#seems like the back alley used to be more playable

[elle-p]

Persona 3 FES all Port Island Station NPC dialogue not in https://gamefaqs.gamespot.com/ps2/932312-shin-megami-tensei-persona-3/faqs/50852 ripped from the US version of FES with Persona Editor.

Station Attendent: Recently… this girl has started coming around here… She wears this white dress, with this puffy lace… I don't know what kind of fashion that is, but… it's not my style.

[nm010_001](Port Island Station)

Junpei(7/30): Dude, isn't our group getting kinda messed-up? We got a Persona-using robot, and now there's a Persona-using dog! What's next, man? A gorilla with potential?

Station Attendant: The other day, I saw a young man who was… a little different. He seemed about the age to be in high school, and he was throwing a ball up and down. Do high school students still play with those kinds of toys? Well, I heard people's mental states were in decline, so maybe so…

Movie-loving Man: I sometimes see this girl sitting right over there, drawing. She has red hair and a white, frilled dress… She stands out like a sore thumb. I can't just walk by and pretend like she's not there… It's like some anime… You don't usually see stuff like this. Maybe I should talk to her next time…

Movie-loving Man: You know how in movies, you see bodyguards with tattoos on their arms, and you know they're badass? Well, I saw one of 'em. It was right near here, man. He wasn't built like a bodyguard, though… He was rail-thin… It was easy to tell, cause he wasn't wearing a shirt.

Movie-loving Man: You know how in movies, you see bodyguards with tattoos on their arms, and you know they're badass? Well, I saw one of 'em. It was right near here, man. He wasn't built like a bodyguard, though… He was rail-thin… It was easy to tell, cause he wasn't wearing a shirt.

Nervous Man: T-The weather is nice… The sky is blue, and there's a cool breeze…

Patient Woman: Yeah. The sky's pretty.

Cat: Meow.

(Interact with Chidori)

She's completely preoccupied with her drawing…

Salaryman: I sometimes see a girl drawing here. She looks a little strange, but that's okay. She's so mysterious… it's like she lives in a different world. She doesn't care what other people say, she's living on her own, not following anyone's orders… As a salaryman who follows orders for a living, I'm naturally jealous…

Your Charm seems to have increased! Your Charm went from "{F2 03 01 01}" to "{F2 03 02 01}"!

[ns010_001](Port Island Station)

(There's an unused name '鴎蚊のお伎さん'. It's not the japanese text, since that's still NPC000(Flower Shop Lady))

Yukari(7/28): Akihiko-senpai acts a little different when Ken-kun is around. Have you noticed?

{"Yeah."}

Yukari: I wonder why… Maybe he doesn't get along well with kids. If you ask me, Akihiko-san seems pretty clumsy…

{"No."}

Yukari: You're so thick! You should pay more attention to how people get along with each other.

Flower Shop Lady: Welcome to Rafflesia. What kind of flowers are you looking for today?

Junpei(7/28): Ken really respects Akihiko-san. I totally understand how he feels. Dude, Akihiko-san won 16 straight boxing matches. If even I look up to the guy, then kids must think he's a hero, you know?

{"I think so too."}

Junpei: A hero… You think we have what it takes to be heroes?

{"I don't think so."}

Junpei: Ahh, you just don't understand a man's passion!

Flower Shop Lady: Would you like another type of flower?

Flower Shop Lady: 蔚畏では黄に2応陥、韻韓の館羽鴎をセレクトして舘丸含しております。岸せて鴎烏巌と、それにちなんだ、階々お玩いメッセ‒ジもお癌えします。もしもお眼岩の翫けになったならば、贋いな化です。それでは雁頑、舘丸含しましょう。

{Rose Bouquet}

{Red Pine Bonsai}

{Look at the other flowers}

{Never mind}

Flower Shop Lady: It'll be 2,000 yen for {F2 19 01 01}.

{Mini Cactus}

{Glass Vase}

{Look at the other flowers}

{Never mind}

Flower Shop Lady: It'll be 3,000 yen for {F2 19 01 01}.

Flower Shop Lady: It'll be 4,000 yen for {F2 19 01 01}.

Flower Shop Lady: It'll be 5,000 yen for {F2 19 01 01}.

Flower Shop Lady: Thank you very much for your purchase.

{"Sure."}

{"On second thought…"}

Obtained {F2 19 01 01}.

Flower Shop Lady: Please come again.

Flower Shop Lady: Hmm? You don't have enough space for {F2 19 01 01}. Come back once you've organized your belongings.

Flower Shop Lady: Hmm? You don't have enough money. Save up, and come back again.

Flower Shop Lady: 意応セレクトした館羽鴎はこちら、ジャ‒マンカモミ‒ルです。鴎烏巌は"悔顔に垣けない概さ"。稲羽にはどこで悔顔が恩ち仮けるかも印かりません。そんな韻、あなたの巻炎にいる稲々がきっとあなたを翫けてくれるでしょう。竃願から稲々の桶企を越っておくのは、とても下臆な化です。

Flower Shop Lady: 意応セレクトした館羽鴎はこちら、アルケミラです。鴎烏巌は"危き"。稲は危きに喜かれると器に、また允らも危く化ができます。磯勧、あなたにもあなたの危きがあります。きっとその危きに喜かれて、撹襖の稲があなたとの桶企を越つでしょう。

Flower Shop Lady: 意応セレクトした館羽鴎はこちら、ジャ‒マンアイリスです。鴎烏巌は"謁翰"。謁翰を基垣ったとき、ある簡の稲はそれを亥稲で永し諌げようとします。しかし磯蓋はいけません。亥奇嬉いて、寄りを運応してください。厭れる稲は、そこに栢ますか?

Flower Shop Lady: 意応セレクトした館羽鴎はこちら、ペンステモンです。鴎烏巌は"衛茨"。允印と岐介な稲々との希額を幾けてしまう化はありませんか? そういう韻は衛茨を越って、忌ら、忌慰らと希してみてください。歌しい揮覚と歌しい允机は、旗々にしてその兜にあるものです。

Flower Shop Lady: 意応セレクトした館羽鴎はこちら、アスチルベです。鴎烏巌は"既の期れ"。運た看、黄飲の羽棋さんですよね。茨になる慰の棄とか栢ますか? もしそうなら、機さず炎刊いてみる化も、一えの帰に援れておいてくださいね。

Flower Shop Lady: 意応セレクトした館羽鴎はこちら、キンギョソウです。鴎烏巌は"おしゃべり"。おしゃべり、してますか? マンネリとか、してませんか? 毅き花げた桶企を気越する憾には、おしゃべりはとても汽冠ですよ。

Flower Shop Lady: 意応セレクトした館羽鴎はこちら、リアトリスです。鴎烏巌は"泳花陰"。泳花陰のない嫁は、危きを鰻くします。危きのない嫁に、稲は畿を碍りません。泳花陰を越って允机の祈季に稀めれば、より紀くの稲があなたを運てくれるでしょう。

Flower Shop Lady: 意応セレクトした館羽鴎はこちら、アザレアです。鴎烏巌は"允徽陰"。桶企が規い化は於い化ですが、喚りに規いと峨に垣えなくなってしまいます。刊き鋭いの記さと峨規さは姻貴基起。どのくらいのバランスを軌つのか、あなたの允徽陰が革われるでしょう。

Flower Shop Lady: 意応セレクトした館羽鴎はこちら、カンナです。鴎烏巌は"玩鴛な輝外"。井化も馨て飢絵です。あなたの飲衣羽騎も飢絵です。井も一えずに王ごせば、それが干わる韻、あなたは鬼遠に亀れるでしょう。玩鴛な輝外を廓堰し、於く一えて、飢絵の欧々を薗しんでください。

Flower Shop Lady: 意応セレクトした館羽鴎はこちら、ブ‒タンマツリです。鴎烏巌は"いたずら陰"。偽寛箇花既稲輝儀と烏いますが、こういう韻は慨け喜きを薗しみましょう。いたずらな既妓の宜し刊けよりも、いたずら陰の薗しい慨け喜き。そして禍戯を恩ちましょう。

Flower Shop Lady: 意応セレクトした館羽鴎はこちら、アリッサムです。鴎烏巌は"閲宇り"。偽妓が技れた化はありませんか? 偽妓とは宇せるものであり、また宇せるとものと榎じるものです。榎じる擬に、欺めず、そして犠茨於く、員し右けてみてください。そうすれば、きっと宇るでしょう。

Flower Shop Lady: 意応セレクトした館羽鴎はこちら、ツルバラです。鴎烏巌は"あなたの餌各に疑えます"。あなたの祇鋭もあるでしょうが、義せられた餌各には疑えてください。磯架にはね刊けてばかりいると、その樫は運る運る蟻れてしまうでしょう。

Flower Shop Lady: 意応セレクトした館羽鴎はこちら、キャッツテ‒ルです。鴎烏巌は"茨まま"。企される化のそれ允巻は、賀して廻い化ではありません。誼外より稲や奥議焔は、企される化で歌たな掬菊に鞠り頴きました。企される化は、歌たな揮覚を吉運する憾の吃とした峨願なのです。茨ままに荏え、欝喫に企される化で、歌たな稲々と夏潟う化もあるでしょう。

Flower Shop Lady: 意応セレクトした館羽鴎はこちら、ウインタ‒コスモスです。鴎烏巌は"黍却"。揮覚とは客脚として虐逆で丘久とし、その可に黍却を屋るのは溢仇です。允印を宜し嚇すか、休及するか、下俺で吸宮するか、妓弓を箇て喜き援れるか。あなたはどのようにして、稲々との黍却を屋ていますか?

Flower Shop Lady: 意応セレクトした館羽鴎はこちら、コリアンダ‒です。鴎烏巌は"澗れた急救"。お畏の稲って、どう迦います? ただの畏蚊とだけ朽り臆っていませんか? お畏の稲も、また稲です。あなたとの吋に、桶企の求喫臼を越っています。そんなお畏の澗れた急救、あなたは茨刊いていましたか?

Flower Shop Lady: 意応セレクトした館羽鴎はこちら、エンゼルランプです。鴎烏巌は"あなたを崖りたい"。この揮覚に汲いて、崖りたい"井か"がありますか? 羽翰をも泣けられる"井か"をこの揮覚に運刊けていますか? でしたら、灸球それらを崖ってください。それらもまた、あなたを崖るでしょう。

Flower Shop Lady: 意応セレクトした館羽鴎はこちら、サザンクロスです。鴎烏巌は"究いを窮えて"。笈えば稲から究いを級されたら、あなたにそれが窮えられますか? 糾えはYESです。究いを級される陥の記い給桶があれば、それがすなわち、あなたの鰯です。もし欝蔚に究いを級された韻は、灸球、意までの給桶を迦い夏してください。

Flower Shop Lady: 意応セレクトした館羽鴎はこちら、プリムラ·ポリアンサです。鴎烏巌は"嬰旧の牛びと去しみ"。夏潟いと嘉れの居韓が炎刊いています。この亥影で、あなたは井に夏潟い、井と嘉れ、井の鰯を峨に援れましたか? 究わくば、それらが竃く、あなたの椅鬼を巨きますように。

Flower Shop Lady: 意応セレクトした館羽鴎はこちら、リビングスト‒ン·デイジ‒です。鴎烏巌は"拒の危き"。こんな稲が、拠に栢るようですが、あなたは唄っていますか? 允印の拒が危いているだけでなく、叡稲の拒にも危きを挙える稲。その稲の可には、"すべて"があるそうです。

Snoopy Reporter: Interviewers can't rely only on primary sources. Eyewitness reports are important, too. My favorite part of gathering information is all the unique people I get to meet. For example, the other day I talked to a young man who spoke in Kansai dialect. Kansai isn't something you hear every day around here!

…… Ah… Uu…

(4 of these)

…… …… ……

Uhh… Ah… …… Ahh…

Uhaaa… Auuu… ……

Uhh… Uhwa… Aah… Ahhh…

Ahhh… Uu… Uhh…

…… …… Uaaaah…

…… Uh… Uhhhh… ……

Uh… Uh… Uhhhhhh… Uh…

Uaaah… Ahh… …… Uhhh…

(1st time interacting)

It's one of The Lost--victim of the Apathy Syndrome that's causing such a stir. You cannot get a meaningful response out of this person.

Female Student: Ci…elo… Mist…

Female Student: Want… Ci…elo… Mist……

She seems to want something… She's pointing to your {F2 1D 15 11}. Give her the {F2 1D 15 11}?

Female Student: Thank… you…

{Yes}

{No}

The girl downed one {F2 1D 15 11} after another! She drank 20 cans in all! Female Student: Ahh… that hit the spot. The student looks healthier now. Female Student: Huh…? A missing persons flyer…? Oh, I guess I haven't been back home in a while… I'll give my parents a call later. Thanks! The girl decided to phone home. You succeeded in delivering cool liquid refreshment.

Female Student: Not… Enough…

You don't have enough {F2 1D 15 11}. The girl gave the {F2 1D 15 11} back to you.

Female Student: Thanks… I feel better now…

NPC002: You dipshits better watch yourselves. If we see your face around here too often, someone's gonna get hurt.

[nm10_002]

(The only name is 'Punk'.

NPC001: Who are you candy-asses?

NPC001: Apathy Syndrome? Oh yeah, that bug that's going around these days. My buddy's dad has that thing… I dunno what to tell the poor son of a bitch.

NPC002: When you have that apathy thing, it's like you're too lazy to do anything, right? So what's the matter with them that they can't see a doctor? I mean, I ain't never been to med school, but it's gotta be worth a try.

NPC001: Sometimes Gekkou dumbasses come here in uniform. They better change clothes before they get their asses kicked. Who the hell wears a uniform on their days off? We're better off without sad-sacks like that.

NPC002: I guess it's all right to come here in your uniform, if it's like, after school or during the day. But at night? You've gotta be shitting me! Dude's gonna get knocked flat for dressing like that. Y'might say it's in violation of our, whaddayacallit, dress code. You better look out, too.

NPC001: I remember this one dude who was different from the rest… He comes here, but he never talks to anybody. He just sits in his little corner. I wonder what he's up to.

NPC002: I heard people sayin' that dude is stronger than he looks. He's a loner. His clothes are kinda old, but he's cool.

NPC001: I heard some shit went down here, our guys against the Gekkou morons. That wasn't you… was it? Nah. You don't look like you could piss those guys off that bad.

NPC002: But man… why would some Gekkou candy-asses come here? Students should stay at home and do their homework, or whatever.

NPC001: My buddy says these three weirdos come here a lot, but I haven't seen 'em yet.

NPC002: I couldn't give a crap about 'em. Long as they don't start any shit, they're cool with me.

NPC001: Looks like those three weirdos been snooping around here. Guess they're trying to hear the juicy stuff… the stuff you don't find out about in normal life.

NPC002: The whole reason I hang out here is to shoot the shit with my buds. Those three weirdos are the only ones who come here to learn anything. They need to get a life…

NPC001: I saw those weirdos talking to that asshole Shinjiro the other day… They tight or something?

