all had died in incomprehensible terror when the high priests had removed their brains from their living bodies, lobe by lobe.

Neith raised the blade high over her head, still hiding behind her shield. She uttered words to the god of the sun: she pleaded for might and mercy alike.

Before she knew it, the khopesh cracked a mummified head as one of them lunged at her and a cloud of dust exploded from its skull. Bravery or fury, whatever drove her every movement did not matter. This was survival. The worn edges of sword and shield gleamed as she spun around, doing her best to fight these monsters while lacking the physical strength or technique to gain the upper hand.

Scratches opened around her belly once one of them got hold of her, and her elbow blindly connected to another mummified face, caving it in. But she could not break free, and in a matter of heartbeats, with only two of the unnatural creatures writhing on the ground and rising back up to their lifeless feet with choppy motions, she felt her limbs being held in the iron grip of many merciless hands. There was no warmth to the fingers that clutched and clawed at her, pulling in different directions while they began to drag her towards the tomb’s entrance and threatened to tear her limb from limb.

Then the world was set on fire. Flames engulfed Neith, the sickening smell of burnt hair filling her nostrils and her skin blistering from the sheer heat that surrounded her. The exhaling sounds from the walking corpses turned into horrid, inhuman shrieks and she collapsed to the ground.

Was this what the passage to the afterlife was like? This infernal heat, this pain? Where was the trial—the judgment that the priests promised all mortals?

She curled up into a fetal position, awaiting death. Conceding to the thought that she would perhaps be reunited with her husband, Ahmes, again. The afterlife awaited. At least she had tried and given it her all. Her daughter, Tena, would eventually join them, as well. Neith remembered their faces, their beautiful faces. Neith found comfort in remembering the soft looks on them from before the pestilence. She decided to forget all the pain she had endured to get here.

Neith surrendered.

The heat subsided. The tearing of her flesh never followed. The undead’s breaths had turned silent. When she opened her eyes, the world slowly came into vision. The warmth she felt came from rays of light, cast from the eternal sun rising on the horizon, wandering above the dunes like a fiery and triumphant chariot. Embers and ashes floated from the smoldering corpses of the mummies that had pursued her, now all of them collapsed into lifeless heaps, rendered into humanoid kindling, rapidly losing any resemblance of their ghastly former shapes.

Neith closed her eyes again and let the warmth of the sunlight wash over her, thinking that this hellish change of scenery only represented her passage into the afterlife. When she dared to open them again, she saw her environment unchanged, save for the wind having carried off more ashes from the burning dead. The sunlight had destroyed these wicked demons. Purged the unnatural creatures that did not belong.

She winced and suppressed a shout of pain as she pushed herself up off the ground into a sitting position. The sand getting into her countless wounds burned. The wind cooled her, the sunlight shone upon her. Neith wondered if the god of the sun had cursed or blessed her by extending her life thus.

She looked to the pool of water that adorned the oasis by the tomb. Then she looked back to the entrance of the pharaoh’s rest. Neith pulled her legs close and buried her face behind her knees.

She decided she would finish what she had started, but dreaded what might await her. More than mere legend, architects had filled the tombs of the buried god-kings with traps. And who knew how many other loyal servants of Thesh resided down below, guarding the tomb from grave robbers.

Neith slowly got back up, setting her jaw as it quivered in face of the pain she felt. She turned and lifted her arms, surveying the damage done. Most of it was superficial, but she would need to regain her strength if she was to stand a chance. She swallowed with the weight of the world on her shoulders, knowing there might be a way to bring back Ahmes and Tena should she succeed.

She looked to the dates that grew from the palm trees and back to the water. Now that Neith had made it this far, she would take each next step carefully. Rest here, nurse herself back to health as best she could, and explore the tomb in time. The Offering still awaited her.

Perhaps she had survived the worst already. The desert had not killed her, and this oasis would keep her alive for now. But deep down, she knew: however horrible the mummies in the antechamber had proven to be, whatever awaited deeper inside the tomb would be far, far worse.

And she would suffer each step.

With the sun rising quickly, and its rays illuminating the oasis, she could now read the engraving above the entrance, as shadows had hidden during the night before.

THOSE WHO DARE DISTURB MY REST, THOSE WHO DARE TRANSGRESS AGAINST GOD-KING THESH, THOSE FOOLS WILL PAY THE PRICE.

She was willing to pay that price, whatever suffering it may entail.

How much worse could it be than seeing the faces of her family, turning black with pustules, their skin rotting away from bone while alive?

—Submitted by Wratts

[svedauth]

NO SPOILERS BOTW BREAKDOWN. still under a cut and tagged bc i know there are people out there who like me wanted to know NOTHING about the game going into it.

I played it a lot yesterday, and I’m definitely taking my time with it trying to find all the secrets and such. I have about a solid four or five hours in it, but very much of that is not plot related at all (for example, I spent at least half of that time in the tutorial area).

SHORT BREAKDOWN:

GRAPHICS: Gorgeous. MUSIC / AUDIO: Beautiful, but the music plays rarely. Leaves something to be desired. As in, more of it. CONTROLS: Great. They take a little getting used to for long-time Zelda players, however. COMBAT: Thank Hylia it’s not motion controls anymore. Very fun, very rewarding, extremely difficult. DIFFICULTY: Incredibly challenging, with a steep difficulty curve, but very rewarding. Strategy must be implemented in every portion of the game, from exploring to traveling to combat. Don’t expect to button-mash your way through this game. It’s hard as fuck. But it’s not punishing if you learn the mechanics and master them quickly. CHARACTERS: Vibrant, exciting, and incredibly humorous. The Nintendo Polish is clear on every NPC; they all have names, they all have different personalities and goals, and they’ll remember you and your actions. They all have a ton of dialog to go through, too, and what they say will change on the environment and your attitude towards them. PLOT: Can’t speak too much on it so far since I’m still in the beginning portion of the game, but it’s definitely a story to go through at your own pace, and can allow you to skip whole sections of it – you can technically go challenge the final boss as soon as you finish the tutorial, because that quest is issued to you at the tutorial’s completion. GAMEPLAY: Exploration is rewarded with every twist and turn. You can solve puzzles in a plethora of ways and are rewarded for being creative. Two players can have entirely different experiences depending on their actions. Mindless combat is discouraged; strategic combat is greatly rewarded. The difficulty of enemies increases with how many enemies you kill, so you can travel anywhere in the world without facing a difficulty spike until you’re ready for one, but unnecessary combat will slowly bring up your difficulty curve. The world is constantly changing and is fresh and vibrant, and you’ll always see new things even when you return somewhere multiple times. All in all, it’s fun as shit.

CRITICISMS

– As I mentioned before, the music is beautiful, but it doesn’t play nearly enough. When a single chime plays, it feels out of place at times. Legend of Zelda is known for its music, and it doesn’t need to hold back. – I personally enjoy the difficulty, but fans of the series and new players alike may be surprised by how hard this game is. Breath of the Wild goes back to the original Zelda in terms of exploration and difficulty; you have to very quickly figure out what you’re doing and employ strategy in every encounter. – In that same vein, the game doesn’t tell you a lot of things. You have to figure it out yourself. I like that, but again, a lot of people may be surprised when they’re thrown into the world with no direction. This is a game that very much remembers the time when players drew their own maps on graph paper and took notes on areas, and it challenges you to do the same. I highly recommend that you keep a pad of paper and a pencil beside you while you play. – I like the ability to pick up new armor and weapons, but the game lacks a mechanic to upgrade weapon durability or repair weapons, which is a shame. The game is almost mercilessly ruthless with its difficulty, and while it’s not Dark Souls level of hard, it’s still nothing to sneeze at. Finding a good weapon and being able to keep it would really make a big difference. Dark Souls lets you repair weapons; if a game that hard lets you do it, then why not this one? Fuck, man, I want to keep my Knight’s Claymore, not watch it break against a Bokoblin and then never find one again, so I never even use it because I don’t want to lose it.

COMMENDATIONS.

– Very few games have the level of openness that this one does. Even Skyrim doesn’t come close. When the game says you can do anything, it’s not kidding. The Nintendo Polish is there. – Sidequests are everywhere. Things to find are everywhere. You are in a giant world with an infinite number of things to do, and there will be a reward for doing any and all of them. Going off the beaten path will always give you something worth your while. – The game does a great job of both making you feel very small and making you feel empowered enough to conquer the world. You’re never intimidated by the frankly gigantic size of the map; you’re always given a sense of adventure. – Link’s character comes across more vividly and vibrantly than in any game previously, but it’s incredibly subtle. He’s not just a placeholder for the player. He’s a person who inhabits this world, and his personality has very distinct nuances and ticks. – The game is as slow or fast as you want it to be. I personally have a lot of fun dicking around in the world like it’s a sandbox, and my adventure style lets me have the perfect balance of exploration and combat for me. Likewise, someone who wants more combatwill find more combat, and it will become more challenging to suit their liking. The world evolves based on the way you play, letting each player have their own perfect, unique experience.

Final thoughts: Perfect game, 10000000/10. This is the Zelda game we’ve been waiting for.

[gameplayandtalk]

SCORCHER: Synopsis, Tips/Tricks, Box Scans, and more..

The Year is 2021.

The world has seen better days. War and pollution have eliminated large segments of the human population and have turned most of the large cities on earth into abandoned wastelands. To allow the survivors to travel between the remaining population centers, special speed bikes have been created to travel at lightning speeds along the highways. Equipped with a spherical force field, these bikes allow the rider precise control during extremely high speeds. This invention started a whole new sport known to some simply as Scorcher. You begin the game at the kids' track, and work your way through the championship until you reach The Spiral, the final race...

20 years before I started this website (gameplayandtalk.com), I dabbled with classic HTML and made a variety of websites based around gaming topics I was into at the time.

This "article" is more or less a modern regurgitation of the info buried in that old website of mine. Below you will find a basic synopsis of the game along with some brief tips and strategies for players trying to get the hang of the game. Continue on after for a brief interview with one of the game’s creators, various packaging and manual scans, an OST playlist and full playthroughs of each version of the game.

THE BASICS OF SCORCHER

In Scorcher, the player controls a rider on a bike wrapped inside a spherical forcefield. This sphere allows the bike to absorb large falls and impacts while keeping the rider upright the entire time. Specific types of energy also allow the bike to boost and jump with given powerups:

Scorcher is comprised of six deviously designed, obstacle-oriented courses: The Dump, The Suburbs, Tunnels, Radioactive Waste, Downtown, and the Spiral. Mastering these is key to not just finishing the game, but finding enjoyment in it as well. Scorcher has a steep learning curve and can be punishing on a first play.

In the championship mode, the player's goal is to complete each race to the best of their ability, gaining the lead and beating the clock.

Once a course is accessed in Championship mode, it can be accessed in the time attack and practice modes. This is useful for practicing the later courses in particular, as they are extremely difficult to overcome initially.

The game's setup is fairly straightforward: Race a handful of laps while catching each checkpoint before time runs out, otherwise it's Game Over. While placing in 1st is not mandatory to continue, placing in higher ranks awards the player more time at the start of the next race.

Beginning each course, bikes are allowed through the starting point one by one, with the player starting last. You must work your way up the ranks and into first, second, or third place through a race of four laps.

While the basic gameplay structure is standard, the game’s controls, physics and track designs are anything but. Here are some tips to help you get started:

Adjust to the game’s multiple levels of steering. In the Sega Saturn version, the d-pad defaults to light steering, while the triggers control heavy steering. The way this works is different from typical racers of the era. Hard steering is best used at all times, so you may want to re-map the trigger controls to the d-pad for a more natural steering feel.

Boost properly and jump selectively. Both boost and jump are limited use abilities, so it’s imperative you use these sparingly. Boost functionality is best used with light taps on the button. This uses a minimal amount of energy while also maintaining a high speed. Jumping should be used sparingly since there are many pitfalls in the game that will require the functionality to continue. Thus, during learning the game, only use it when you have to.

Know your tracks and your camera angles. Scorcher has a “Marble Madness” style obstacle system. Knowing what’s coming up is key to getting through the tracks without getting stopped by objects or falling off course. The game also has an automatic camera system in effect. If you jump too high into the air, the game tends to switch the camera underneath your bike, making it impossible to see where you are going to land. Switching the player viewpoint to first-person fixes this. Some parts of tracks are better played in first-person versus third, and vice-versa, making it optimal to switch between them at specific moments in the game.

Fun tip: When paused in Championship Mode, the player can choose to restart the current track with no penalty. This is great to take advantage of if you’ve fallen too far behind and know you won’t be able to finish.

TIPS FOR SPECIFIC TRACKS

THE DUMP

You can shave some time off the entire course by consistently cutting the first turn. When your momentum is high (particularly when coming off the boost trail right before the finish line), turn left off the track as you roll up the road into the first turn. If done correctly, you should glide over the gap, landing safely past the first turn.

For an even faster run of the track, use the same tactic as above, but rather than turning off the first hill, physically jump from it. If going fast enough, you will land past the initial break of the track that resides just after the first turn. Doing this should improve your track time considerably if done every lap. Best done in first-person mode.

THE SUBURBS

RADIOACTIVE WASTE

Just before the second-to-last tunnel, there are two rises in the track one after another. At the peak of the second rise, you would usually have to slow down a bit to get over the hole in the track, just before the entrance to the tunnel. Instead of doing so, take advantage of your boost power, and as fast as you can go, jump at the top of the peak. You'll fly to an extreme height and if done right, will land past the first few obstacles in the tunnel. When in first-person mode, you'll notice that the ceiling to the tunnel disappears. Position yourself to land either just before or after the first ramp in the tunnel.

DOWNTOWN

On the inside corner of the final turn you'll notice the large building on the left. Rather than taking the normal road and going around it, you can actually jump OVER it. On the split stretches of track before hitting the street, you should take the right path. Boost the entire stretch and jump at the very edge of it. Control your Scorcher bike towards the left in the direction of the building, going over it and landing on the other side past the turn. This is similar to jumping the gap of the first turn in the The Dump, but is a hell of a lot more stylish. It will improve your track time significantly if done correctly every lap.

Another trick is near the beginning of the course. At the very first turn, it’s possible to jump over the broken overpass instead of slowing down and going underneath it. The timing is tight, but if done correctly it is faster than going underneath.

Fun tip: It's possible to wedge your bike in the outside stairwell of the apartment complex directly to the left of the starting point. Best done in the Saturn version where you have unlimited time in the practice mode.

CONSOLE AND PC VERSION DIFFERENCES

The PC version has multiple video modes ranging from 320X200 to 640X480, while the Saturn game only supports 240p.