NPC002: I thought that guy was a total loner… So he knows those weirdos? Eh, like it matters. I don't give two shits who's friends with who.

NPC001: You gotta show some respect when you're talkin' to one of my gang. But those three guys were acting like they owned the place. What's their problem…?

NPC002: Those assholes are just using us to gather info. They think we're some handy-dandy tool that'll give 'em the scoop any time they ask. There's something wrong with those guys.

NPC001: Dude, those three just don't fit in. I mean, yeah, it's not like I'd fit in if I left this place. The hell else would I be here? But for guys to be out of place HERE? Shit, dude… that's messed up.

NPC002: Hmm… I can't even imagine what they do with themselves all day. Can you? Especially that long-haired freak. I think he like, doesn't need anything but air to survive.

NPC001: The nutjob trio is down to two. That gothic lolita chick, yeah? Disappeared without a word.

NPC002: Even though there's just two of 'em now, they're still nuts. Especially that long-haired freak! Guy pisses me the hell off.

NPC001: That long-haired freak is up to his ass in tats. It's not like mine, just a word or two. He's got 'em up and down both arms. I could never go that far, man. Truth is, I don't like needles.

NPC002: I ain't crazy about going under the needle, man. But you know how it is… I gotta have one, or else I'm chicken. So what I did was, I got this sticker that looks just like a tat. You tell anyone and I'll beat your ass, got it?

NPC001: One of those Gekkou dudes… Yeah, Shinjiro. I heard he had some kinda accident and died. I heard it happened here, too. I don't care much what goes on around here, but… When I think about a dude getting snuffed… It kinda creeps me out.

NPC002: Yo, this had NOTHING to do with us. Got it? We weren't even here. I know how it looks to guys like you on the outside… But I don't give a shit about them if they stay out of our faces.

NPC001: That four-eyes who's always got that attache case… What the hell's in that thing? It better not be dangerous… Man, who am I kidding? He's one of those three… what else would it be?

NPC002: Huh… I wonder what's in that case of his. He looks like the calmest dude out of the three of 'em. Don't you think? Don't you think so? Maybe he's more normal than I'm giving him credit for. Yeah… there probably ain't anything to worry about in his case.

NPC001: I don't see those two so much anymore. Thank God for that, man. They annoyed the shit out of me.

NPC002: What was up with those guys? They come in, act like a buncha weirdos, and disappear. I don't get it.

NPC001: I bet those two… or three, whatever… thought they were King Shit. The way they strutted around here, in those messed-up clothes… They had to think like that, or they never woulda been able to do the stuff they did…

NPC002: Yeah, dude, it's all about self-confidence. But we don't gotta worry about them anymore. They're long gone, dude.

NPC001: Don't you think stuff's been kinda messed-up these days, dude? Like that apathy thing… It just keeps getting worse and worse.

NPC002: Yeah, I know what he means… You can't go anywhere these days without seeing those weird flyers. What's up with that shit? It doesn't look like any rival gang sign I know, but…

NPC001: I don't give a shit about the new year or anything, man. Some of those guys go up Mt. Fuji out of habit, but… I ain't never did that, and hell if I ever will.

NPC002: Some guys like to plan this stuff in advance… I don't even own a calendar, man. When we wanna do something, we do it. That's our holiday. You gotta be free, dude.

NPC001: The town's been looking like a garbage dump, and I heard it's all those cult dudes' fault. All that graffiti shit… I mean, we do it too sometimes, but… Not this much! They must be outta their minds.

NPC002: It's fine if they want to say, "Those who believe will be saved." Whatever. It bugs me, but at least I get what they're saying. But that weird sign they leave all over the damn place is different. It doesn't make any sense. Creeps me out… Shit…

NPC001: Dude, did you see that magazine!? It has that freak's face on it! You know, the long-haired asshole who used to come around here! THAT'S their friggin' savior!? Those guys got no sense of humor… This is the worst joke I ever heard.

NPC002: I saw that dude so often, I just thought of him as "that freak"… But he's some kinda savior? And he's got a whole cult behind him!? Holy shit, dude! What the hell is everyone's problem?

NPC001: Well, well… Looks like the cult is history, and those three weirdos were sent packin'… Everything's back to normal. }I'm bored outta my skull, but it's better than going through all that shit again.

NPC002: Dude, do you remember anything we did this entire year? I just remember chilling here… That's it. Man, I hate to say this, but… What a waste of time.

He seems to be very weak. Maybe he's hungry… Give him {F2 1D 39 11}?

[ns010_002]

(The names are 'Weak cat', 'Contented cat', and 'Energetic cat'.)

…Mew…

He seems to be very weak. Maybe he's hungry… You want to feed him, but you don't have anything he might eat…

{Yes}

{No}

…Mew.

The cat slowly started to eat.

Meoooowwww!!

……

Meow… Meowww…

The cat is purring loudly. It seems happy. If you come back and feed it some more, it might get healthier… The cat is purring loudly. It seems happy. The purring seems louder than it did the other day. If you come back and feed it some more, it might get healthier… The cat is purring loudly. It seems happy. His eyes are more open now. If you come back and feed it some more, it might get healthier…

Meooooww!

The cat is purring loudly. It seems happy. The cat seems to have regained all its energy by eating the cat food. It seems you won't need to come and feed it anymore.

Meeoooooww!

The weakened cat has eaten all the cat food, and has regained its former energy. It also seems to have grown… It seems you won't need to come and feed it anymore.

[lorahgames]

Let's talk about: Pokemon Day 2024

First off, I went into this direct with high expectations. My predictions (for games) were:

A Pokemon Legends Game

A Remake/Ported version of a mainline series game (specifically, B&W or Johto)

The livestream addressed a few things that I am not too familiar with/don't use, so I won't be going into that. This includes Pokemon Horizons: the series, Pokemon Masters EX, and Pokemon Cafe Remix. I can't provide any opinions on if these announcements were exciting or not, so not bothering trying!

Let's begin with the announcement of the Gen 1 Tera Raid Mightiest Mark Battles for Pokemon Scarlet/Violet. I will be playing these! I got the mightiest mark charizard when that raid first dropped, so would love to get the other mighty Kanto starters, especially my long-time favourite, Blastoise. Long live the water starters!!!

Next up, Pokemon Trading Card Pocket. I didn't think much when I first saw it, but the game premise is really growing on me. After all, I am such a sucker for gacha games. Yeah. Anyone remember Quidd, the sticker trading game? Had me in an absolute chokehold, so I feel like this is right up my alley. I'm not sure if I'll actually battle people besides friends, but I'll be all over opening the packs up. I'll definitely be giving this a try.

Fun Side Story Time! I used to be obsessed with the trading cards. I had a collection of hundreds of cards from the early 2000s, with a lot of rare ones thrown in there. Always took them to school to play around with the other pokemon kids. I WAS ROBBED. One of those playground losers stole my entire collection, plus a Webkinz from me. I have been too sad to get involved with the cards since then.

Then we got the new playable pokemon added to Pokemon Unite that include Miraidon, Falinks, and Ceruledge. I have actually revisited Pokemon Unite in the last week. It's still kicking, with enough players to fill matches, and still pretty fun. Forever a Mew main. My only thoughts on this announcement though, is why Falinks? I never played Sword/Shield, so maybe Falinks has some secret hidden fanbase I just never heard of? Also, way to leave Pokemon Scarlet in the dust, Nintendo. You couldn't of added one exclusive from each of the Gen 9 games instead of pulling both from Violet? Oh well.

Surprisingly, I've been using Pokemon Sleep for the past two months, so I'm actually kind of excited about the game receiving legendaries! I think I'm too new to the game to actually come across one in a reasonable amount of time, but it's nice to know it's a possibility.

Now we have Nintendo's grand finale: Pokemon Z-A.

My first thought was, the hell is this?

So I have never actually played Kalos. I was a broke kid whose mom did not think they needed a 3DS, as I already had a DS at home (DS lite WAS NOT the same, Mom!). There was no way 12 year old me was going to scrape up enough pocket money to buy it, so just never bothered. So I have absolutely no emotional connection to Kalos whatsoever. I was jealous of the people who got to play, though. They got Sylveon, an adorable new addition to the Eevee line, and a complete powerhouse! It's one of my favourites.

Honestly, all expectations aside, this game looks good. Legends Arceus was an absolute game-changer in the pokemon series, With a complete new storyline and game mechanics, and I have in fact been waiting for another instalment in the Legends series. Although I had (severely) high hopes for Unova, I'm excited to visit Kalos for my very first time! I can't tell at all if this game is set in past or future. I initially thought past, but not as far back as Legends Arceus. More like, right before major city development takes place. But everyone else seems to think it's super futuristic! I don't really see that working though, if it follows a similar plot to Legends Arceus, since the pokedex would already be completed, as well as most major pokemon research developments. It's all speculation, I'm no expert at all, but that's what I got from the trailer.

I will admit, I am terribly disappointed by the lack of Unova :( If you know me, then you know I am a hardcore Gen-5 stan, so I was praying to the pokemon gods to PLEASE GIVE ME THIS. I'm honestly surprised they avoided remakes completely. Could it be because of the backlash from BDSP? People hated the chibis (personally, I didn't love them but it wasn't awful) so maybe they thought to hold off on remaking more. I just thought with the amount of pointers from the Scarlet/Violet DLC, we would've gotten SOMETHING. A girl can only hope.

Anyway, those are my thoughts on Pokemon Day 2024. Lemme know what you guys think!

LORAH

[paperdemon-arpg]

Art RPG Forge: 10 Ways to Grow Your Art RPG Community

Building an Art RPG is a lot of work, but the work doesn’t stop when you’ve figured out your mechanics and assets. Players are the heartbeat of every Art RPG, so how do you jumpstart the pulse? In this article, I'll share 10 tips for attracting players to your Art RPG. Most of these tips can apply to both Art RPGs that are just launching or have been running for years.

These are in no particular order. What will work best for you and your game depends a little on luck and a little on skill. Choose something that feels approachable but don’t be afraid to explore all of them!

If you don’t see immediate success, don’t worry too much about it. Community building can take months or even years before you see significant results. It’s an investment, and you’ll have to keep it up until you get where you want to be.

#1 - A Playable Game

While this might seem obvious, many Art RPGs only launch with a handful of mechanics functional, if any. Other mechanics are usually teased as “coming soon,” but never happen. Make sure that your game has functional playability before launching it. If a player shows up and is interested but can’t actually play the game, you’ve lost a potential community member. They might come back later, but why miss that first chance?

All of the central parts of your game should be up and running when you’re bringing in new recruits. You can leave some room for future development, but don’t put vital functions behind closed doors.

#2 - Clear Onboarding

The biggest barrier to entry for most Art RPGs is too much information too soon. Some games have a wall of all of their links and others have a starter guide, but few take the time to walk their players through the game step by step in bite sized pieces.

Make sure your getting started guide is approachable. It should be as clear and concise as possible and introduce your players to the world and the mechanics with optional deeper information hosted on other guides. Consider building a walkthrough or a mentorship program for your game.

#3 - Newbie Events

Offer new players an opportunity to get a free character or gift basket of items. Offering free characters or predesigned characters reduces the barrier to entry for new players. Choose giveaway items so that they’re things that can be used early in the game, or give the new players access to an important high value item or two that they can look forward to using. 

You can even incentivise existing players to invite their friends in order to earn rewards for both themselves and the new player.

#4 - Eye Catching Art

Invest in the look of your game. Banners, item art, NPCs, import base art. All of these and more are where people are likely to draw their first judgment of your game. The more professional and polished the art in your game is, the more likely people will give it a longer look. Make sure to establish a cohesive style for your game to set the tone.

Consider commissioning artists or bringing them onto your team long term to create event art and new assets as your game moves forward. Don’t cheap out on this– it can get pricey but it’ll be even more difficult and pricey to have to replace the art later on. Make sure to have use agreements in writing, particularly if you’re planning on selling the art as merch.

#5 - Paid Banner and Video Ads

Word of mouth is the primary way most Art RPGs bring in new players, but there are an enormous amount of artists out there who haven’t even heard of the genre. Banner ads on sites that artists and creators frequent, particularly artists and creators your game targets, can help bring in new players. Look into targeted YouTube ads that show up on videos by creators whose audience matches yours.

#9 - In-Person Events

Does your town have a local fan convention? Do you table at an artists alley? Is there an artist meetup group you can plug into? Get involved in your in-person community and keep links on hand to show people about your game. Consider printing flyers or business cards to hand out to other artists you meet in the wild. Get in touch with convention staff before the event, some conventions offer specific tables for creative advertisers who aren’t actually selling merch.

#6 - Active Events and Developments

Some Art RPGs are fairly static, but most have seasonal events and new releases to keep players engaged. Consider putting together a roadmap for your game so you can time the creation of assets and mechanics for a regular release schedule. The summer tends to be a high activity period for many Art RPGs, and summer events can bring in new players as well as excite and engage existing ones.

#7 - Social Media

Social media posts keep your players updated, show how active your game is, and provide quick, snappy information for new players. You can feature art, events, spotlights, and much more to show people the very best of your game. Pick only one or two to focus on at first– social media can be overwhelming and different platforms often require different styles of content. Look into social media scheduling tools to help keep your social media active and on track.

As of the time of this writing, we've seen Art RPGs have the most success with the social platforms Discord and Instagram.

#8 - Healthy Community

While internet communities are made up of many people who have many different styles of communication, there is a lot you can do to shape the atmosphere and expectations of your community. Make sure you have very clear rules about behavior that you enforce consistently and fairly. Talk to your team to make sure everyone is on the same page about how they handle both positive and negative situations with the community. Reward players who engage consistently and positively!

#10 - Connect to the Larger Community

There are hundreds of other Art RPGs out there. Many of them have affiliate lists or Discords where they allow advertising for other Art RPGs. Connect with other leaders and see if they want to work together on anything from swapping affiliate links to building crossover events between games.

Do you have more tips for growing your Art RPG that we missed? Let us know in the comments.

Reposted from our Blog Written by Shyftlock

[asoulofatlantis]

Stream 7 is working now, but its for some reason starting at a totally different point then the one we started in before. Just bare with me, even if it seems like we have kinda gone “back in time” ourselfs for once ^^’ Sadly, once again, no chat and I can not see were I am going, so we might miss some stuff once more.

- No. We are there at the beginning of the fighting, just a few moments earlier, then last time. In any case, we can jump forward a bit, as we’ve already covered this. It is Cody, Kaelas little brother and the joung Hercules guy from CS3/CS4 who actually lead the coup.

- I wonder if we ever find out who that is. I mean, she isn’t wearing that helmet just for fun, that much is clear.

- For some reason Towa, Mirelle and the prince were with Greamheart (or however Agnes father is spelled) and are currently under attack.

- The president can handle a weapon, I can tell you. If we ever fight him, this will be one hell of a battle ^^’

- Someone has knocked out Killika and Zin and now they have taken their identities (Well I hope they are just knocked out, because I doubt we can turn back time enough to actually bring them back to live ^^’)

- So the usual final stuff is going on now. We fight, then we get sorrounded, then some non playable alley of sorts shows up and helps us out so we can move on

- Fightung against Cody, but he managed to flee and now we are facing those that “pancer soldat copys and... without having any mech ourselfs. WTF?! I mean... are we this overpowered that we can beat them without tanks and mechs or anything or are they in fact actually weaker then Greamheart said?