The PC version has options to turn off certain graphical effects, such as the moving 2D and 3D backdrops. There is also the option to play the game with flat-shaded polygons or completely in wire-frame mode.

In the Saturn's practice mode, the player is given unlimited boosts, jumps, and time, can drive an infinite amount of laps and is free of other drivers. In the PC game, the player drives with the same factors such as in any other play mode: Time ticks down, the player races four laps, etc. It's Time Attack stripped of it storing your track time.

The Saturn game features more camera distances to view the Scorcher bike at while racing, while the PC version features only two.

The Saturn version, due to its more inconsistent and sluggish performance, is considerably more challenging than the PC version. The bike tends to feel like it has more weight because of these performance issues and control is less responsive.

The soundtrack in the Saturn version is generated by the system's internal sound hardware, while the PC game features the use of CD audio tracks and can be listened to in a CD player.

The PC version has extra objects on certain tracks, making them slightly more difficult to navigate than their Saturn counterparts.

The PC version has the capability of running at over double the framerate of the Saturn version, making for a more responsive and fluid experience.

INTERVIEW WITH JESPER KYD (FROM YEAR 2000)

Below is a brief interview with Jesper Kyd, responsible for various aspects in the production of this game, including its excellent soundtrack. Don't mind the juvenile questions, this was from 2000 or so and I was just a middling teenager at the time:

First of all, what was your part in the development and production of Scorcher?

Kyd: I created the music and sound effects for Scorcher. Towards the end of Scorcher I was the producer on Scorcher PC, meaning I basically helped create the gameplay. I was also the game tester and spent an insane amount of time playing the game and finding bugs. I helped create and write the manual together with Sami Badawi.

When was the original idea for Scorcher conceived?

Kyd: Not sure exactly when. Red Zone (A game by Zyrinx/Scavenger on the Genesis) was originally a car game before it was turned into a flying game. We had been wanting to do a driving game for a while.

With mission-based action games such as Sub Terrania and Red Zone behind them, what led the development team (Zyrinx) to create, of all things, a racing game?

Kyd: After doing two mission based games we were ready for something new. With the newly developed Zyrinx engine for PC and Sega Saturn, we could do new things graphically that was just not possible with the Sega Genesis engine.

Could you tell me about the Zyrinx engine? How did it effect Scorcher, say, using the Zyrinx engine, as opposed to another (By you all, or someone else)?

Kyd: Well, at that time there were not a lot of engines being licensed like there are today. Zyrinx consisted of competitive coders and mathematicians from the demo scene, so we would never use someone else's technology, but invent something better by ourselves. We also created a great FM music program for the Sega Genesis, which used CD quality sounds, instead of horrible low quality samples which 99% of all Genesis games used.

Scorcher went through some name changes before coming to be what we know it as. What was or were it's name(s) before being dubbed 'Scorcher?'

Kyd: Vertigo was the only other name Scorcher went by.

After the PC Scorcher's release, what made you all want to do a Sega Saturn version?

Kyd: It was a natural choice going from Sega Genesis/32X to Sega Saturn.

In the Saturn version, certain video options seen in the PC version were taken out. Any reason? Just for kicks, I always thought it would be kind of cool to play it in wire-frame mode on my Saturn.

Kyd: Those options were included on the PC in order to make the game run faster on lower-end machines. It didn't make sense to have the ability to switch these on an off on the Saturn version.

After getting opinions from a few people, it seems a major drawback was the lack of more tracks and a multiplayer mode. Again, any reason for this?

Kyd: The track design in Scorcher was very complex for it's time. Scorcher came out at a time where all car games had repetitive textures. Recently most car games got rid of the repetition of track design, but Scorcher did this 4 years ago. As for the multi-player, I can't comment on that.

GAME CREDITS (TAKEN FROM GAME MANUAL)

Main programming: David Guldbrandsen & Karsten Hvidberg

Main graphics: Mikael Balle

Music & Sound Effects: Jesper Kyd

System programming: Jens Bo Albretsen

Mathematics: Sami Badawi

Additional Graphics: Jacob Anderson & Sami Badawi

Gametesting: Jesper Kyd Bike

Layout: Jesper Vorsholt Jorgensen

Team Assistants: Nicole Salem & Stacey Roberts

Manual: Sami Badawi & Jesper Kyd

Manual Layout: Jacob Anderson

PC VERSION PACKAGING (USA)

PC VERSION INSTRUCTION MANUAL (USA)

SEGA SATURN VERSION PACKAGING (USA)

SEGA SATURN VERSION INSTRUCTION MANUAL (USA)

MUSIC

LET’S PLAY WALKTHROUGHS (SEGA SATURN AND PC)

[symbianosgames]

The following blog post, unless otherwise noted, was written by a member of Gamasutra’s community. The thoughts and opinions expressed are those of the writer and not Gamasutra or its parent company.

There’s a cute bit in the Philip K. Dick story “Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep?” where one character warns another about the lurking threat of kipple, all the useless objects that clutter up our lives.

“When nobody’s around, kipple reproduces itself,” he says. “No one can win against kipple, except temporarily and maybe in one spot, like in my apartment...but eventually I'll die or go away, and then the kipple will again take over. It's a universal principle operating throughout the universe; the entire universe is moving toward a final state of total, absolute kippleization.”

Games are full of kipple. Empty cardboard boxes, old crates, coffee mugs, desks piled high with papers you can’t read and manila folders you can never open.

But Arkane’s latest, Prey, does something neat with kipple -- it weaponizes it.

Like most games you might call "immersive sims" (Deus Ex, Thief, BioShock, System Shock), Prey asks players to spend a lot of time rooting around in cabinets, trash cans and other nooks/crannies in search of hidden gems: useful resources buried in the rubbish.

Unlike those other games, Prey makes that rote and repetitive action scary. It introduces an enemy early on called the Mimic, a common but utterly alien creatures that tends to hide by taking the form of a piece of kipple, then leaping out when the player draws close.

While the nuts and bolts of actually fighting Mimics once they’re revealed can be annoying (they’re small and move erratically), their sheer existence make every otherwise innocuous, kipple-strewn corner of Prey’s Talos I space station feel threatening and alive.

And shucks, that space station. Can we just take a minute to appreciate the way Prey handles space, and sets the player up to tell their own stories within it? 

The game came out a month ago at this point and I know it may have slipped past a lot of people (there are a lot of games!) but after finishing it, I wanted to quickly call out some of the neat things Prey does that are worth celebrating.

Holistic level design

Prey takes place on Talos I, a fictional space station orbiting Earth’s moon. Once the player moves past the opening scene, pretty much the entire station is accessible, and the player can also get outside and jet around the station’s exterior (though they take damage if they go too far.)

That means pretty much every space in the game is understandable and accessible from multiple perspectives, both internally and externally.

A player can spend five hours moving through the station from the Arboretum to the Hardware Labs, then exit into space through an airlock and retrace their path externally in a few minutes. If they happen to float by a viewport on the way, they might glimpse the aftermath of a particularly frenetic fight they had two hours ago, or spot the open hatch of a maintenance duct they crawled through to circumvent said fight.

This is important because it reinforces the illusion that the player is somewhere else. It makes Talos I feel like a real place, a holistic environment that can be explored, learned, and mastered.

This kind of environmental design isn’t easy -- there’s a reason most games run through a linear series of discrete levels -- but when done right, it helps the player feel embodied in your game.