- See what I meant when I said you can never know which side Cao is currently on? Right now, for some reason, it seems to be our side. And he and the other guy actually managed i finish the mech off. Not bad.

- There is something more complicadet going on with Cao tho. He seems to be from a family that is also powerful and he kind of wanted some rights for this family or so? I don’t fully get it, to be honest.

- Oh the asien-style fighter with the dragon tatoo is Caos brother. Who would have known? (I usually see something like that, but I need a bit more understanding for something like that, if you get me ^^’)

- Taken hostage by Cody. But Marielle seems to be able top talk some sense into him somehow, but it wasn’t enough it seems.

- Cody is finally back to normal. Things should be better now. Killika and Zin are awake again now too. Things are looking better and the Loadscreen text is not burning red anymore.

- As per usual, just when you think things get finally better... they actually get worse ^^’

- Fuck! Everyone we know aside from Vans teams seems to get swallowed by that red stuff. Definitly going to be one hell of a bad ending.

- Our Team is goone too. Nadia suddenly showed up and gave Agnes a Genesis, but we are still at a bad end and... have to go back all the way in the timeline. WTF?!

- Nadia joyined the team again.

- Lucrecia helped us again for some reason.

- We are at Märchen Garten, but it doesn’t seem to be because of training. Its plot relevant. And tzhere is Swin!

 - Swins “cursed” state looks pretty bad, as he appearantly accepted it, but Nadia is sure she can bring him back. Here is hoping she is right.

- Not yet. But we will work on it. Swin and Nadia belong together, so that means we will bring them back together, we are playing (watching) a Trails-game after all.

[innately-pretentious]

Finally, I Found You. (Klaus Hargreeves x Reader)

Request: Hey! I looooved your Klaus headcanons and was wondering if you could write about when him and the reader are reunited in the 60s??? Totally fine if not, have a nice day!

A/N: Awh thank you so much, I hope this is alright dude! I am really tempted to turn this into a series tho... if you want that?? Even if this is really rough and kind of rushed. Kinda angsty? Kinda sad? Very fluffy. Enjoy!

Being spat out of a spinning vortex into a dingy alley was enough to stress anybody out, especially after a rather terrifying and life threatening encounter with your sister initiating the apocalypse. Navigating through the twenty first century was difficult enough, but being catapulted into a completely new decade with nothing but your bag and clothes you were wearing just about topped that.

Letting out a cry as you hit the ground and groaning as you rolled over and tried to get our bearings. Glancing around to see if you could locate any of your siblings whom you were with only a few minutes previously, you stood up and brushed yourself off, you began calling out their names. Sadly with no success, there was no response, you were alone.

You continued pacing along the pavement, trying to come up with a plan of action. Deciding you couldn’t improve your situation much from the alley, you emerged into a busy street and began wandering down the road. Progressing along the street, you could not help but take notice of the architecture and clothing surrounding you. Definitely not similar to the modern aesthetics you were used to. Flagging down an approachable looking woman and kid you asked what year it was, sharing peculiar look she confirmed your suspicions. It was July 24th 1962. Brilliant.

Trying hard not to think the worst of your situation, you mind wandered to Klaus. The two of you had hardly been apart for more than one night over the course of your year long relationship, your stomach dropped at the thought of him being isolated in a random time period, unable to contact anyone, nobody to help. A small part of you wished Ben was with him, but you were completely clueless as to how this whole time travel business worked. You attempted to brush that thought aside for the time being, first you had to find somewhere to stay. Sleeping rough with nothing but the clothes on your back did not sound appealing, luckily you had some spare cash in your bag for a room for a few days, giving you sometime to formulate a plan.

The first night was definitely the hardest. Deciding to find the cheapest hotel you could, you booked a room for the night, collecting the keys and collapsing on the mattress. As soon as you got into the uncomfortable bed you knew sleep would not come tonight, the double bed was not helping either. You spent the majority of the night on your side, laying there and glancing at the opposite side of the mattress, where he should be sleeping. It felt too empty without Klaus hogging the blanket. You couldn’t help the collection of memories the two of you shared popping into your mind. Lazy weekday nights, limbs draped absentmindedly over one another, Klaus’ hand tracing soft patterns into your shoulder as you talked about absolute nonsense for hours. Both dreading when the morning came as you would have to leave his arms. Growing up in Hargreeves’ mansion you would constantly sneak into his room, even before you were together. Your ability to turn invisible was a great help, coming to comfort him if your father pushed him too hard again was almost a nightly occurrence. You loved the way he would relax as soon as he felt you lift up the blanket and settle in next to him, knowing he wouldn’t have be alone.

You smiled at the thought of him, he always had to be close to you. Even in his sleep you caught him reaching for you sleepily or rolling his leg onto you in an attempt to pull you closer. You often wondered if he even knew he was doing it or if it was entirely subconscious. After everything he went through growing up it was no surprise he had clingy tendencies. You wouldn’t change him for anything, if he needed you close, you had no problem obliging him. If it made him feel safe you would do it.

It was at this point the tears started to fall. For someone who had been through so much to then be stuck somewhere, unable to reach you, made your heart ache. Tomorrow you would figure something out, however futile it may be, you were determined to at least try and make a life for yourself here.

3 Months Later:

The three months had not been easy, by any means. It had mainly consisted of you on the road, finding work pretty much wherever would take you. Getting the car you were currently driving was a feat in itself, stealing an automobile had never been on your bucket list. You never liked using your power to steal, however, it was your only mode of transport and occasional place to sleep. You always coaxed Klaus not to just take things, he would be shocked if he could see you now, the look on his face would be priceless! On the bright side, you could have picked a worse car, with five seats, a convertible roof and playable radio, you had risen in worse rides.

More memories surfaced in your mind, ones where you took Klaus out for a drive out of the city during the beginning of his sobriety. This started as an attempt to inject a new lust for life into him, show him there was more to the world than just powder in the back alleys. Soon your little road trip became a weekly occurrence, driving with Klaus and losing track of time, just each other for company. You loved him dearly but you both decided it would be more beneficial if you were the one behind the wheel, not that he cared, he was given full control of the music this way. He insisted on having the windows down and the music loud, staring at you with his pupils slightly dilated, feeling doped up on life rather than various pills. You loved how radiant he looked, you even let him get away with wailing along to the lyrics on the radio, at least for a while…

“Klaus, I love you, but I’m gonna need my eardrums in the future,”

“Yes, I’m aware. Why do you think I’m gracing them with my dulcet tones?”

You couldn’t help but jokingly glare at him. Once again he was never to far away from you, laughing and giving your thigh a squeeze as you watch the city disappear behind you, along with his worries.

Dragging yourself back to the present (well, 1962), you gripped the steering wheel, forcing yourself to focus on the road instead of the bittersweet memories you held. They were the only things you had left of him, and you hoped that wherever he was, he was safe.

You decided to return to the town where it all began, Dallas, Texas. You were in need of some new clothes and a quick bite to eat before you got back on the road, in search for another short-term job to earn some much needed cash. A second-hand shop would probably be the most budget friendly option for clothes, ringing the bell as you opened the door, you began to flick through the various fabrics and patterns of clothing. One of the things you loved about this decade was the flamboyant clothing, he would have thrived here. Gathering quite a large armful of clothes, you decided to go try a few on, just looking through your selection one last time before you committed to the changing room.

You were ripped from your thoughts by a loud thud on the window, resulting in you dropping the bundle of clothes you had accumulated during your browsing. Huffing and turning your attention to the window, ready for some kind of confrontation, although, nothing could be further from your assumption.

Your eyes met with the same hazel ones you had been gazing into for the last year, unmistakable hands with tattoos were firmly placed on the glass. His jaw was slack and his eyes were wide as he gawked through the glass. You began to shake as you drank in the sight of him, your chest tightened and you found it increasingly difficult to breathe. You wanted to run into his arms, but you weren’t sure if your legs would carry you. You couldn’t feel anything except the racing of you heart. Time seemed to still as you just stared at one another.

He was the first to break the gaze, tripping over himself in an attempt to reach the door. He forced the door open so forcefully that the bell nearly fell off, it didn’t stop him though. Running down the shopping aisle, pushing the racks aside as he continued towards you, knocking over a few clothing racks, not slowing down as he slammed into your open arms. The impact of the force sending the two of you tumbling to the ground, both of you gripping onto the other in fear they may disappear again. He could feel you shaking in his hold, overwhelmed with the entire situation, he kept his grip firm around you, letting you know that he is here and you are safe. He doesn’t plan on leaving you.

Finally managing to pull his face from the crook of your neck, you held his face in your hands, his eyes glistening with unshed tears. You weren’t aware you were crying until you felt his calloused hands brush away a stray tear from your cheek.

“It’s really you isn’t it?” You managed to choke out, you must have looked insane to the shopkeeper, both of you smiling and sobbing, curled up on his shop floor.

“Of course it’s me, nobody could recreate this amount of beauty and personality twice,” he joked and cracked a smile. That typical Klaus smile you missed so much. Even in a time like this, supposedly sentimental, he still had to get a wisecrack in.

“You’re such an idiot Klaus, only you could compliment yourself in a time like this,” you said, you weren’t sure if you were crying or laughing at this point, but you knew you were finally happy.

“I’ve had to do it myself for a while since you were absent,” he said, you couldn’t miss the subtle sadness that passed over his features.

“Come on then Y/N”, he groaned as he stood up, offering a hand to help you, “We have a lot of catching up to do.”

You glanced up at him before you accepted his hand, his hair was longer than before and he looked healthier, but he was undeniably still your Klaus. You placed you hand in his and let him drag you up, resting his arm around your waist, slightly tighter than he used to. You allowed your head to rest on his shoulder, re-familiarising yourself with his body. The two of you definitely had a long conversation ahead, you allowed him to drag you to the nearest diner, excited to unburden yourselves after finally finding each other.

[radramblog]

Ninty Direct Feb 2021 Thoughts

That was uh. Kind of disappointing, actually.

I suppose it was inevitable that we weren’t seeing Pokemon since they’re gonna do their own announcement. But like. Coulda done better here.

(oh no you’re now introduced to my awful awful handwriting, is this better or worse than my cursed interests? you decide)

Anyway I wrote down everything they announced so here we go

Pyra/Mythra in Smash: I don’t give a single shit about the Xenoblade series, but it’s one of like 2 IPs Nintendo has had in the last decade so sure whatever they can have second a character as a treat. I’m mostly just annoyed this wasn’t a third-party character.

Fall Guys Switch: This feels inevitable. It also feels about 5 months too late.

Outer Wilds Switch: I’ve heard some absolutely excellent things about this game, so fair enough. I’m not sure I’d buy it on the Switch, but I haven’t bought it at all yet, so.

Famicom Detective Club: This looks like a Ren’py game if it had an actual budget, but still used Ren’py for some reason. Prooobably not biting on this one chief.

Samurai Warriors 5: The only Warriors game I’ve played is the first hyrule warriors, and the only Nobunaga game I’ve played was Pokemon Conquest (it’s a trip), so. I don’t understand the obsession they have over there for this bloke, like imagine if Australia made like a tv series a year and a large handful of video games about Ned Kelly or something.

Legend of Mana: Shit I should go play Octopath Traveler huh

Monster Hunter Rise: Those monster designs looked pretty kickass, and those human designs made me crack up laughing. I’ve never played Monster Hunter, and I don’t think this is gonna change that.

Mario Golf: Hey look they confirmed Waluigi as playable ahead of time so people wouldn’t complain, good job guys. The multiplayer of this looked silly as hell, but I’m not spending 80 bucks on wii sports tennis for a multiplayer mode ill drag my mates to play all of once before we go back to playing Beetle Adventure Racing.

Tales from the Borderlands: Wait telltale is still around? Ok…? I haven’t played Borderlands and don’t really care for the Telltale style so nah

Capcom Arcade Stadium: They could have made a peripheral like the NES/SNES mini, but they didn’t, and it’s for the best. The fact that one of the games is free implies to me that the rest are going to be overcosted, though.

Stubbs the Zombie: What the fuck am I looking at. Apparently this is a remaster of an old Xbox game, but I’ve never heard of it. Weird as fuck, but sure.

No More Heroes III: No more Heroes is a franchise that I’ve never played, but always wanted to. It seems right up my alley aesthetic-wise, and the gameplay looks pretty solid too- probably gonna try one of the older ones first, though.

Neon White: Speaking of aesthetic. This looks anime as fuck and edgy in a good way, and the gameplay looks real fun. I actually really want to check this out, and no, it’s not just because of the skull masked goth gf on the cover. (Doesn’t hurt, though.)

DC Super Hero Girls Teen Power: Jesus, this looks like a bad tie-in game from the mid 2000s. Not like Battle for Bikini Bottom, more like a Jimmy Neutron. And while I really liked the Jimmy Neutron game as a kid (shame about the show), this doesn’t look like it’ll stand up to that…high bar. Listening to this trailer made me want to die a little bit inside.

Plants Vs Zombies: Battle for Neighbourville: I miss PopCap. Peggle 3, never.

Miitopia: This looks cute, and will probably lead to the same sort of 3am DMs that happened with Tomodachi Life. If it’s a full priced game, it probably won’t sell at all.

Animal Crossing New Horizons Mario items: uhhh sure. Don’t have that game, so.

Triangle Strategy: Aww fuck it’s a final fantasy tactics that looks like octopath and it might have an actually good story, shiiiiiiiiit. I’m gonna give the demo a try before I land on this, but I’m optimistic.

Star Wars Hunters: When was the last time we had an actually good Star Wars game? And don’t say Fallen Order. Yeah, didn’t think so.

KO City: Ah, the bottom of the barrel. Didn’t think it would take this long. At this point, the pseudo-cartoony style everything has because they’re trying to ape Fortnite is extremely grating on me. (I definitely thought this ad was for Fortnite stuff at first)

World’s End Club: OK this one has me actually hyped. I knew that Kodaka (director/writer of the Danganronpa series) and Uchikoshi (director/writer of the Zero Escape series) were working on a joint project, and we’re finally seeing the results. Both of them have multiple excellent games under their respective belts, and this new game looks like a fun spin on what I’m sure a lot of people were expecting from the pair. Literally both of them have made a game where (spoilers I guess, Keara stop reading here you haven’t played VLR yet) there’s a death game going on while the characters are unaware the world fucking ended, so to see the idea of the death game getting interrupted and the characters actually having to live in the dead world is really cool. I’m paying cloooose attention to this one.

Hades (Physical Release): Dang now if I buy hades I can choose to have some of my money go to EB games or JB hifi or something. Cooooooooooooool.

Ninja Gaiden Collection: This just made me wonder why Ryu Hayabusa isn’t in Smash yet. Is it because there’s already a Ryu?