There are lots of great examples of other games that nail this sort of holistic level design, but I’m just going to take the lazy way out and say it’s like Dark Souls. That game had fantastic, complicated environments that all fit together perfectly, lulling players into feeling that they were exploring a real place. Prey achieves something very similar, with the added benefit of being set on a floating space station that can be circumnavigated from the outside.

Dynamic enemy placement

Also like Dark Souls, the lion’s share of Prey is devoid of friendly life. Thus, the game's interlocking environments are chiefly defined by what enemies you find there and what stuff you can pick up.

The enemies also respawn or repopulate across Talos I in some fashion, ensuring (for better and for worse) that players can never fully relax when backtracking. More importantly, there are moments when the nature and number of enemies spread across the station changes in accordance with the narrative.

That gives players new challenges in known settings, keeping those locations feeling fresh and, more importantly, rewarding players for learning and exploiting the environments of Talos I.

Fluctuating power curves

Prey takes a lot of direct inspiration from games like System Shock, Thief, and Deus Ex, asking players to navigate Talos I while fighting/tricking/sneaking past enemies and collecting items, weapons and upgrades.

Since those resources are placed throughout the station and basically the whole thing is open to players from the jump, there are lots of different paths players can carve through the game -- and lots of ways that progression can be impacted by how threats shift and change.

For example, let me lay out my emotional journey through Prey. After about an hour, I was intrigued and felt pretty safe: I had plenty of healing items, a weapon or two, and (naive) trust that the game’s designers had balanced the difficulty level (Normal) so that I couldn’t totally ruin myself.

This seems fine

Five hours in, I was ruined.

I’d burned through all of my healing items, ammunition, and upgrade tools. All I had left was a wrench and a few EMP grenades, which were useless against the monstrosities that stood between me and everything I needed  -- a shotgun, for example, or the fabrication plans for medkits.

I considered restarting the game, but decided to stick with it and sneak past everything in my way. I was terrified. Prey was the worst!

Ten hours in, Prey felt too easy. I’d managed to get both a shotgun and the medkit plans, as well as some schematics for other Useful Things. I was practically bursting with ammo and healing items, and I’d learned the enemies and environments well enough to know no fear.

This is it, I thought. This is the part in every game where you make the jump from underpowered to overpowered. Assuming the endgame was nigh, I caught myself thinking wistfully about how much more immersive and real Talos I had felt when I was inching through it in total abject terror. It would be kind of nice to go back to being underpowered, I thought.

Twenty hours in, I decided it wasn’t actually that nice! I was totally out of healing items (again), out of ammo (again!) and barely surviving as I sprinted across the station, using every trick I knew to try and get away from the enemy.

By this point I’d cleaned out most of Talos I and was having a hard time replenishing my resources and  getting from zone to zone, much less accomplishing quest objectives. With no immediate endgame in sight, I thought again about giving up -- or at least reloading an earlier save.

After ~26 hours of play, I finished Prey. I had to make some late-game upgrade choices to counter troublesome enemies, and chase some side objectives that took me through new (resource-rich) areas of the station, but at the end I felt, if not godlike, at least god-ish.

Most games like this take you from the same start to the same end; the player starts at the bottom of a smooth power curve and spends the game climbing to the top. Prey stands out because it affords the player space to slip, fall, and get back up again, only to slip up in a totally new and terrifying way.

I mean space in a literal sense as much as a figurative one. When lead designer Ricardo Bare talked to Gamasutra earlier this year about the team’s approach to level design, he said the goal was to create a kind of “mega-dungeon” in space “with lots of immersive, simulation-based systems.”

Enter the Mega-Dungeon

By way of example he mentioned the studio’s 2002 first-person RPG Arx Fatalis, which took place inside a giant network of caves.

But my dumb stupid brain went somewhere else -- to the sorts of “mega-dungeons” that are popular in some tabletop role-playing game circles, especially in the 20th century.

If you didn't play D&D or whatever in the '90s, know that these were often sprawling, isolated areas with ridiculously complicated layouts (think like, a 12-level underground dungeon surrounded by a network of caves) and, most importantly, threat levels that varied depending on how far players were willing to explore.

That means players could effectively set their own difficulty by choosing how deep to delve. Pair that with the relative freedom tabletop RPGs afford players in choosing how to circumvent challenges, and you get an experience that's often light on narrative (there's something real bad going on in these caves/dungeons/ruins! Check it out!) but well-suited to letting players tell the story they want to tell.

Making games that give players lots of room to tell their own stories is tricky business. I think if you look at Prey, you'll find some good examples of how that can be done well. 

Players can go almost anywhere and do almost anything (including finishing the game) relatively early on, but Talos I’s interconnected environments are filled with enemies of varying difficulty, letting players choose how to play and what to risk. The threats in those environments change over time, rewarding players for learning the levels and increasing the odds they’ll go through dramatic shifts in power level as they adapt to new challenges.

Of course, there’s a big downside to all this that you’ve probably already sussed out. Prey gives the player finite resources, but the enemies seem nigh-infinite. You might clear out a section of the station, only to come back hours later and find fresh monstrosities lying in wait for you.

That has a chilling effect on the player’s creativity; after all, why risk experimenting with new weapons and tactics when you know that freezing an enemy with the industrial-strength glue gun and bashing them to death with your wrench will A) be ammo-efficient B) totally work and C) present minimal risk of damage?

70 percent of the time, this works every time

This problem really rears its head in the end-game, when the player is likely to be criss-crossing Talos I and facing new enemies while moving through spaces that have already been picked clean.

Still, it's a minor complication in an otherwise great example of good level design and interesting power/challenge systems. I know a ton of interesting games will come out this year (like every year!) but if you have the means to take a look at Prey, do so! 

And if you want a bit more from Ricardo “Mega-Dungeon” Bare, check out this hour-long conversation Gamasutra Editor-In-Chief Kris Graft and Contributing Editor Bryant Francis had with him while streaming Prey on our Twitch channel last month. (I’m not in it, so it should be pretty watchable!)

Alternate blog titles: Beat, Prey, Love; Prey You Catch Me; Let Us Prey; The Prey's The Thing

[morbidtomonster]

The vast infinite planes of the mind require attention! We must delve into the abyss and find our calling! I was born to explore! An extremely vivid dream last night reminded me of simpler times! Surrounded by mountains, with a lot of people from old friendships, relationships and even acquaintances sharing stories and adventures.. This plagued me with emotion and I truly believe dreams symbolise thought processes distorted by the day to day rat race.. To all people I've at one time or another confected with I hope you're living a fulfilled existence! Maybe one day we will cross paths again! I believe The planet is made to be explored! And certain souls cross paths for symbolic purposes! As learning curves, to help us alter direction or to connect long term.. the deeper the soul the longer it takes to stop feeling them after they have parted our journey! Today marks a moment for me! A moment of spiritual tranquility.. I feel calm and collected in anticipation of the climb toward my endeavours.. you are alive.. but are you really living? ❤️ #truth#dreams#love#positive#dreams#dream#goals#dreambig#live#move#motivation#gym#healthy#success#train#selfie#melbourne#picoftheday#trainandinspire#power#strength#exist#selfie#transformation#energy#transform#transformation#trainandtransform#inspiration#coach#struggle#life (at Melbourne, Victoria, Australia)

[rw-repurposed]

Some short comics regarding Chasing Wind's ancients :)

I love them all and I wanna do more about them.