Age of Calamity DLC: I don’t think I mentioned this in my post yesterday, but I would have put money on DLC for this game coming out. I still haven’t played it, but the first Hyrule Warriors had so much fucking DLC so this was inevitable in my eyes.

Bravely Default 2: Uhhh its another JRPG man idk what you want me to say. Didn’t play the first one, apparently its good.

Ghosts n Goblins Resurrection: Kinda funny having this next to the free original in the Capcom Arcade Stadium. Capcom is reviving old franchises, I guess? Where’s Mega Man Battle Network, cowards?

SaGa Frontier: I’ve heard good things about the SaGa series, but this looks awful. Not like gameplay wise, the style for the models and shit in game just disinterests me.

Apex Legends: Is anyone still playing this game?

BOTW 2 (no news): I’m not mad, I’m just disappointed. Next Direct, I guess.

Skyward Sword HD: I’m not mad, I’m just disappointed.

Seriously though, I was expecting 3 of the best Zeldas ever made to get ports, and we got the one that I wasn’t interested in. Fuck you too, I guess.

Splatoon 3: I actually was super interested in this, seeing as the trailer looked like it was gonna be for some like… side game, 3D RPG or something, exploring the origins of the Splatoon world? But then it’s just Splatoon 3. And like, I know people really like that series, but it never appealed to me. The world is neat! But I’m not interested in the series as it is.

And that’s the tea.

ADDENDUM:

shit that’s this weekend? huh ok -New Hearthstone expansions revealed, kinda like WOTC does with magic every so often, just like “here’s the next couple sets btw”. Since they do nothing but plagiarise off each other and MTG is having a set based on another WOTC property this year (D&D), there’s going to be a Starcraft set. -Diablo 4 release date that will not be stuck to since COVID is still a thing -people are hoping for starcraft 3. Blizzard to announce Starcraft 2 Episode 1. -New WoW expansion announced, determined objectively to be “worst ever” before trailer is even finished

[theyanderespecialist]

Don't Say No To Whitney (One Shot) Whitney X OC (Degrees Of Lewdity)

[Hello My Sexy Readers, I am here with my sexy co author, this is her OC basically her and Whitney X Marie since the one to request this did not say gender, gentailia, or breasts sighs me and my co author agreed on Female Whitney with Huge Penis and Modest Breasts for those who do not know you can chose the gender of the non playable characters their gentalia and breasts size from flat to large Marie in the game of her characters is Huge/thick ass, Enormous breasts female.

Here we will also do futa characters and OC of Marie and Mark So comment if you want more of this or Marie and Mark with characters animals or even spiders XD Cause yes you can get fuked by spiders in the game XD this I am so thankful to the person who request this: Allyson46073 

 Enjoy!]

(Marie's pov)

I look at Whitney unimpressed. "No."

"What?" "I said No Whitney. You bully me all the time, I'm not going to the dance with you so forget it." I said as I left for the girls bathroom as I left her there standing.

I pulled up my panties and flushed the toilet as I left, walking out of the school.

"Hey, I was talking to you. I didn't ask, I said you'd go with me " I hear as I roll my eyes before letting out a scream when my arm was grabbed as she covered my mouth dragging me into the alley.

"You don't get to say no to me you slut." She said as she gripped my hips pushing me against the wall.

"Whitney--" "shut up, you're going to go with me. There's no excuse for you to not." She said as she kissed my neck, grinding her hips against mine as I bit my lip.

She grind her cock into my ass and lift up my skirt. It was the short skirt as I could not afford the long or regular school skirts.

"Lace panties~ Lewd but classy~" She purrs.

"I like how they really seem to cup your ass~ you're really begging to be taken advantage of dressed this way~"

I blush and looked away as She pinned me into the alleyway and she tore my panties off.

I let out a shocked cry as I heard them rip and hear her lifting up her skirt.

"Come on, beg for me..~ beg for me to Rape that fat ass of yours~" she said but wasn't moving to actually harm me.

I blushed and shake my head. She is my ex and I would still be with her but she was so controlling.

She would have me wear what she wanted, go where she wanted, eat with her instead of my friends..I never told her how it felt but I didn't know how to.

"You won't huh? Then.. I'll just use this other hole." She said angling down as my eyes widen.

"N-No N-No I-I really want to keep that until marriage!" She said

"Then beg~" She says and I blush. "And call mistress."

"Pl-Please Mistress fuck my ass." I say looking at the wall.

"You should put more effort into it... but I guess that's sufficient." She said smirking as I was suddenly pushed against the wall more as I feel her push herself inside as I cried out as I was being stretched out.

"So tight..but I'll have plenty of time to break your ass in." She said as I let out a shaky moan.

"J-Just hurry up... so-someone might see.."

"I bet you would like that someone catching me pounding you virgin ass~" I say. "Or former virgin ass."

I let out a shake moan. "N-No I wouldn't. .that's wh--" I was cut off by a slap to my ass.

"I didn't ask bitch." She said as I bit my lip trying to not moan more than I already had.

She pulled out a marker and flick the cap off as she bit my neck all the while fucking my ass.

I cried out as I moaned looking back at her. "W-What are you doing!?"

She smirked and wrote something on my back. I did not know what it was but I shudder in unwanted excitement. That is when I hear students walking by the alley detention must be getting out.

My eyes widen as I looked at her. "N-No stop, stop until--Oh! MMH!" I let out a loud moan with another slap to my ass and her thrusting all the way to her base.

"What is going on over there?" One kid asks.

"Is she getting fucked?" A girl asks.

"What a slut."

I blush and they started to crowd to get a better view.

I managed to regain some decency by covering my face with my arm as Whitney just chuckled

"Who wants a photo of this slut getting fucked!?" She asks.

My eyes widen as I thrust back in a way to say no before realizing it wouldn't be precived that way. Everyone gathered around as I hear phone cameras clicking.

"I got a great shot of her thick ass bouncing on that dick!" A girl says.

"Damn look at her face~ Smile girl~"

"I can't wait to show this to my friends~"

I blush more and try to tune them out and whitney moves me to all fours.

"Breed that bitch!" The crowd cheers.

I blushed even darker as I was unable to hide my face now.

"Come on bitch, smile for their photos. Maybe give them a bark."

"Yeah Bark!"

I hake my head but she began to spank me. "Bark!"

I let out a yelp as I clench around her letting out a very soft bark, I felt like I would die. ..yet I also was so aroused..

"More~" she orders and grips my hips.

I let out a louder bark as the crowd cheered.

I blushed more and continued as Whitney thrust even more

"Om getting close, I'm. Going to cum~ make sure you give them your best orgasm face." She said tanking my hair up so that I had to look at the phones as I feel a sudden warmth filling me as I cry out and cum myself moaning as my eyes rolled back slightly.

"She is so pretty when she cums~"

"Look at that mouth a perfect o for fucking~"

"How about a round two?~ everyone get in a line~"

[End of Part One We hope you all enjoyed and stay sexy]

[kaialone]

Catching up on Yo-kai Watch 4 News

After a bit of a break, I’ll summarize and translate the news regarding Yo-kai Watch 4 that have come out this month.

Head under the cut for more, beware of potential minor spoilers!

--

Alright, before we get into the actual content, I want to give a small apology about being slow with news this month.

Outside of the holidays, I was also pretty sick for a while, so I didn’t really have the time and energy to do much.

As a result, the news I am about to go over might not all be news to you, unless you only ever check out my stuff.

Also, if you are wondering about this month’s CoroCoro issue, I’ve decided to skip it. It had no truly major news that are notable at this point, in my opinion that is.

If you happen to be curious about a specific part from it, feel free to ask me though.

--

So, the news I am about to translate is mostly taken from the official website of Yo-kai Watch 4.

You can find the link to it in the source of this post.

--

First the freshest, and arguably biggest current news?

Near the top of Yo-kai Watch 4's official website, you will see a banner with this label in its top left corner:

"次世代ワールドホビーフェア'19 Winter",

and clicking it will take you to another page.

This page talks about the "Next Generation World Hobby Fair" .

It's basically a huge convention that shows off the latest hobby merchandise and games of the companies attending, as far as I can tell.

-

The Next Generation World Hobby Fair for Winter 2019 will take place from January 19th-20th (in Nagoya), January 26th-27th (in Tokyo), and February 17th (in Osaka).

Level-5 will be attending too, this time showing off Inazuma Eleven Ares and Yo-kai Watch 4.

From what I can gather from Level-5's page here, there will be a playable demo of Yo-kai Watch 4 there, but I'm not 100% certain.

If there is a playable demo it would be interesting to see how it has changed since the last demo. (Which you can find a translation of on my blog, hint hint)

My biggest hope is that we will get a release date, but I don’t think it’s guaranteed.

-

Another thing is their booth will give out a certain "super luxury present". This includes a secret "word card" that will allow one to get a stronger version fo Jibanyan Liú Bèi in Kunitori Wars:

And it will also include a little case on a keychain for keeping a Switch cartridge:

Nintendo has been releasing a few of these keychains for various games.

And since they usually look exactly like the real boxart, one can only assume that this is the currently planned boxart for Yo-kai Watch 4:

-

There will also be a "visitor present" consisting of postcards, but their design has not been shown yet. From what I can tell, these will seemingly also enable you to download one or multiple special items in the game, once it's released.

The site doesn't seem to specify if there is a certain difference between how you get these presents.

The latter being called "visitor present" seems to imply that the "super luxury present" isn't something you can get just by being there. But they don't explain anything about either.

-

But that's about it for that fair.

The website does note that all these things could potentially change on short notice, that the gift articles are limited in number, and that you may need to get a numbered ticket on location in order to attend the event.

--

Now, onto the news that are actually from Yo-kai Watch 4's official website itself.

First of all, note that some of the older sections I have translated previously have been slightly rewritten and look different now, but they don't really say anything new.

So, I will only focus on news I truly haven't translated before. But even they recycle some older info, just so you know.

-

First is this section:

Yo-kai Watch's New Battles

In Yo-kai Watch 4's battles, players will fight on the field and attack alongside their yokai friends as "Watchers"! Since the enemies ranged attacks are marked, avoid taking lots of damage by dodging them!

What is a "Watcher"?

Characters who make full use of the Yokai Watch's abilities and join the battles are called "Watchers"!

-

Next is this:

Kēta (Nate) joins the battle as a "Watcher"!

The yokai we're familiar with will appear too!

Kēta (Nate), as a "Watcher", fights together with yokai in the field, letting you experience a sense of realism almost like an anime! You'll surely enjoy his unique battle style!

Kēta’s moves in the screencap shown here seem to include moves that were already seen on Touma’s moveset, in case you’re wondering.

Those being the Yōki Shot and the Yōki Absorbtion.

But there’s also room for potential other moves. He has a green move that seems new, but I can’t make out its name.

Also, here’s what Whisper has to say:

“So, Himo-jī (Hungramps) was behind it after all! Let's get those offerings back!”

I also want to point out Kēta’s artwork here:

All in-game screencaps and footage portray him as wearing his outfit from 3, but in this artwork he wears his outfit from 1 and 2.

He also wears his old Yokai Watch from those games, whereas in-game footage showed him with a Yokai Watch Elda.

It’s possible that we will briefly see him with this look in 4, or that this look was chosen for the artwork because it’s iconic, and thus shows how the style has progressed.

Or maybe it’s a remnant of an earlier point in development where this look was considered for him in 4.

-

And finally, this:

Travelling with the bike also got speedier!

Sakura New Town's (Springdale's) graphics have gotten a huge level up! The landscape around the shrine at Ōmori Mountain (Mt. Wildwood), the appearance of Yoroz Mart (Everyday Mart), all has gotten more realistic!

The quest objective in this screencap says the following:

Go check the back alley behind the convenience store!

Also, take note of the mini map:

You can clearly make out places like Triangle Park, the Yoroz Mart and its surroundings, and the residences of the Amano (Adams) and Kodama (Forrester) families.

The structure seems pretty much identical to the old games, so it seems that outside of graphics, the locations of the town won’t be changed.

Which makes sense, considering it always felt like this town was designed fairly carefully, and many intentional details.

-

One last thing.

This really is old news, but I hadn't gotten over it before, personally:

This little guy here is ジャー坊/Jā-bō, the regional mascot of Omuta, from the Fukuoka Prefecture in Japan. (He is supposed to be a snake/dragon creature.)

Since he was actually designed by Level-5, he will get to appear in Yo-kai Watch 4 as a yokai.

The site doesn't seem to specify if he will be befriendable though.

Back in 2, Kumamon was not befriendable, only his official bootleg Kemamon (Harry Barry), but since Jā-bō was literally designed by Level-5, maybe there's a higher chance here.

--

And that’s it for all the Yo-kai Watch 4 news from this month that I hadn’t gotten over yet.

As always, I hope you found this interesting and/or helpful!

--

[thetrashbang]

PlayerUnknown’s Battlegrounds Needs A God

No multiplayer game gets to live in a void for long. No matter how hard you may try to bleed yourself of troublesome concepts like context, or backstory, the reality is that people like to speculate. People like to tell stories. Doesn’t matter how goofy or outlandish; the creeping tendrils of narrative eventually wrap around the foundations of even the purest, most context-free experiences. Why are we bombing these crates? Why are we stealing that flag? Why are we fighting? Why are we here?

Somebody will come up with an answer. It’s the human thing to do.

But for PlayerUnknown’s Battlegrounds, it feels like that answer has yet to come. One hundred players parachute onto a deserted island, where the average density of firearms per square meter exceeds even the most deranged fanatical NRA wet dream, and a slowly constricting hemisphere of crackling blue energy forces them to mercilessly gun each other down until only one is left standing. It’s an absurd, nightmarish premise; a theoretical scenario seemingly engineered to turn people into rabid beasts, fighting tooth and nail merely for the privilege of living a few minutes longer. Who would orchestrate such a competition, and for what purpose? Is it an experiment? A ritual? A blood sport? Is some Silicon Valley bazillionaire sitting in a darkened room somewhere, surrounded by monitors, cranking his sad rubbery hog to every rifle crack and arterial splatter? Nobody seems to know, or care.

Ordinarily, I wouldn’t either; PUBG is fun enough without framing. And yet, tonight’s winds bring an uneasy chill, carrying whispers of restlessness, indignance and fury. You feel it, don’t you? There’s a philosophical schism in how we approach Pubguh—the very concept of ‘battle royale’, even—and the hairline fractures are beginning to show. Players whine and gnash their teeth at the red zone, esports organisers desperately attempt to harness the format for views, and the proverbial chicken dinner seems to attain a more and more mythical, trophy-like status by the day; a reference to back-alley gambling now ironically viewed as a badge of ultimate prowess. This isn’t a healthy relationship. This isn’t a healthy attitude.

What Plunkbat needs, friends, is a god.

Well, okay, not necessarily a god god. Divine power is optional. I’m not asking Brendan Greene to start wearing a white toga and chiselling his patch notes into stone tablets, as much as it would set an entertaining precedent. The job requirements are flexible: I’m simply asking for someone vengeful and capricious, with unfathomable intentions, inscrutable thoughts, and—at least within the bounds of the playable space—immense, unassailable power. Like any god, you need not supply scientific proof of their presence; you merely have to attribute sufficient existing phenomena to them, and change people’s collective perception of the world. Ooh, got’em.

See, battle royale games represent an important shift to me. I’m a competitive person by nature. It’s etched into my mind, irreversibly chiseled by years of test scores and parental praise and all the other ego-stroking bullshit that you were subjected to if you were a certain kind of ‘gifted’ child. “You’re the best. You should be the best. You should be winning. Why aren’t you winning, what the heck is wrong with you?” So it bleeds over, into hobbies, work, and of course, online shooters, in which I regularly demonstrate that I have an innate… whatever the opposite of aptitude is. I react slowly, I zone out, I bean myself on the head with my own grenades, and if you exert the slightest bit of pressure, I’ll empty half the magazine into a wall and drop my weapon through a gap in the floorboards. I’m not good, and yet some unreachable, fundamental part of my conscious will never be satisfied with that knowledge.

You would think, then, that Pubby-G would only serve to exacerbate this mindset. And yet, in a world of delicately tuned esports that are built from the ground up to be pure, unfiltered tests of skill, it feels like the only game to grant a genuine absolution of responsibility; a kind of freeing fatalism. There’s a sense in a lot of classic multiplayer experiences—like, say, Counter-Strike—that every outcome is more or less deterministic; a product of a series of controlled variables and actions. With every failure comes the overwhelming impression that it could have been averted, given enough competence, foresight, and concentrated guarana. By contrast, a porridgey cocktail of chaos flows through the veins of battle royales, surrounding you with factors that are not only impossible to influence, but—in many cases—impossible to know at all. You are swept up by the gusts of a hundred butterflies’ wings, tossed to and fro by the whims of the random number generator, bombarded with unavoidable risks and squeezed into unmanageable situations. It’s easier to go with the flow, accept that at any given moment you may have your head unceremoniously taken off—by somebody lying flat on a distant hill, or hiding behind one of the game’s ten thousand trees, or concealed in a shrub on the far side of the Moon—and concentrate on all the minute actions you can make to ever-so-slightly nudge the odds in your favour.

But it’s not always clear that this is the reality of Puhburger. With its vast scale and often languid pacing, encounters can feel like isolated incidents, detached from the cascading series of events that led up to them, despite being anything but. Anyone can parse the map for circles of safety and non-safety, and understand that their arbitrary placement gives certain players an advantage; it’s less apparent that the figure in that upstairs window might have had their sights trained on the area, or seen you first, shot first, picked up a better weapon, obtained a better vantage point, or some other action, because of a dizzying permutation of astral alignments that neither of you could even begin to grasp. So we get futile attempts to establish a level playing field, find meaning in accomplishment, divine fair elements from unfair, and generally make things needlessly stressful for everybody involved. Except the infuriatingly smug yours truly, of course.

How do you make that clear, though? How do you concisely impress upon people that their fate is almost entirely out of their hands, in such a way that they adopt an attitude of acceptance? Blaming the roll of the dice doesn’t come to mind as swiftly when you never see them rattling around, nor the way their innumerable ripples propagate across the map. Furthermore, as current events have taught us all too well, it’s a lot easier to ascribe fault to individuals than to an invisible, fundamentally hostile system. So what do you do?

You give the system a name. And, if you can, a face.

Allow me to momentarily slam us into reverse. When Valve released Left 4 Dead way back in 2008 (oh god, it’s going to be ten years old this year?) they made quite a song and dance about the game’s AI Director; an invisible, unknowable entity that would dynamically dole out items and zombies in a manner consistent with the tenets of dramatic tension, ensuring players were subjected to a “fast-paced, but not overwhelming, Hollywood horror movie”. While the opacity of the AI Director’s machinations always made me a tad sceptical of its mechanical effectiveness, giving people a name to pin the blame for all their earthly woes on was a masterstroke. Notorious video game jokesman Yahtzee Croshaw—the one with the hat and that trendy 00s cynicism, remember?—reported that he once witnessed someone praying to the AI Director, and I bet you all the pipe bombs in the world that players’ personification of it didn’t stop there. Short of making a catastrophic error, I never saw anyone get chewed out for not pulling their weight, and when tones got heated—as they inevitably do, when you’re throwing yourself against the frigid slopes of the higher difficulties—they were directed in the vague direction of the director: for its expectations, for its lack of pity, for being unfair. Awareness of our lurking orchestrator changed our perception of the experience, even though we couldn’t entirely prove it wasn’t just somebody sitting in a black box, disinterestedly flipping a coin over and over.

So, why not do the same for a game that does? Put a face on the system that holds a fundamental grip on who lives and who dies. You don’t need to change a thing under the hood; you need only introduce the vague implication that the evolving state of the battlefield is a consequence of a thinking, feeling, mysterious overseer. A bloodthirsty oligarch watching from their lavish observation zeppelin, a dystopian TV network broadcasting a deadly future sport, an amoral team of government agents sealed away in a bunker control room, an inexplicably sapient Shiba playing with a selection of levers, or indeed, a literal deity. People will take the faintest contextual cues and run amok with them, ascribing everything they can to the will of the one who set this conflict in motion: item drops, circle position, all the way down to the subtle spread of their bullets as they sail through the air. Yeah, maybe it’ll start off as a running joke; an ironic indulgence, the “thanks Obama” of Puddlebounds. But that’s the thing about ironic behaviour: get enough people doing it at once, and you’ll cultivate sincere participants without even realising it. We will learn to absolve ourselves of responsibility, and engage in the unhinged pandemonium of battle royale with the mentality that befits it.

There’s just one problem: you need to be able to keep a secret.

I’m still working on that part.

[star-trekkin-across-theuniverse]

Five Minutes with Loki and Clint...

Okay, @rampant-salamander was the only person to tell me who to write about tonight, so in tribute to her awesomeness, I am writing this now that I am home.

So... uh... yeah.

XxX

It had been a long summer, full of generi-baddies and weird side quests that made you think you were likely to wake up and discover you’d been a playable character in a weird computer game for the past four months, instead of just settling into your role as a generally well-meaning but not well understood minor superhero. 

You weren’t one of the big name superheroes. You didn’t have Stark’s billions, or Cap’s strength, and you certainly had never had any assassins training. No gamma rays changed you from small to huge and rage-fueled. You did, however, have some pretty unnatural acrobatics skills that were enhanced by raw determination and some kind of accelerated healing that left you bruised and battered in some situations, but healed up remarkably quickly when injuries did occur.

So you stayed within your few square blocks, foiling petty thieves and making the streets a little safer. It had all seemed so simple until the summer had rolled around. Suddenly there was a rash of crime you couldn’t understand, and you found yourself out on patrols that led you outside of the safe enclave your neighbourhood had become, and further, sometimes into nearby Bed-Stuy, sometimes as far as Hell’s Kitchen in Manhattan. It wasn’t until you got cornered on the top of a roof near Coney Island that you really made anyone’s radar.

That’s when the arrow guy found you. Hawkeye, as he had introduced himself, had shot an arrow that just missed you and lodged into the door to the rooftop. He’d used the trailing line from the arrow to zip across from the higher building beside you, then grabbed you as the generi-baddies were crashing through the door, throwing both of you off the side of the building. As you clung to him screaming, he shot another arrow that struck the brickwork of the building across the street, and you swung across, like fucking Tarzan and Jane, landing just shy of the ground and dropping to the sidewalk below. Before you could bolt, he grabbed your arm and pulled you down an alley, around and corner and onward until you were completely lost and breathless.

“You okay, kid?” He asked when he finally let you stop running. You bent over, gasping for air and coughed. 

“Sure,” you lied. A bullet had grazed you as you’d fled before he found you, but you could already feel the skin knitting together. 

“You’re bleeding,” he commented, pushing your hand away from your side and lifting your shirt until the wound was showing. He moved the shirt a little higher and then dropped it “Oh shit, sorry, I thought you were a kid. I didn’t realize you -”

“Yeah, I wear baggy clothes for a reason,” you nodded, struggling to regulate your breathing. “The last thing I need those douchebags to know is that I’m a woman.”

“Come on, I know a guy. We’ll get you patched up,” he insisted, grabbing you by the uninjured side and dragging you along.

“I’ll be fine,” you protested.

“Shut up. It’s not every day you get to meet Tony Stark, right?” He winked and opened the passenger side of an old Dodge Challenger, gesturing for you to get in. You sighed and flopped onto the passenger seat. As Hawkeye drove, you closed your eyes and steadied your breathing, knowing it would help the gunshot wound heal faster. By the time you arrived at the Avenger’s Tower, you could barely notice the pinch in your side.

XxX

“There’s no injury, Barton. Why did you bring me someone who isn’t even hurt?” Tony Stark was exactly what you’d expected. His movements tried to keep up with his brain, which obviously was constantly moving at a million miles an hour, and so he shifted from foot to foot, munching on a snack as one of his robots awkwardly shifted your shirt.

“I’m tellin’ you, Tony, she had a hole in her side not twenty minutes ago,” Clint protested. “More than that, you should see the way she moves. She makes the Spider kid look awkward.”

“I’m right here,” you protested, pulling your shirt away from the robot. It made to grab at it again and you slapped at its grabber. If it was possible, the damn thing flinched away from you and made a sad noise.

“You hurt it’s feelings. DUM-E, don’t take it personally, she doesn’t know you,” Stark was talking to the robot. You raised an eyebrow. “What? You’ve never met an AI before?”

“Never met an Avenger before either, but here I am with two of you,” you countered. “Where’s the hot one. Thor? Is that his name?” Stark looked offended and Hawkeye winked at you.

“Excuse me, I’m considered very attract-” Stark started.

“I’m sure you are. Blonds are more my type. Thor? Cap? Either of them around. They can nurse me back to health.” You gave Hawkeye a wink back. He was a funny guy. There was a sudden crack of thunder and Stark sighed.

“I swear, if Point Break has broken any more windows with that Bifrost thing -”

“Really? He’s here?” You interrupted again. You pretended to clutch at your side and pretended to swoon. “Tell him I need a nurse, and my dying wish is to see Asgard in his arms. Tell him -”

“I’m reasonably sure that won’t be necessary. Or appropriate,” a dry, sarcastic tone came from the far side of the room. “Is it not looked on poorly to partake in sexual congress with ones family on Earth?” 

Your eyes snapped open and you sat up. Across the room, beside the man instantly recognizable as Thor, stood a dark haired man you never thought you’d see again. 

“Daddy?” You gaped. In the silence that followed you wondered how the hell your father hadn’t aged a day since you’d last seen him when you were a little girl. You couldn’t have been any older than four, and now, decades later, the man who’d sung you lullabies in what your mother explained was Icelandic was standing beside Thor, the hottest of the Avengers, and trying to tell him you were somehow related to one another.

All hell broke loose. Stark started cackling like a madman, and Hawkeye shook his head, leaving the room in what appeared to be disgust. Thor turned to the dark-haired man, grabbing him by the lapels of what appeared to be a completely leather outfit.

“Loki, what have you done?” He demanded. You blanched and you felt your jaw drop. You thought that only happened in movies, but you were also reasonably sure you could pick it up off the floor if you needed to.

“What? Brother, I did what any man would in my situation. I fell in love with a beautiful woman. I laid with her, we had a child and then, I was called back to Asgard, so I faked my death and returned home,” Loki replied. Loki. Loki the guy who’d attempted to take over New York just a couple of years earlier. Loki, the brother of Thor. Loki, a prince of Asgard and -

“Holy motherfucking hell, does this make me a princess?” You gasped.

- - - 

Hope that was to your liking, @rampant-salamander ;)

[tombraidergirl]

SotTR Impressions (1): Reveal Demo

On 26 April 2018 I was given the opportunity to try out the first hands-on demo for Shadow of the Tomb Raider at the London reveal event to which I was kindly invited by Square Enix Germany. Square Enix sponsored my travel an accommodations to this event.

Shadow of the Tomb Raider will complete the story arc that began in Tomb Raider - where adventure found young, fresh-from-college Lara Croft, forcing her to fight for survival - and was continued in Rise of the Tomb Raider - where Lara actively sought out adventure to honour her father’s legacy. In Shadow of the Tomb Raider Lara chooses to continue searching for great archaeological and mythological mysteries, out of curiosity and her love for adventure, slowly turning her into the adventuress we know and love from the classic games.

In the past couple of years the reboot series had to endure a lot of criticism pertaining to Lara’s character and the fact that her weak side was showing, but what people keep forgetting is that the Lara from the classic games (with the exception of Angkor Wat in The Last Revelation and Ireland in Chronicles - which didn’t portrait a very believable character if you’re honest ;-) - which is okay btw, it's fiction) was a seasoned explorer in her late twenties or early thirties (born in 1968). Her original storyline was that an event - in that case a plane crash - at the age of 21 made her turn her life upside down, becoming the heroine of Tomb Raider I and everything after. A storyline that Tomb Raider Legend kind of messed up and Tomb Raider (2013) then tried to fix by getting back to the roots, but replacing the plane crash with a shipwreck to add something fresh, instead of doing Legend’s Nepal again at the “correct” age. So where in the original game was it written that 21-year-old Lara didn’t have weaknesses? I can sympathise with people not loving to play a softer Lara, when we got to know and love her as a tough cookie, but that’s over with anyway, and so is this discussion I hope.

Shadow adds a new layer of toughness to Lara. Her body has changed visibly, her well toned muscles clearly showing. Her face seems a little less soft - something that is probably going to be discussed at length on the internet with comments along the lines of “why did they change her face again” - which is only logical given what she has been through in the recent years.

Story

Lara and Jonah are in Cozumel, Mexico hot on the trail of one Dr. Dominguez, a member of the Trinity order, searching for a hidden underground temple holding a key, the “Key of Chak Chel” to some mystery. Lara herself is trying to beat them to it and believes to have the upper hand as a second piece of the puzzle, the “Silver Box of Ix Chel”, Trinity is searching for in Brazil, might actually be located in Peru according to her own calculations. The Day of the Dead, or Día de Muertos, is being celebrated presenting Lara and Jonah with the opportunity to blend in, Lara hiding her Trinity-wide known face beneath a traditional mask worn for this occasion. With Jonah’s help Lara manages to follow Dominguez, whom Lara begins to suspect of being the actual leader of Trinity. She learns that while they are still unsuccessful in Brazil, they might have found the entrance to the hidden complex here in Cozumel. Gaining entrance to the dig site Lara manages to find a cave entrance Trinity has so far ignored. This ultimately leads her into the heart of the complex, an underground Maya pyramid, where she finds a large mural telling the story of Kukulkan, the creation god, and tells of a ritual that - when combining the key and the box - summons him. But it also warns of many catastrophes, in the order: tsunami, storm, earthquake, and volcanic eruptions. Lara then spots a circular stone tablet depicting the Hydra constellation which is misaligned. After aligning it, the hiding place of the Key of Chak Chel, an ancient ornate dagger, is revealed to her. While Lara marvels at the artefact, she receives a warning from Jonah via the two-way radio that Trinity is closing in. Without having time to think, Lara grabs the artefact and thus inadvertently sets things into motion. “What have I done?” Lara manages to escape the underground structure but is surprised by Dominguez and his men who take the dagger from her and tell her that by grabbing the artefact she started the apocalypse and that the first harbinger, the tsunami, is on its way. Lara manages to escape the tsunami, while witnessing the destruction it leaves in its wake, and is able to reunite with Jonah. She tells him what has happened and that she has lost the dagger to Trinity and that the foremost thing on her mind is beating Trinity in the race for the Box to prevent Trinity from realising their dreams for a new world order. Jonah maintains that Lara is not at fault for the tsunami. “Not everything is about you.” He believes that helping the survivors of the tsunami should be their priority.