All the ancients from the bottom panels from top to left to right:

Four Rising Suns, One Setting Moon. One Direct Goal, Infinite Curved Paths. Stains of Shadow Over A Realm's Sorrow. Nine Howling Vessels, Silent Night. Darkness Befallen, Ashes Remains.

[symbianosgames]

The following blog post, unless otherwise noted, was written by a member of Gamasutra’s community. The thoughts and opinions expressed are those of the writer and not Gamasutra or its parent company.

There’s a cute bit in the Philip K. Dick story “Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep?” where one character warns another about the lurking threat of kipple, all the useless objects that clutter up our lives.

“When nobody’s around, kipple reproduces itself,” he says. “No one can win against kipple, except temporarily and maybe in one spot, like in my apartment...but eventually I'll die or go away, and then the kipple will again take over. It's a universal principle operating throughout the universe; the entire universe is moving toward a final state of total, absolute kippleization.”

Games are full of kipple. Empty cardboard boxes, old crates, coffee mugs, desks piled high with papers you can’t read and manila folders you can never open.

But Arkane’s latest, Prey, does something neat with kipple -- it weaponizes it.

Like most games you might call "immersive sims" (Deus Ex, Thief, BioShock, System Shock), Prey asks players to spend a lot of time rooting around in cabinets, trash cans and other nooks/crannies in search of hidden gems: useful resources buried in the rubbish.

Unlike those other games, Prey makes that rote and repetitive action scary. It introduces an enemy early on called the Mimic, a common but utterly alien creatures that tends to hide by taking the form of a piece of kipple, then leaping out when the player draws close.

While the nuts and bolts of actually fighting Mimics once they’re revealed can be annoying (they’re small and move erratically), their sheer existence make every otherwise innocuous, kipple-strewn corner of Prey’s Talos I space station feel threatening and alive.

And shucks, that space station. Can we just take a minute to appreciate the way Prey handles space, and sets the player up to tell their own stories within it? 

The game came out a month ago at this point and I know it may have slipped past a lot of people (there are a lot of games!) but after finishing it, I wanted to quickly call out some of the neat things Prey does that are worth celebrating.

Holistic level design

Prey takes place on Talos I, a fictional space station orbiting Earth’s moon. Once the player moves past the opening scene, pretty much the entire station is accessible, and the player can also get outside and jet around the station’s exterior (though they take damage if they go too far.)

That means pretty much every space in the game is understandable and accessible from multiple perspectives, both internally and externally.

A player can spend five hours moving through the station from the Arboretum to the Hardware Labs, then exit into space through an airlock and retrace their path externally in a few minutes. If they happen to float by a viewport on the way, they might glimpse the aftermath of a particularly frenetic fight they had two hours ago, or spot the open hatch of a maintenance duct they crawled through to circumvent said fight.

This is important because it reinforces the illusion that the player is somewhere else. It makes Talos I feel like a real place, a holistic environment that can be explored, learned, and mastered.

This kind of environmental design isn’t easy -- there’s a reason most games run through a linear series of discrete levels -- but when done right, it helps the player feel embodied in your game.

There are lots of great examples of other games that nail this sort of holistic level design, but I’m just going to take the lazy way out and say it’s like Dark Souls. That game had fantastic, complicated environments that all fit together perfectly, lulling players into feeling that they were exploring a real place. Prey achieves something very similar, with the added benefit of being set on a floating space station that can be circumnavigated from the outside.

Dynamic enemy placement

Also like Dark Souls, the lion’s share of Prey is devoid of friendly life. Thus, the game's interlocking environments are chiefly defined by what enemies you find there and what stuff you can pick up.

The enemies also respawn or repopulate across Talos I in some fashion, ensuring (for better and for worse) that players can never fully relax when backtracking. More importantly, there are moments when the nature and number of enemies spread across the station changes in accordance with the narrative.

That gives players new challenges in known settings, keeping those locations feeling fresh and, more importantly, rewarding players for learning and exploiting the environments of Talos I.

Fluctuating power curves

Prey takes a lot of direct inspiration from games like System Shock, Thief, and Deus Ex, asking players to navigate Talos I while fighting/tricking/sneaking past enemies and collecting items, weapons and upgrades.

Since those resources are placed throughout the station and basically the whole thing is open to players from the jump, there are lots of different paths players can carve through the game -- and lots of ways that progression can be impacted by how threats shift and change.

For example, let me lay out my emotional journey through Prey. After about an hour, I was intrigued and felt pretty safe: I had plenty of healing items, a weapon or two, and (naive) trust that the game’s designers had balanced the difficulty level (Normal) so that I couldn’t totally ruin myself.

This seems fine

Five hours in, I was ruined.

I’d burned through all of my healing items, ammunition, and upgrade tools. All I had left was a wrench and a few EMP grenades, which were useless against the monstrosities that stood between me and everything I needed  -- a shotgun, for example, or the fabrication plans for medkits.

I considered restarting the game, but decided to stick with it and sneak past everything in my way. I was terrified. Prey was the worst!

Ten hours in, Prey felt too easy. I’d managed to get both a shotgun and the medkit plans, as well as some schematics for other Useful Things. I was practically bursting with ammo and healing items, and I’d learned the enemies and environments well enough to know no fear.

This is it, I thought. This is the part in every game where you make the jump from underpowered to overpowered. Assuming the endgame was nigh, I caught myself thinking wistfully about how much more immersive and real Talos I had felt when I was inching through it in total abject terror. It would be kind of nice to go back to being underpowered, I thought.

Twenty hours in, I decided it wasn’t actually that nice! I was totally out of healing items (again), out of ammo (again!) and barely surviving as I sprinted across the station, using every trick I knew to try and get away from the enemy.

By this point I’d cleaned out most of Talos I and was having a hard time replenishing my resources and  getting from zone to zone, much less accomplishing quest objectives. With no immediate endgame in sight, I thought again about giving up -- or at least reloading an earlier save.

After ~26 hours of play, I finished Prey. I had to make some late-game upgrade choices to counter troublesome enemies, and chase some side objectives that took me through new (resource-rich) areas of the station, but at the end I felt, if not godlike, at least god-ish.

Most games like this take you from the same start to the same end; the player starts at the bottom of a smooth power curve and spends the game climbing to the top. Prey stands out because it affords the player space to slip, fall, and get back up again, only to slip up in a totally new and terrifying way.

I mean space in a literal sense as much as a figurative one. When lead designer Ricardo Bare talked to Gamasutra earlier this year about the team’s approach to level design, he said the goal was to create a kind of “mega-dungeon” in space “with lots of immersive, simulation-based systems.”

Enter the Mega-Dungeon

By way of example he mentioned the studio’s 2002 first-person RPG Arx Fatalis, which took place inside a giant network of caves.

But my dumb stupid brain went somewhere else -- to the sorts of “mega-dungeons” that are popular in some tabletop role-playing game circles, especially in the 20th century.

If you didn't play D&D or whatever in the '90s, know that these were often sprawling, isolated areas with ridiculously complicated layouts (think like, a 12-level underground dungeon surrounded by a network of caves) and, most importantly, threat levels that varied depending on how far players were willing to explore.

That means players could effectively set their own difficulty by choosing how deep to delve. Pair that with the relative freedom tabletop RPGs afford players in choosing how to circumvent challenges, and you get an experience that's often light on narrative (there's something real bad going on in these caves/dungeons/ruins! Check it out!) but well-suited to letting players tell the story they want to tell.

Making games that give players lots of room to tell their own stories is tricky business. I think if you look at Prey, you'll find some good examples of how that can be done well. 

Players can go almost anywhere and do almost anything (including finishing the game) relatively early on, but Talos I’s interconnected environments are filled with enemies of varying difficulty, letting players choose how to play and what to risk. The threats in those environments change over time, rewarding players for learning the levels and increasing the odds they’ll go through dramatic shifts in power level as they adapt to new challenges.

Of course, there’s a big downside to all this that you’ve probably already sussed out. Prey gives the player finite resources, but the enemies seem nigh-infinite. You might clear out a section of the station, only to come back hours later and find fresh monstrosities lying in wait for you.

That has a chilling effect on the player’s creativity; after all, why risk experimenting with new weapons and tactics when you know that freezing an enemy with the industrial-strength glue gun and bashing them to death with your wrench will A) be ammo-efficient B) totally work and C) present minimal risk of damage?

70 percent of the time, this works every time

This problem really rears its head in the end-game, when the player is likely to be criss-crossing Talos I and facing new enemies while moving through spaces that have already been picked clean.

Still, it's a minor complication in an otherwise great example of good level design and interesting power/challenge systems. I know a ton of interesting games will come out this year (like every year!) but if you have the means to take a look at Prey, do so! 

And if you want a bit more from Ricardo “Mega-Dungeon” Bare, check out this hour-long conversation Gamasutra Editor-In-Chief Kris Graft and Contributing Editor Bryant Francis had with him while streaming Prey on our Twitch channel last month. (I’m not in it, so it should be pretty watchable!)

Alternate titles for this blog: Beat, Prey, Love; Prey You Catch Me; Let Us Prey

[symbianosgames]

The following blog post, unless otherwise noted, was written by a member of Gamasutra’s community. The thoughts and opinions expressed are those of the writer and not Gamasutra or its parent company.

Anew: The Distant Light is a Metroid-style open-world game currently in development and nearing feature-complete.  (We also have a Kickstarter underway.)  This article discusses the practical application of some design theory for deep gameplay with examples in Anew.

What does it mean for a game to have deep design or deep play?  This is a personal question with different answers for different people.  To me, it means that a game has a large possibility space, dense with interesting player choices.  It doesn’t require an endless game world (though the world of Anew is quite large) or hundreds of redundant items.  It does, however, require thoughtful planning by the designer.

Deep design can be approached from the top down.  The developer can create multiple roads (literally) to get from A to B, provide different viable methods to defeat an enemy, design multiple solutions to a puzzle, or lay diverse clues about the truth behind a mystery.  

Going deep with Anew: The Distant Light

It’s not just about having options though.  Each way should have varied advantages and consequences so that the player’s approach, conscious or accidental, has meaning.  For some players this will involve an analysis to find the path of least resistance.  Curious players will want to explore multiple paths.  For the most skilled players the path chosen may just be an expression of their style.

A bottom up approach to deep design can also grow a game’s possibility space and create meaningful player choices.  This is all about building interactions--how the functional pieces of the game (characters, items, and environment) affect each other.  The results of many of these interactions should be designed, but with enough interesting game systems emergent play will also develop.

Emergent player options can be overpowered.  If they're fun, and the advantage is only circumstantial or contextually limited (or can be made so), often the right design decision is to keep them.  Though, such such things shouldn't be allowed to entirely overshadow other potentially interesting ways of playing.

But, why design for gameplay depth?  The short answer is that deep gameplay creates positive emotions that feel good.  Here are a few examples:

Agency: Simply, it feels liberating to have options.  It’s also very fulfilling to know that your decisions caused your success, or at least allowed for it.

Epiphany: One feels clever after solving a puzzle or working out a new strategy that turns out to be effective.

Surprise:  As a player, it can be a very satisfying experience to receive a revelation about the story, discover a new place in the game world, or to stumble upon a new trick of game mechanics.  One of my favorite ways to evoke suprise is to challenge the player's assumptions about what's possible in the game world.

Mastery:  Some of the most rewarding feelings in a game come from a sense of expertise--knowing that you’re good and being able to show it off.  This requires a game to have a high skill cap, meaning that there is a long path of continued rewards and advantages for a player’s improvements in game knowledge, agility, and muscle memory.

Guilty Pleasure: As a player, it’s a fun sensation to feel like you’re getting away with something that perhaps shouldn’t be allowed.  A good designer creates and allows many such opportunities.

Endearment:  Fostering this is a lofty goal indeed for any game developer, but at least one can aim to create good replay value, which is often a prerequisite.  Reliably touch on other emotions in a game that you've convinced the player to spend time with, and with some luck you'll capture this elusive feeling.

So, designing for deep gameplay seems like a worthwhile pursuit.  Revealing that gameplay depth at a consumable pace is also important.  A player shouldn’t be overwhelmed with decisions when they start.  Early options should be apparent, satisfying, and have intuitive outcomes.  The best games entice new ways to play and allow for accidental discoveries without too much tutorial.  If a game is fun and deep, but the possibility space takes a while to explore, it helps keep players engaged and improves the replay value of the game.

These abstract design concepts are touchstones for many aspects of gameplay in Anew, but for equipment in particular.  Let’s take a look at our bottom up design concepts applied to a couple of our player weapons.  

We want to create meaningful choices and deep interactions between game systems.  So, we could say that each weapon must have at least two unique combat advantages and two utility advantages, such as mobility or environment access.  Through this design approach, even a standard issue SpringSteel Shotgun can yield deep gameplay.

Here are some uses for our Shotgun:

Easy to aim in panic situations

Can hit many targets at once

High damage is good for a killing blow (the only infinite ammo weapon with this)

Extreme damage at point blank range (all pellets hit)

Shotgun kick pushes player away from the threat you’re shooting at, helping to escape melee attacks after you get close without any special player dexterity

A well-timed kick can be used to increase jump height for dodging or for sequence breaking* before the Double Jump, the Climbing Gear, or the Jetpack are acquired

Shotgun kicks can also be used to escape jet-streams or to slow a precarious descent

Enemy knockback can throw them into environmental hazards or over cliffs

As you can see, there are many diverse and circumstantial reasons to equip and use the shotgun for offense, defence, and movement.  The different uses are also varied on the amount of player skill required for success.

*Sequence breaking is when a player proceeds through a progressively unlocking game world in an unobvious way, shortcutting the typical route.  One advantage is that this can yield access to items earlier, creating a spike in player power or options.  These may or may not be intentionally designed into the content.  See also Guilty Pleasure.

        In Anew, all weapons are designed to have unique roles.  This helps make decisions meaningful while still growing the possibility space of gameplay.

Let’s look at a less conventional weapon, the Buzzsaw.  This tool is powerful, but it spins up slowly, aims slowly, and slows your movement speed (especially once the sawblade is dug in).

Called the P-Saw by junkers, the Plasma Buzzsaw and renowned for its ability to scrap detritus in record time.  It’s also surprisingly useful for humble explorers who tend to encounter hostiles with unusual frequency.  

  If you’ve ever held a heavy power tool or felt the unwieldy gyroscopic effect of a spinning bike wheel, those are some sensations we wanted to convey in game with the Buzzsaw.  It’s not easy to make that come through the screen and controller, but we've made some good headway.