Gameplay

In the first part of the demo Lara explores the town square and has the opportunity to interact with a couple of people, by talking to them, and learning more about their lives; a gameplay mechanism that has been introduced in the Reboot, where Lara could talk to the other Endurance survivors and returning in Rise where minor interactions with the Remnant were possible. But Shadow takes the whole thing a step further, as the whole market scene is not really relevant for progressing with the main story, but gives the environment a more lively feel. The market also offers the first resources in the form of a medkit and some herbs.

Another gameplay element returning is the fluent switch between cut scenes and playable scenes, when Jonah distracts two goons to allow Lara to sneak past and explore the back alleys and reach the dig site, which is well guarded and locked down. She then reaches another exploration area, a nice and quiet location with the remains of ruined Maya structures where more resources can be found, including resource crates and where Lara uses the wall scramble, the move that gets her up and over high walls. 

Lara’s use of the climbing axe has also improved, offering new ways of traversal  not seen in the reboot games yet. Besides climbing on craggy walls, she can now attach the rope she carries to rappel up or down, to use that rope to perform a so called rappel swing and reach far off platforms, and to perform wall runs to again reach far off platforms.

Lara finally locates a cave entrance allowing her passage to yet another type of area, where she meets her first prey in the form of the well known and difficult to shoot rats that can be killed for hide and +25 XP. The new gameplay elements introduced here are the ability to disarm spear traps by cutting tripwire ropes using the knife Lara carries and the improved diving skill that gives Lara a new freedom when exploring under water. Unfortunately Lara has not brought the rebreather from Rise along but she is now able to use pockets of trapped air to extend her time underwater. 

After making her way through the underwater passages Lara finally reaches the interesting bit where a series of counterweights waits to be figured out to allow her to ascend upwards. Through the use of carts that can be pushed, tethered to other objects like cranks, or rotated around on a turntable, Lara can use them to break through walls and to weight down platforms. It seems like more of these kinds of puzzles have made their way from the challenge tombs - of which there were none in the demo by the way - into the base game. 

(Concept Art)

Another well known gameplay element is a water slide scene, where Lara has to be steered down a torrential stream, avoiding deadly traps. 

The axe can still be used to pry open doors, widen cracks in walls and even to break windows in this game.

The resources found in Shadow of the Tomb Raider are more plentiful if we are to believe what the developers told us and besides the known resources like herbs, cloths, hide, hardwood (which can also be dug up from hidden caches) we were able to spot ready made medkits and stimulants. More known elements returning are murals - which will now improve Laras overall knowledge of the culture rather than her language skills in particular - shootable targets as part of a challenge and explorer backpacks or maps - that give Lara the location of hidden collectables.

Impressions

Let me begin with Jonah, because he’s right there at the beginning of the demo. I have spoken with quite a few fans who thought that reboot Jonah seemed a lot tougher than Rise Jonah and who missed that tougher side of him. But in Shadow tough Jonah is back. While in Rise I got the feeling that Jonah wasn’t really there of his own free will but coerced by Lara to be there, but in Shadow he’s back and seems genuinely interested in the adventure. He actively helps Lara by distracting mercenaries. The two seem like equals, two adventurers who can both hold their own, no one in need of comforting and supporting (Lara by Jonah in the Reboot) or of rescuing (Jonah by Lara in Rise). Something that does return from Rise is their occasional difference of opinion resulting in heated discussions not unlike the one that occurred in Croft Manor in Rise of the Tomb Raider.

The Cozumel part is a little reminiscent of the Syria section of Rise. It has Lara finding a hidden tomb or temple, it gives a kind of introduction into traps, but Cozumel is a little more bombastic adding a calm town exploration to it (a little like the very beginning of Peru in Tomb Raider Legend but without the town folk hiding in their houses - a better comparison would be another game that is not Tomb Raider where such explorations of towns with lots of friendly characters is common but I’ll refrain from such comparison at this point, you might not own a PlayStation :-) ) The climbing sections shortly later are a little like the beginning of Thailand in Underworld but with a more impressive environment, with a view close to the one enjoyed at the Coastal Bluffs in the Reboot. (Or, possibly passages of number 4 of the PlayStation game I am not mentioning here. ;-))

And finally: The top Lara was wearing in the demo (a different one from the one in the screenshots) is getting closer to the classic outfit we know.

[kindabraveandlittlestupid]

Gamer Girls are kind of amazing. I mean am not saying all girl NEED to be gamers and it's far from a deal breaker for a relationship but having a Player 2 in the household is kind of amazing. I want to come home from work and find a pizza on the table and cutie with a booty sitting on the sofa in PJ’s waiting for me to join her in a game for a bit. Of course, the option of making it Netflix Night or something else is also welcome but I have been (for my whole life) a gamer since the original Sega system up to my custom built PC I use now. And I want to share that with her.

So for all you Game Girls and Wonderful Girlfriends who are willing to try new things to make your lover happy (or reverse relationships where your a Gamer Girl trying to get your Boyfriend or Girlfriend into games). I present you my Co-Op Date Night Video Game List.

Enjoy.

A Way Out

I admit I have not yet played this game but it looks damn good and reminds me a fair amount of Splinter Cell which appeals to me. From what I have seen the voice acting and graphics are on par with Grand Theft Auto and the gameplay seems very clean. Nothing like working together to break out of prison to bring us closer.

Learning Curb for Significant Other ? ? ? ? ? (No idea how hard this will be)

Diablo 1, 2, & 3

The Diablo series has always been a pretty basic point and click approach with spells on the hotkeys and some minor inventory management. As the games went on more playable characters unlocked with each new game. This game would be a fun side by side experience with two PC’s playing as a male and female character out to kill the Devil himself. 

Learning Curb for Significant Other ★★★☆☆ (Gotta teach the hotkey basics)

Don’t Starve Together

The second game on the list I have yet to play. The animation reminds me of something from Tim Burton meeting Invader Zim. Despite the strangely clever art style, I like the concept of the game of running around resourcing to stay alive. This kind of co-op experience is about carrying your weight and working together.

Learning Curb for Significant Other ? ? ? ? ? (I won't ever let you go hungry before me)

Fortnite

I was playing Save the World setting of the game long before most players were hearing about the soon to be released PUBG. I don't know if that makes me cool or incredibly nerdy but probably both. This game is full of action and I prefer the build mode of the other Save the World Game mode which is where I would want to take you. Gathing supplies building a base, fighting a horde of zombies and winning.

Learning Curb for Significant Other ★★★☆☆ (I’m not always ahead of the trends but when I do it was Fortnite)

Guitar Hero and Rock Band

An oldy but a goody! Guitar Hero and Rock Band both brought the concert into the family room. I loved those first games but really lost interest fast once the microtransactions pretty much dominated the last couple of games. Nothing like ruining a game by demanding another dollar for a song you like. Regardless of those failings, I would love to find another guitar and mic for us to play together. Don’t worry if you can't sing I can play bass and you can take lead. Slapping the bass man!

Learning Curb for Significant Other ★★★☆☆ (P.S. Don’t let me drum)

Heroes of the Storm

Heroes of the Storm is kind of a Blizzard grab bag exploring the DOTA setting. I can't imagine us playing this long term unless we REALLY get into the game and spend some pay to play cash to unlock some characters for her early on. I met a few girls in my life who played games like this and all of them have been amazing people, I hope to do this with my S.O. in the future.

Learning Curb for Significant Other ★ ★ ★ ★ ☆ (A bit more skill based but still very much friendly to new players)

Keep Talking Nobody Explodes

The only VR game on the list but a fun one that requires for two people to work together to defuse a bomb. The first person gets a binder full of paper to read off of and the other has the VR goggles on with the remotes waiting to defuse the bomb. I imagine if you’re really shit communicator this might be a hard game to play but then again it can help you work on that, can’t it?

Learning Curb for Significant Other ★ ★ ★ ☆ ☆ (I hope we have good communication skills)

Left 4 Dead 1 & 2

Simple enough to learn and control, the hard part is knowing when to save my ass from a smoker drag or engaging the zombies in an effective way that we don't get punched to death. There is always one female character to play as so you won’t ever be without a lady to play as unless you’re one of those weird girls who likes Ellis. I don’t get it.

Learning Curb for Significant Other ★ ★ ★ ★ ☆ (Get to the Chopper!)

Lego Games

Far from challenging collection, Lego Games are known to be kid-friendly. Kid-friendly also means new gamer girlfriend friendly. I don’t mind getting silly with lego games to get you into gaming in general. Thus it sits on this list!

NOTE: Got tons of options like Jurassic Park, Batman, Harry Potter, Star Wars, Marvel, Pirates of Caribbean, and more...

Learning Curb for Significant Other ★ ☆ ☆ ☆ ☆ (Silly rabbit Legos are for kids!)

Life is Strange

Apparently, this game is amazing and it operates like Telltale Games where choices matter. From my understanding, if you like Riverdale then this sort of plot is right up your alley, which is great for young women who love that show. I am more of a Sabrina fan myself but you do you.

Learning Curb for Significant Other ? ? ? ? ? (As seen on Tumblr!)

Mariokart

Mariokart is a game that can ruin relationships. I imagine I might sleep on the sofa if you blue turtle shell me at the end of the tace and your butt is something far lower then second place. I personally prefer the arena battles with the balloons but I am simply old school like that when I still had a third arm from my chest for the N64 console. 

Learning Curb for Significant Other ★ ★ ☆ ☆ ☆ (I hope we have good communication skills)

Minecraft

Minecraft and the Sims are the only two games you can play without the other person being there and that being perfectly ok. I mean Sims you have to with it being single player but if you had an afternoon on Minecraft without me I wouldn't be angry with the progress you made. It really is a relaxing game unless you’re out at night and hear a sudden his sound that blows out the wall of your house.

Learning Curb for Significant Other ★ ☆ ☆ ☆ ☆ (Thop Thop Thop Thop Pop)

Overcooked 1 & 2

Overcooked is an insanely fun game about cooking. It requires people to follow instructions and get into a flow of handling jobs in the kitchen. If done right it can be a really rewarding experience. If done wrong... well people start getting loud with one another.

Learning Curb for Significant Other ★ ★ ☆ ☆ ☆ (Why didn’t anyone wash the dishes?!)

Overwatch

This would be interesting, I know the female gamer community is growing and certain games have a draw. I pleasantly surprised that there seems to be a large number of gamer girls who enjoy Overwatch or maybe I am projecting the cosplay community. Either way, I want to be your Solider 76 and have you be my healer keeping me upright and fighting. Maybe I will dress up as your favorite male character later. *wink*

Learning Curb for Significant Other ★ ★ ★ ★ ☆ (Tracer has a nice butt, there I said it)

Payday 1 & 2

Payday is a pretty forgiving game in the sense that the bank robbers are pretty much bullet sponges who are kind of hard to kill. The real fun is taking a bank without anyone knowing that we are doing it. With some fun female characters to play as I think we can have a good old time taking hostages and emptying vaults out together.

Learning Curb for Significant Other ★ ★ ★ ★ ☆ (Gonna steal you some diamonds)

Portal 2

Portal is 1 part first-person shooter, 1 part logic puzzles and 1 part rewiring your brain to think in Portals. The game isn't very high stress but does require some skill for the later levels and some experience with first-person controls. I would save this game last for this list to make sure we are on par for our skillset to handle the struggle that is Portal 2.

Learning Curb for Significant Other ★ ★ ★ ★ ★ (Teamwork makes the dream work)

Resident Evil 5 and Later

This game isn't really hard as it is the controls are kind of crap. The stand and shoot principal of Resident Evil really brought down the quality of the early games like the camera angles. That said it was an early co-op with the kinda cute interracial duo that makes you think (they be a hot couple). I kinda want to revisit this game along with some of the other later games and play with my lover once she is comfy enough playing video games with me.

Learning Curb for Significant Other ★ ★ ★ ★ ★ (I got your back honey)

Stardew Valley

Stardew Valley is a really simple looking game that is surprisingly good by keeping you busy with well... busy work. One improvement to the game was the Multiplayer Update/Beta that allowed 2 people to work on a farm together. I really love the idea of building a home with my SO and playing side by side for an hour or so every day making our lives a little better, well in a digital sense.

Learning Curb for Significant Other ★ ★ ☆ ☆ ☆ (Lets farm together boo)

State of Decay 2

We need to be ready for the inevitable zombie apocalypse. This game allows us to build our own survivor and explore a town, house by house raiding for supplies like ammunition, medicine, food, and so on. I think a little teamwork goes a long way in making us grow closer don’t you think?

Learning Curb for Significant Other ★ ★ ★ ★ ☆ (All about survival)

Super Smash Bros.

Anyone who knows me I have issues with Mario despite the fact he made this list twice. Super Smash Bros. gets a seat on this list mostly because of how user-friendly the game is and how fun 4 player co-op can be. I mean... if we were swingers on Date Night that fills the other two spots but since it's you and me we can smash all night long just the two of us.

Learning Curb for Significant Other ★ ★ ☆ ☆☆ (Great ‘Party Game’ and fun for ‘Button Smashers’)

Telltale Games

Pretty much story time for couples where we sit down with some popcorn and take turns doing some minor walk around with characters and making quick story-altering choices together. Imagine the excited screams as we aren't sure which option to pick while playing the Walking Dead! There are so many Telltale Titles to consider playing from Game of Thrones, TWD, Batman, Guardians of The Galaxy, Fables, and Back to the Future so we wont be bored anytime soon.

Learning Curb for Significant Other ★ ☆ ☆ ☆☆ (Stress might spike for tough story choices)

The Sims

The Sims have been around since the late 90′s and captured the imagination of boys and girls across the country alike. While the game is not a ‘co-op’ per say managing a family together on one PC is doable and can be kind of rewarding. I just hope she doesn't remove the ladder by the pool and down my virtual avatar.

Learning Curb for Significant Other ★ ☆ ☆ ☆☆ (Real Simple Stuff Here)

Honorable Mentions

Far Cry 5 - Not the best game but still gives us an open world to discover. Advanced players only.

Ghost Recon: Wildlands - Another open world game to fight the drug cartels. You can create a pretty cute female on this game too.

The Division - Do I have something against open world games? No just Ubisoft games that may be too hard for a new gamer to play.

Splinter Cell: Blacklist - Fuck I miss these games. Splinter Cell was the perfect Co-op Stealth game. We will revisit this one if we burn through the list.

Fable 3 - Chicken Chaser? Do you chase chickens? Fable was a memorable game but way to limited for the years it was being produced. I want to revisit this series soon.

Fallout 76 - Still pretty fresh but still Co-Op able. I have mixed feelings on the game but the character customization might be good for making ourselves in game.

Starcraft 2 - This game has a co-op hero mod perfect for building bases and completing missions. The learning curve is higher for strategy games but it makes the list for fun co-op.

Wrap Up

I scribbled most of these games down myself but when I decided to see what other games couples played, I was pleasantly surprised to find most of the games I wrote were also on their lists. I did cannibalize a few other online lists (such as Resident Evil 5, A Way Out and Don’t Starve Together) but most of my content was original thoughts on my end that other people also saw the potential in (honest to god it was the Overcooked game that inspired me to write this). I like to keep this post as a reminder to myself of what I want to do with my girlfriend or maybe one day my kids (assuming they want to be my player 2 and kill some zombies with their old man). Either way I can't wait to do either and I missed anything that you think should be on this list let me know.

As always thanks for reading.

Regards, Michael California

[pressxtoalex]

My Top 12 Most Anticipated Games of 2018

2017 was an absolute monster of a year for video games, and it’s starting to appear that January is going to be the only time where we aren’t going to be inundated with new releases to play, and inevitably miss out on. However, there are already more than a few games coming out in 2018 that have my attention and think they should have yours, too. Now bear in mind: This is a pretty PS4 heavy list, for obvious reasons, but if you do some Googling, you’ll find a lot of these are multi-platform releases. The other thing to consider, is while I consider myself a great optimist, I have to be real with myself, so no matter what the developers and publishers tell us, you aren’t going to find games like Death Stranding, Kingdom Hearts III, or The Last of Us Part II on this list, because, let’s face it, they aren’t coming out in 2018. Perhaps, the most frightening part of this list, is most of these games have been confirmed for at least the first half of the year, leaving June through December pretty wide open for us as gamers to have a crowded schedule.

12) The Longest Five Minutes

Coming out of NIS America, The Longest Five Minutes takes a twist on the traditional RPG and starts out at the end, facing off against the game’s final boss, however, your character has lost every memory of their adventure, including their name, abilities, and even why he’s in this battle. Throughout the battle, comments made by his allies, and taunts by the Demon King will trigger flashbacks to help fill in the heroes memory gaps. It comes out in just a few weeks on both Vita and Nintendo Switch and the premise alone put this on my radar.

11) Days Gone

We finally saw what Sony’s Bend Studio has been working on at E3 2016, and while it felt more like a “Lookee how many things we can have on the screen at once” they expounded on the stealth aspects of the game at PSX, showing the game to potentially being somewhere between The Last of Us and Horizon Zero Dawn. It sits so low on my list, partly because it’s Bend’s first release since Uncharted: Golden Abyss, and their first console release since Syphon Filter: Logan’s Shadow, and partly because I’m not 100% sold on this coming out in 2018, but, if I’m over here spoutin’ off Last of Us Part 2 is coming in 2019, then Day’s Gone needs to be hitting shelves in 2018 as to not be cannibalized by a much more established IP. I love the idea of an open world motorcycle game, though, and hopefully, it’s something akin to much under-appreciated Mad Max.

10) The Walking Dead: A Telltale Series The Final Season

It’s pretty firmly established that I love adventure games, and I love Telltale. They hit a home run in 2012 with the first season of The Walking Dead, but while they continue to swing for the fences on various other licensed and popular properties, they haven’t quite fully captured the magic that made The Walking Dead’s first season so special. Sure, Season Two and Season Three had their high points, and Telltale has shown some of the magic in their other games like Tales from the Borderlands, Guardians of the Galaxy, and Batman, but this is their chance to give Clementine, a character we’ve spent six years growing up with, a proper send-off and story, after spending Season Three side-stepping her.

9) God of War

Yo. Real talk, I’m not a God of War guy. I don’t need that much screamy chain man in my life, and frankly, Kratos has just been a dude, to me, that has zero redeeming qualities. Yea, he’s angry because of his tragic backstory, but, like...can you not? Here’s the thing though, Sony Santa Monica has created a tamer, humbled Kratos that seems to have far more to lose. While I think we’re starting to teeter on seeing too much of the game, game director Cory Barlog keeps saying the right things about this installment that has more-than-piqued my interest. And me being interested in a God of War game speaks volumes. 

8) Adventure Time: Pirates of the Enchiridion

Adventure Time is the one franchise that has been itching for a quality game under its banner. We’ve had a handful of various dungeon crawler games, top-down Zelda clones, and adventure games, but they’ve either missed on the art style or totally whiffed on the gameplay. Pirates of the Enchiridion may possibly be the Adventure Time game that the series fans have been clamoring for. It’s an open-world game set in the Land of Ooo, with an original story, multiple playable characters, full-cast voiceover, and sailing. The series is wrapping up soon, and this may be one of the last Adventure Time games we see, so here’s hoping this is the one they get right.

7) Church in the Darkness

I’ve had my eye on Paranoid Productions’ Church in the Darkness for a couple of years now. It’s a top-down, procedurally-generated action/infiltration game set in the 1970s where you’re an ex-law enforcement officer tasked with checking in on your nephew, who has recently joined the Collective Justice Mission cult. Each playthrough promises to be different, down to the characters’ personalities and reactions to you being in the camp. If you want to go full-stealth Metal Gear with it, you can, or if you want to go full guns-blazing, go right ahead. The idea of uncovering more of the story based on your investigating, and the varying degree in which characters respond to you each time you play, leave a lot of opportunities for the game to have mass amounts of replay value.

6) Jurassic World Evolution

Hi. I would like to build my own Jurassic World, please. That’s at least what developer Frontier is promising. While I had no idea Jurassic Park: Operation Genesis even existed until it became too rare to justify purchasing, I did spend a lot of my summer in 2012 tapping away at Jurassic Park Builder on my iPhone. Jurassic World Evolution looks to bring that Jurassic Park-meets-Sim City hybrid back to home consoles. Hopefully “Life finds a way” and this game will be exactly what Jurassic-verse fans have been looking for this summer. Just, please, don’t Animal Crossing this and make me have to play every day or risk being infested with weeds and whatnot. That’ll be the quickest way for me to nope out of this.

5) Crossing Souls

Somewhere between the Burger King Kids Club and Stranger Things lies Fourattic’s Crossing Souls. Set in 1986 in California, Crossing Souls is an action-adventure RPG where five kids make a mysterious discovery that thrusts them into navigating two planes of life and death and begin uncovering a government conspiracy. With five playable characters, each with their own style of combat, puzzles, and 80’s arcade references, Crossing Souls is right up my alley in the indie-game realm.

4) Detroit Become Human

Heavy Rain is one of my all-time favorite games. Hell, it’s tangentially linked to where my YouTube namesake came from. While Beyond: Two Souls wasn’t entirely the follow-up a lot of fans were looking for, I have no problem putting all of Quantic Dreams eggs into the Detroit Become Human basket. Between its Isaac Asimov and Philip K. Dick-style of story, stunning visuals, and varying degrees of story direction, this seems to be the Quantic Dream getting back on the right track. The big question is what side of their spectrum the story is going to fall on.

3) Dreams

If you listen closely, you can hear the hype-train leaving the station for Dreams. Media Molecule has been a voice in the gaming industry that needs to be heard again. Their style and creativity has been sorely missed, but a few questions remain: Is there a major market for a curation-based platformer, will the customization be as flawlessly executed as we’ve been lead to believe, and will this even hit 2018 despite the developer’s best efforts? It’s hard for me to temper my excitement for a game that has a far more expansive Super Mario Maker feel to it. The in-game campaign may not be the reason to buy the game, so it’s going to be on those that pick up Dreams to keep it alive.

2) Red Dead Redemption 2

I totally missed on Red Dead Redemption. It was at a time where working in gaming retail and feeling that need to play everything, the last thing I wanted to do was play a massive open-world game. Red Dead Redemption 2 feels like my opportunity to atone for this mistake. I loved what I played of Grand Theft Auto V and am dying to see what Rockstar Games has learned from then to now with Red Dead being their first proper current-gen game release. Rockstar has carte-blanche with the gaming industry, so if they came out tomorrow and said, “This is delayed again, and will be delayed a third time” almost everyone would understand. They’re still Scrooge McDucking in their money from GTA-Five, so they don’t need to rush a Red Dead sequel out the door, but they are looking to be the heaviest hitter in 2018 and every developer and publisher has to be waiting for a release date so they know to stay away.

1) Marvel’s Spider-Man

I am absolutely salivating for Insomniac’s Spider-Man to just get a release date. I don’t even need it in my hands yet, I just want to know when I can have it in my hands, and based on recent tweets from the game’s dev-team, we may know sooner rather than later. Not only is this my most anticipated game of 2018, if you were to put a gun to my head and tell me I can only pick one game from this year, I would not even flinch when answering “Marvel’s Spider-Man.” Between the combat, the cinematic uses of QTE’s, to the open environments, I am absolutely sold on this game. The most exciting thing about this release is that, despite what we’ve already seen, I don’t even think we’ve seen a lot of it. Through tweets, and various interviews, I think we’ve only seen the tip of the iceberg with this game. Outside of a certain popular character’s appearance in the E3 2017 trailer, we already know they play a larger role than just a cameo, leaving me to wonder if we’re getting a Sons of Liberty situation where the what we’ve seen could be a misdirection to what we’re getting. Regardless, Insomniac Games and Spider-Man are an incredible pairing and I cannot wait to get my hands on this.

So there you have it! My most anticipated games of 2018. I’m sure most of the titles didn’t surprise you, but I absolutely hope I was able to turn your gaze toward some upcoming releases you may not have previously known about. Feel free to drop by and let me know what you’re most looking forward to!

[thequillsink]

Published by grimoireofhorror.com and The Banshee 16/06/21

With E3's first full online event coming to a close, we thought we would do a quick rundown of the treasure trove of horror games under development and set for release across the upcoming 2021/2022 period.

There were a plethora of horror themed videogames being advertised, from Triple A studios to small indie dev teams alike, coming up for release over the next year (bar any technical problems). Below we have more information about these upcoming horror releases.

Salt and Sacrifice

Salt and Sacrifice is the next game being produced and published by Ska Studios, it is somewhat of a follow-up to their previous 2016 cult hit Salt and Sanctuary (Without being called a sequel).

Salt and Sacrifice follows in a similar, souls-like style gameplay and an analogous art style. It focuses on on side scrolling action, heavy RPG elements and gigantic, terrifying monsters to battle against. Salt and Sacrifice is coming to PS5 and PS4 with a release window of 2022.

The Anacrusis

The Anacrusis is a four person co-op FPS developed by Stray Bombay, gameplay very much styled on Left 4 Dead's fast-paced zombie action.

Set on an alien spaceship, the game sees four players team up to blast through hordes of alien monstrosities in this '70s themed alien romp. The Anacrusis is set to be released 'later this year' on Xbox one, Xbox Series X/S and Windows.

Blood Hunt

Blood hunt is a new third-person battle royale game being developed by Shark Mob. The game takes place in Prague, Czech Republic and follows the Vampire: The Masquerade universe. The different underground vampire sects battle in the back alleys and rooftops for superiority whilst trying to avoid breaking the masquerade, calling in Entity strike teams.

With the use of firearms, melee weapons and special magical abilities, players will fight to see who is the strongest among them. This will hopefully breathe new life into the Battle Royale genre (especially with the promise of no pay-to-win services). Blood hunt will be released for free in late 2021 on Windows.

House of Ashes

House of Ashes is the third game in The Dark Pictures Anthology developed by Supermassive Games. House of Ashes is an interactive horror game similar to their previous titles Man of Medan and Little Hope. The story follows a small unit of soldiers as they discover a subterranean ruins and the horror they uncover.

The gameplay seems to follow the same formula as the others in the series, playing more as an interactive movie rather than a videogame. With the improvements in graphics, it will be interesting to see how this holds up to the previous games. House of Ashes has been given an October 2021 release on PS5, Xbox Series X/S, PS4, Xbox One and Windows.

Back 4 Blood

Back 4 Blood is a four person co-op FPS being developed by Warner Bros and Turtle Rock. The game is being worked on by the same team as the legendary Left 4 Dead and is therefore a spiritual successor rather than a clone like so many others.

Back 4 Blood will have similar, horde killing action to its predecessor,  demonstrating an AI director who will control the difficulty level for a unique playthrough each time.  The game will be released October 2021 for PS5, Xbox Series X/S, PS4, Xbox One and Windows.  

Evil Dead: The Game

Evil Dead: The Game is a 5v1 online co-op survival game under development by Boss Team Games and published by Sabre Interactive. The game seems to be a sequel to the hit TV series Ash vs Evil Dead.

The gameplay seems comparable to similar titles such as Dead by Daylight and Friday the 13th, though from in-game footage, some new mechanics will be added and the visuals will be improved upon. Evil Dead: The Game is expected to be released some time this year for PS5, Xbox Series X/S, PS4 Xbox One and Windows.

Elden Ring

Elden Ring is the latest game from developer FromSoftware and published by Bandai Namco. FromSofware are known for their popular Souls series and Bloodborne games.

Elden Ring will continue the developer legacy of combining frustratingly tough combat, beautiful gothic landscapes and intricate lore to weave an engrossing, in-depth story with the help of writer George R R Martin. First being revealed at E3 2019, the game had slipped into obscurity with developers releasing no information afterwards until now. Elden Ring is said to be released January 2022 for PS5, Xbox Series X/S, PS4, Xbox One and Windows.

Rainbow Six: Extraction

Rainbow Six: Extraction is the latest in Tom Clancy's round-based counter terrorism tactical FPS developed by Ubisoft Montreal. The game was first announced in 2019, where it has gone through a name change since then due to the pandemic.

The game takes its ultra-realistic combat and pits your squad against a range of vicious alien creatures instead of the standardly vague terrorist threat. Featuring previous operatives such as Hibana, Ash and Tachanka, hopefully more info on other characters will be released in the near future. Rainbow Six Extraction will be released in September on PS5, Xbox Series X/S, PS4, Xbox One and Windows and will feature cross-play between systems.

Broken Pieces

Broken Pieces is an action-packed investigative and adventure video game set in France. The game is developed by two person team Elseware Experience.

The game immerses players in the shoes of Elise, following an unexplained paranormal phenomenon, Elise is stuck, alone, in a time loop that inevitably forces her to relive the same day over and over. Broken Pieces has a very Silent Hill feel with a heavy emphasis on investigation and puzzle-solving. Broken Pieces is set to be released June 2022 on PS5, Xbox Series X/S, PS4, Xbox One and Windows.

Doki Doki Literature Club Plus

Doki Doki Literature Club Plus is a rerelease of the classic psychological horror visual novel developed by Team Salvato. Featuring hundreds of new unlockable HD images, six brand new side stories and twelve new music tracks being added to the game, there should be enough for new and old fans alike to look into this new release.