Some uses for the Buzzsaw:

Stuns most enemies while engaged

Causes a bleed effect that continues to damage after you’ve disengaged

Affects your body inertia for a variety of physics tricks

Attaches to plasma rails for rapid transit or navigating puzzles and combat sequences

Cuts through certain environmental barriers

Allows you to mine certain minerals that are otherwise inaccessible

Lets you cut access points into large mechanical enemies to defeat them from the inside

The Buzzsaw has some obvious and easy uses, some that you have to figure out, and some that require skill.  When to buzzsaw a durable enemy with other threats present is a surprisingly deep tactical choice.

Back to our game design touchstones.  What about maintaining interesting decisions and discoveries as the game progresses?  We know that it’s good to expose the possibility space gradually.  This helps to keep things fresh and also allow a more gentle learning curve.  So, we put weapon upgrades behind a few locked doors.

In Anew you will have to find ways to bring different parts of your homeship online, one being your workbench.  There, you can upgrade any of your weapons along a unique customization path.  Each upgrade requires a rare component found in the game world. Every upgrade is a choice between two mutually-exclusive options and the decisions are permanent (as far as you know).

For the Buzzsaw, the upgrade item is Focused Plasma.  There are a small number of these scattered throughout the game world, hidden or defended.  With one bit of Focused Plasma and some Materiel (a resource acquired from most things in the game world), you can apply your upgrade.

Your workbench interface

Upgrade options for the Plasma Buzzsaw:

Higher damage OR Faster aim speed

Faster warm up OR Longer bleed effect

Reduce energy cost OR Bigger blade

Rail direction change OR Longer bleed effect

Higher damage OR Faster movement when using

These choices are designed to be meaningful and provoke some internal debate.  The player will want to select improvements that fit their play style.  Some of the upgrades exist twice and those benefits will stack, creating further tension between other enticing choices (especially those that offer new mechanics).

In Anew, the player doesn’t need to nitpick over stats--every weapon is substantially different and each upgrade has a meaningful change that you can feel.  So the player only has to consider the concept of each upgrade and not pull out a calculator to make a decision.

We’ve seen similar upgrade systems in other games and found them to be deep, despite their relative simplicity.  We hope that you like these ideas for deep gameplay and we think they’ll help make a fun, highly replayable game.  Please share your thoughts in the comments below.

If you liked this, you may want to read my other Gamasutra article on creating fluid gunplay, which is somewhat more oriented toward art and programming.

__

Steve Copeland and Jeff Spoonhower have worked on games in franchises such as Bioshock, Borderlands, Star Wars, Uncharted, Lord of the Rings, Command & Conquer, Saints Row, and others.  They are co-founders of Resonator and comprise the two-person team developing Anew: The Distant Light, which currently has a Kickstarter underway.

[symbianosgames]

Jason: As someone who loves to light, I am excited by this new tech and look forward to seeing it evolve over the next year or so. Not having spent a significant amount of time in this limits first hand experience, but the small amount thus far is encouraging. With any new software, tech or approach comes the learning curve.  This is accompanied by a rigid physically based boundary that can be hard to break out of when trying to explore. 

The long term challenge: Can we use that perfect scanned data simply as a base and springboard to a variant of that texture, while still maintaining all the physical based accuracy and detail from the scan?  On top of all that...can we get the varied look that our games need?  

- Twitter user Ara Carrasco asked:

What's the most important aspect of art direction for you?good lighting, good modelling & texturing...?

Jason: Practically speaking, I usually say lighting as it can alter the mood/tone of a scene with a simple dawning of the light.  Theoretically speaking, I would say tonal cohesion between what the game/film/movie is trying to represent with what the art is trying to communicate.  

Andrew: I'd have to say that it's the name for me. "Direction". I really like the word. I think we forget what it means sometimes behind the semantics of a job description, but directing for me is about asking the right questions rather the giving the right answers. I'm constantly amazed by how inventively creative people can solve a problem that you put in front of them. And as long as you are providing them with the right bounds and goals you get something that evolves way beyond what you could have initially anticipated. Power amplification is the name of the game. It sure is a lot of work to prevent things from going in diametrically opposite directions but to me it feels like if the artists have the room to roam within the bounds of the fictional worlds that they are creating the vision and direction get amplified tenfold providing for really rich and exciting experiences.

Greg: I would have to say that the most important part of Art Direction is the presentation.  Establishing where the camera is and how the game is going to be experienced by the player is paramount to me.  This is where the picture as a whole comes into focus.  It allows you to concept and design elements at an appropriate detail level.  In a lot of ways figuring out the presentation gives you the edges of your canvas.  It is the boundary that you create the picture in.  From there everything else flows.

Brian: Answer: I always start with the big picture, for environments it's Composition, Lighting, Motion and Context (What is the story of the environment) For characters, Silhouette and Motion.

Denis: That's a tough one there is so much to it. If I'd had to pick, I probably go with good communication and keeping your team motivated. Communication is key to optimize and limit iteration cycles. For that to happen it has to be a two sided dialogue, so you as AD can take in feedback and act according to it. For me personally the artistic decision making often happens during discussions with my team and I just make sure I follow through with it and keep people on track.

Motivation is essential for me because it keeps the team engaged and they will push for the best possible result, sometimes way beyond what was initially asked of them.

Both of these points in the end have direct impact on productivity, quality and efficiency - hey I'm German after all ;P 

- Twitter user Evan asked:

How do you balance advanced and detail visuals supported by modern consoles with practical design that supports gameplay? As in, keep clear indicators for the players while looking natural and not contrived for gameplay purposes at the same time?

Brian: It's always a conversation about goals.  On Tomb Raider we always tried to create believable worlds that the player instinctivly understood what was interactive or where they were supposed to go.  We use "Visual Language" to help guide the player with consistent visual cues. We mark climbable ledges with white paint, rope coils are always used to indicate where a rope arrow can go, bright pocked walls indicated axe climb surfaces and specifically cracked walls indicated places you could open with your axe.  We protect these patterns in the game so the player always knows how to interact when these examples of visual language show up in the game.

Greg: In a game like XCOM there are many design requirements that effect the art.  It is beneficial to try and identify what needs to be communicated by design early so that visual opportunities are more easily identified.  Being a turned based game can be seen as a huge challenge to immersion, but we saw this as one of our opportunities.  The camera in XCOM is a great example of this since it can literally be anywhere while you are playing.  By changing the camera we can reinforce the design mechanics and provide a tension that is difficult to convey from a more three quarter view.  However, the camera changes also provide some real art challenges.  We needed to make assets that read clearly from the top down view as well as in a close up cinematic camera.  This led us to the initial art direction of XCOM: Enemy Unknown that focused on a “miniatures” look with slightly exaggerated forms and more chunky geometry.  We didn’t want have the details be so small for the close up cameras that they would dance or shimmer from the default gameplay camera.  On the flip side we couldn’t make things so chunky that they destroyed the immersion when the camera dropped down. We spent a lot of time initially balancing these issues and setting very clear modeling and texturing rules.

Andrew:  Design dependencies are always a tricky subject. Confused or frustrated players can't enjoy the game so keeping them happy and their goals clear is a big part of art production. For us it's a constant back and forth. At the very beginning of a project we would iterate with design on gameplay relevant art elements to make sure we can produce art around it that integrates with it nicely. We always want to make sure not to muddy up our language. Exceptions are dangerous and confusing to the player. False positives are also a thing we have to look out for a lot especially in games like Uncharted where it's so easy to create a traversible path somewhere we don't actually want the players to go. 

Sounds trivial  but it's also incredibly valuable to have artists constantly play their levels. It's something that's easy to loose sight of in the heat of production.

And if all else fails it's time to break out the bird poop and yellow paint ;)

- Twitter user Will T Atkers asked:

About how long does it take for a main character to go from concept to final phase?

Andrew: Depends. I'm a strong proponent of getting something in the game as soon as possible, no matter how rough. But from then till someone rips the gold master from out of your sweaty sleep deprived hands it's continuous iteration and polish all the way. It's one of those art is never finished answers. It's important to note that it's easy to reach diminishing returns when you iterate for a very long time. And it's on you to plan and prioritize accordingly. The Pareto principle is a good example of how it usually breaks down: 80% of the work usually takes 20% of the time and the last 20% take the other 80% of time. The last percent come painfully slow, but they also provide most opportunity to grow. Taking something from 0 to 80% awesome is a relatively common skill, but the difference of 1% between 97% and 98% is almost infinitely more valuable. It is literally the "cutting edge" and sometimes takes weeks or months of work to get to.

Jason: In truth, I’ll say about 1 year.  This is strictly for a front and center character like Delsin.  I’ll try to break it down…

First is creative direction needs. What is the purpose of this character? What kind of attitude will they be exhibiting in the game? What kind of arc will this person have? Do they have a disarming or aggressive sensibility?   All of these conversations happen before we throw down any concept art.

Next we hit up concept and begin to sketch things out. Essentially, this process is fairly iterative with our creative direction team until we’re all in a good spot. One unique thing here I have experienced has been a found footage video concept or ‘personality rip-o-matic’.  

Then a fork happens.

On one road, the character team takes this into pre-production to build an in-game proxy model.  The goal is to check movement, scale, and begin to work out the sass of the character through prelim animations.  How do they run? How do they jump? What does this person do when in idle? What does the shape at a low poly look/feel like?

On the other road, we begin CASTING.  Since we use scans and full performance capture, this is very important process to our hero character model pipeline. The creative direction team creates a character description (2 page max) document of our hero. This usually entails basic details like sex, height, weight, and age. Then the remainder of the document explains this person’s motivations, goals, flaws, potential arcs, and habits.  Then we audition a ton of people in hopes that we find someone that can not only bring out the attitude we’re hoping to get, but also have a likeness that is in-line with our visual goals.  In the case of Delsin, Troy Baker fit the bill nicely.

After we cast an actor, we begin the scanning process.  Full body and facial expressions are scanned and sent back to our team.  Our concept and character team will work with the body scan to make any edits that are needed to fit our hero; shorter, taller, thicker, etc.   We take these measurements and send them to a fashion designer who makes patterns to use in Marvelous Designer. Now these two roads have largely converged and we’re onto the next steps.

From here its fairly straight forward. We create hi-poly models of our character based off concept art, bake down and replace our temp PROXY model.  Then comes quality bar iteration through various scenarios. In the past we have 2 scenarios that drive the biggest feedback.

First, the in-game model must be awesome. Since inFAMOUS is a third person action game, the in-game model matters the most. Seeing them running around in the game world with good lighting performing polished versions of those proxy model animations usually highlights a few issues. Sometimes we can’t see them at night so we add better shape or increase value.  Sometimes it’s simply “Delsin isn’t punk enough”, and we add some shiny flare on his vest.

Second, cutscenes will bring the personalities to life. Often cutscenes drive the high end quality bar for us. Unfortunately, cutscenes take a while to make and usually come fairly late in the game.  This is where we iterate on our character specific tech like eyes, skin shading, clothes and hair.

In short, it’s a lengthy process for Hero characters. I wouldn’t be lying if I said a year…  We spend a lot of time ensuring our main character is tonally sound in the marriage between Art Direction and Creative Direction.  For a second tier character we are looking at 2 or so months. 

Brian: Depending on the character, it varies. Heroes usually take longer. Lara took a full year to develop for Tomb Raider 2013 because we were reinventing her. Generally for principal cast models, we spend 2-4 weeks in concept development, hand sculpted realistic characters take 2+ months (High poly, Low Poly bake, textures/materials/shaders) Blend shapes for facial animation and rigging takes another month. Total time 4 months.  Secondary characters usually are created faster, 2 months from concept to finish. Scanning will change these metrics, but a lot more time is spent on preparation like casting, wardrobe, scanning, processing so a fully realistic character scan can get in game in about a month, but if you scan a bunch of bodies and heads at one time, the process is much faster.

Greg: The time that it takes to go from concept to final model depends on several factors.  By working with concept and design the complexity of the character gets defined and the amount of articulation can impact the timeline for production significantly.  Depending on how important of a role the character has will also dictate the time spent in concept.  For us we typically can take about two weeks in concept for one of our aliens in XCOM, but that can really vary and it will stay in concept until we are happy with the direction.  The modeling for something like an alien can take around 4 weeks on average.  With procedural characters, like the soldiers in XCOM it is much more difficult to quantify the time.  A lot of effort is put into developing the systems and how all the parts interact, as well as planning for armor upgrades and customization options. This is really a huge task and quite a bit different from a character that is more self-contained.  Pipelines are also much less linear than just going from concept to model and there is a ton of overlap now.  We typically have the modeler, animation and rigging team involved during the finalization of the concept.  All of these disciplines are able to give input before we go into real production of a final character. Once we are happy at the concept level the model is blocked in and goes to rigging and animation.  Feedback is compiled and applied to the model at this stage. The major point for us is that the model isn’t finished until it is in the game and moving.

- Twitter user Travis asked:

What can you do to keep a cohesive art direction between world assets and FX?

Denis: All my projects so far have been stylized and We went through heavy iteration to find the right style. One initials setups we did on my last project was a small art ready diorama. We made several versions of VFX to see how they'd fit. We also concepted some of the VFX which was helpful. But because of the abstract nature of effects I still consider them the hardest to iterate on. In the end it boiled down to try and error for us.

Combat FVX are a Beast of its own. They have  a lot of requirements like  damagetype, area of effect, faction/monster affiliation and on top it has to resonate really well with combat design, sound and animation.

Having so many pieces that have to collaborate on VFX you have to make sure that everyone knows what the goal is and where we are aiming artistically. Since constantly supervising this process is something you cant afford in production.

Greg: I don’t see these as separate things.  The overall rules for the look of the game directly apply to the effects just like any other element in the game.  Just like a prop in the environment, effects need to be developed in context and not in isolation.  Any effect is an extension of the thing it is attached to, whether it enhances the environment or a character’s ability.

Brian: I always think of them together, FX and Lighting will make every environment come to life.  It's important to ensure FX only dominate a location when they are the star, like being in a level that is on fire, or flooded, etc. But always ensure the style of FX matches the Art Direction of the Environment.  Zelda is my favorite example of stylized FX that match and enhance the Art Direction.

Andrew: Agreed with the gents that this issue is not specific to FX. Maintaining vision and boundaries is crucial with any aspect of art direction. And encouraging people and departments to communicate and collaborate is the timeless challenge of any production. Getting people in the same room to talk and removing middlemen is always the best remedy in my experience.

Technically there are issues with having particles look integrated and leveraging environment data is always a big help. Making sure particles light consistently and accurately under environment lighting and don't need any shader hackery is a big one. Using environment data like surface color or material for the types of squibs or fx to play also add a lot to tying it all together. There are cool geo-based particle approaches coming up so having them integrate with the world should become even easier.