Doki Doki Literature Club Plus will be available at the end of June for PS5, Xbox Series X/S, PS4, Xbox One, Nintendo Switch and Windows.

Signalis

Signalis is a fixed-perspective survival horror developed by two person team Rose Engine and published by Humble Bundle.

The game is heavily influenced by the early Resident Evil and Silent Hill games (including somewhat low-poly graphics), but with an anime visual style that doesn't distract from the horror. Although the game has been in development since 2014, the pair are still not comfortable setting a release date but have confirmed the game will be released to Windows.

Ghostwire: Tokyo

Ghostwire: Tokyo is an action adventure horror game developed by Tango Softworks, known for their well renowned Evil Within series and published by Bethesda Entertainment.

The gameplay is very action orientated, exhibiting strong underlying horror element due to 99% of Tokyo’s population vanishing without a trace in just a single day. Those few that remained are then plagued by the “Visitors” who take the form of various Japanese yokai using first-person magic based combat. Ghostwire: Tokyo is set for release October 2021 to Playstation, release on other platforms is set for 2022.

Faith: The Unholy Trinity

Faith: The Unholy Trinity is a pixel horror game being developed by one man team Airdorf Games and released by New Blood Interactive.

Faith is a horrifying puzzle game inspired by MS-DOS and ZX Spectrum games. Including simple mechanics and very effective scares, this three chapter story, despite being short, will be a rush of nostalgia for old school gamers. Episodes one and two of Faith are available on Itch.io for Windows right now, Faith: The Unholy Trinity will be available on Steam soon.

S.T.A.L.K.E.R. 2: Heart of Chernobyl

S.T.A.L.K.E.R. 2: Heart of Chernobyl is the latest to be released in the first person survival horror series developed by GSC Game World. The game returns the players to 'the zone', the area surrounding Chernobyl nuclear power plant.

The upgraded graphics have completely transformed the S.T.A.L.K.E.R. world from GSC's previous game S.T.A.L.K.E.R. Call of Pripyat released all the way back in 2009.  Continuing with an overall supernatural overtone,  S.T.A.L.K.E.R. 2: Heart of Chernobyl looks to be a great edition to the franchise. The game is to be released April 2022 to Xbox Series X and Windows with rumours of other platform released later on in the year. Eldest Souls

Eldest Souls is a pixel art, souls-like boss rush RPG developed by Fallen Flag Studios and published by United Label. The Old Gods have unleashed a great desolation upon the world, turning farmlands to desert and rivers to dust. You, a lone warrior, must explore the vast, forgotten Citadel in search of the Old Gods. Your quest? To slay them all.

Eldest Souls take focus on the most difficult parts of Souls-type games, the bosses. Each one having its own unique challenge to overcome, and suitable rewards depending on whether you are victorious. Eldest Souls is set for release July 2021 on PS5, Xbox Series X/S, PS4, Xbox One, Nintendo Switch and Windows. Vampire The Masquerade: Swansong

Vampire The Masquerade: Swansong is a story-driven RPG set in modern-day Boston, during an era where vampires have gone from hunters to being hunted. The game is being developed by Big Bad Wolf and published by Nacon.

Swansong's gameplay has still not been released but it is believed to be closer to the original games style of gameplay as opposed to Bloodhunt's battle royale style. The trailer has revealed one of three playable characters, Leysha, who is a member of the Malkavian clan. Vampire The Masquerade: Swansong is due to be released late 2021 on PS5, Xbox Series X/S, PS4, Xbox One, Nintendo Switch and Windows.

Project Warlock 2

Project Warlock 2 is a retro first person shooter with a heavy pixelated graphics being developed by indie studio Buckshot Software and published by Gaming Company.

The game is a sequel to the teams original 2018 title Project Warlock. Similar to their first title, the game is reminiscent of early 3D pc shooters of the 90's such as Quake and Unreal Tournament, but has a heavier emphasis on the bit-crushed low poly graphics. This looks like an incredibly fast paced action horror which shooter fans should get a kick out of playing. Project Warlock 2 will be released for Windows, early access will begin in July 2021 with a full release set for some time 2022.

Death Trash

Death Trash is a post-apocalyptic cosmic horror RPG being developed and published by Crafting Legends. Humans left the planet Earth in search of the cosmos and settled on a brand new planet: Nexus. It is a mysterious planet filled with eldritch abominations and a deep lore for the player to discover.

The game is a pixel art, top-down roleplaying game where your choices can either make or break the game, showcasing the ability to befriend these creatures rather than just battle everything you encounter. Death Trash will be available for Windows in early access from late July 2021.  

A Plague Tale: Requiem

A Plague Tale: Requiem is a direct sequel to 2019's survival game A Plague Tale: Innocence both developed by Asobo Games and published by Focus Home Group.

The game will be a continuation of the prequel's story, following the struggles of Amicia and Hugo through rat-infested environments in search of a new home. A Plague Tale: Requiem will be available on PS5, Xbox Series X/S and Windows sometime in 2022.

Somerville

Somerville is an upcoming cell-shaded sci-fi horror puzzle/platform game developed by Jumpship .

Although the trailer didn't give too much away, the story seems to follow a family as they struggle to escape an unknown catastrophic event. The game looks incredibly akin to Limbo from the similarly oppressive landscapes and general feel. Somerville is set for release on Xbox Series X/S, Xbox One and Windows sometime 2022.

Replaced

Replaced is a 2.5D dystopian sci-fi action platformer developed by Sad Cat Studios and published by Coatsink. You play as R.E.A.C.H, an AI trapped inside a human body against its will, in an alternate 1980s America.

Including a mix of extreme violence, slick visuals and stunningly detailed pixel art style, the game is a feast for the eyes. Despite not technically a horror game, I had to include it in this list. Replaced will definitely scratch an itch if games like Death Trash raised you hype levels. Replaced will be released on Xbox Series X/S, Xbox One and Windows sometime 2022.

Pioner

Pioner is a first person survival MMORPG developed by Russian developers GFA Games. You act as a former operative who survives in a world after a technological disaster. A Soviet island isolated from the mainland by a large-scale technogenic anomaly. So, now you have two primary objectives: find (and rescue) your comrades while investigating the mystical MOGILNIK station.

The game seems like a fusion between the S.T.A.L.K.E.R series, the Metro series and DayZ. Players enter a huge open world environment, littered with supernatural creatures and disturbances. The game will have both PVP and PVE elements to gameplay as well as full character and weapon customisation. However, the trailer didn't specify a release date, it is hoped to be released around the start of 2022 for Windows (though this is liable to change).

Chernobylite

Chernobylite is a first person survival horror being developed by The Farm 51 and published by All In! Games. The game sees the player try and survive Chernobyl's harsh exclusion zone (sense a pattern here?), the new trailer has included a look at the heist it all builds up to—getting past an occupying military force to break into the Chernobyl Nuclear Power Plant. You're there to find out what happened to your beloved Tatyana.

The game seems very similar to Bethesda's Fallout series in gameplay, setting and tone,  especially considering the inclusion of base building and furniture crafting for you and your crew to plan your heist in style and comfort. Chernobylite is available for PS4, Xbox One and Windows July 2021, With PS5 and Xbox Series X/S expected to be released later on in the year.

Red Solstice 2: Survivors

Red Solstice 2: Survivors is a real-time strategy survival game and the sequel to Red Solstice. The game is being developed by Ironward and Published by 505 Games. You control a squad of soldiers fighting STROL mutants on Mars, trying to help find a cure to save mankind and stop this virus in its tracks.

The gameplay is essentially a real-time XCOM game, mutants interchanged from alien invaders of earth. The game come with a single player and online 8 player co-op missions, allowing your friends to get deep in the tactical elements of the game. Red Solstice 2: Survivors will be available for Windows as soon as June 17th.

Mechajammer

Mechajammer is an isometric cyberpunk horror RPG being developed by Whalenought Studios and published by Modern Wolf.

The gameplay takes influence from classic 80's films such as Escape from New York and Robocop. Although there are strong similarities with other isometric RPG such as Fallout 1 & 2, that have their roots in TTRPGs. Mechajammer unfortunately lacked a release date in the trailer but will be released for Windows.  

Scorn

Scorn is a first person survival horror adventure developed by Belgrade and published by Ebb. The game is designed around the idea of ‘being thrown into the world’. You are isolated and lost inside this dream-like world based on the techno-sexual artwork of the amazing H.R Giger.

A 14 minute gameplay trailer was revealed during Microsoft/Bethesda showcase, displaying  foreboding, oppressive landscapes littered with highly detailed body horror and grotesque creatures. The game will require environmental puzzles to be solved to forward progression to the next horrifying area. Scorn is to be released on Xbox Series X/S and Windows some time this year.

RedFall

Redfall is an open-world first person shooter developed by Arkane Studios and published by Bethesda. The quaint island town of Redfall, Massachusetts, is under siege by a legion of vampires who have blocked out the sun and cut the island off from the outside world.

The gameplay looks akin to Left 4 Dead, as well as a few other games being showcased this year, a mix of single player or four player co-op. What does differ is the special ability that each character has, from telekinesis to a robot companion to aid in the fight of the besieging vampire threat. Redfall is set to release mid 2022 for Xbox Series X/S and Windows.

Danganronpa: Decadence

Danganronpa is a series of horror visual novels developed by Spike Chunsoft and published by NIS America as early as 2010. The series is set around the affluent high school, Hope's Peak Academy. A group of lucky (or Unlucky) students are subject to a death game in order to graduate.

The games, originally released for the PSP and Vita, are now being released for the Nintendo Switch. Danganronpa: Decadence will bundle Danganronpa: Trigger Happy Havoc Anniversary Edition, Danganronpa 2: Goodbye Despair Anniversary Edition, Danganronpa V3: Killing Harmony Anniversary Edition, and Danganronpa S: Ultimate Summer Camp together as a physical copy or available separately on Nintendo's Estore set to release later this year.

Fatal Frame: Maiden of Black Water

Fatal Frame: Maiden of Black Water is a survival horror game developed by Koei Tecmo and published by Nintendo all the way back in 2014. Set in the fictional Hikami Mountain, a place infamous for suicides and spiritual happenings connected with local bodies of water. The story follows three different protagonists: Yuri Kozukata, who has the ability to bring people back from the shadow world into the real world; Ren Hojo, an author and friend of Yuri who goes to the mountain to research his new book; and Miu Hinasaki, the daughter of recurring Fatal Frame protagonist Miku Hinasaki.

The game is a remaster of the original game for modern and next-gen consoles with new costumes and photo modes that weren’t in the original, as well as updated visuals. Fatal Frame: Maiden of Black Water will be released for PS5, Xbox Series X/S, PS4, Xbox One, Nintendo Switch and Windows.

After The Fall

After The Fall is a four person co-op VR horror shooter developed by Vertigo Games. The game sees you and up to four other players battle a Left 4 Dead style hoard of zombies with special infected in a post apocalyptic world.

The main aim of the dev team was to have the game be compatible for all VR headsets on the market, allowing for the difference in quality and movement sensitivity. After The Fall will be released on the Oculus Quest, PlayStation VR and PC VR headset.

Inscryption

Inscryption is a narrative focused, deck building psychological horror developed and published by Daniel Mullins Games, developer of Pony Island and Hex.

Unfortunately, not much of the story was revealed, but this game looks deeply terrifying. Your only defence are the cards in your possession, each obtained through terrible means. Inscryption will be available some time this year for Windows.

Despite the lack of actual game play for some of the bigger, more anticipated games, I believe that this years E3 has some pretty interesting releases for the next year.

I, for one, am very excited for some of the pixel horror games being released such as Mechajammer, Replaced and Death Trash (I'm incredibly hyped for Death Trash). Although, some of the bigger titles like Vampire the Masquerade: Swansong, Back 4 Blood and Fatal Frame: Maiden of Black Water have piqued my interests.

At least, in some way, the return of E3 is some return to normality whilst still in the height of the pandemic. I am positive by next year, the quality of these events will improve and we can return to the high quality showcase of gameplay E3 is known to provide.

[boardoflife]

While RePlay FX 2018 has its roots in a festival for pinball enthusiasts, it has developed nicely over the years into Pittsburgh’s premier gaming invention, a locus for not only pinball and old school coin-op video games, but console and tabletop games, as well as a showcase for cosplayers and gaming inspired musical acts, such as Super Thrash Bros and The Triforce Quartet.

We’ve attended RePlay FX since its inception, so this marks the fourth year of our attendance, and every year the convention seems better and more vibrant, with not only higher attendance but a high caliber of attendees, which is to say that everyone you meet there is super nice and only interested in getting their game on. And, as all the games are set to free to play, there is a lot of gaming going on at any given time.

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The Staying Power of the Arcade Experience

Vintage coin op video and pinball games remind us that the novelty of technology can outlive its general use; that old often means not irrelevant or unentertaining, but proven playability; that newness can disappoint when compared with vintage classics (case in point: RePlay FX’s classic Rampage, a much better game than the updated cinematic one at Dave and Busters); and, that though the times change, past treasures will continue to find new fans, like my seven year old, who did not want to leave the pinball games. While my guess is that 99 out of 100 kids would play pinball if they had the opportunity, outside of RePlay FX, few habitats remain for these classic games.

Which is not to say that there isn’t new tech here, such as the Twitch broadcast of vintage gaming competitions, just that part of a successful technological culture may be acknowledging its age, enjoying the hybrid edge created by the fusion of the old with the new, and recognizing the virtue of old machines in which design and programming coalesced into something not only addictive, but classic. Certain old video games create not only an experience, but an aesthetic, that humans living in any decade would appreciate, and it is this unique entertainment signature that continues to attract players to the game, regardless how old and clunky the interior or the cabinet. While the cell phones of 1995 are laughably obsolete, you can imagine people playing a 1979 Asteroids or a 1982 Ms. Pac-Man in future centuries or on another planet, so that at least until humans have different eyes, different hands, and different brains, these games are not technologically obsolete, but technologically immortal…at least, as long as humans remember how to repair these games.

Games Played

As you can tell, I really love these old video games. A veteran of every RePlay FX, this year was not about the nostalgia of rediscovering old games, not about playing now what I played then, but about replaying all the games that have transcended my nostalgia to become something that I really, really enjoy playing now. For the two days of our RePlay FX experience, a 1982 arcade lived and breathed, because that was the way I once played games. So that, rather than playing a smattering of different games, I accumulated Centipede, Galaga, Tempest, Ms. Pac-Man, Rampage, Battlezone, and Asteroids plays, and adding to that a play each of certain games for which I hold a curiosity or a shred of nostalgia, such as Saito’s Superman, Xenophobe, Frogger, Missile Command, Space Invaders, and the slower Pac-Man games (which usually sent me running back to the speedier Ms. Pac-Man). As I’ve mentioned in past reviews of RePlay FX, not every vintage game is good; for every Asteroids or Tempest, there are ten that aren’t so good, and only gazing at them through the pixellated glasses of nostalgia will tempt you into seeking a playable game there. Defender, I’m looking at you.

Another evolution of my RePlay FX experience is that this year I played a lot of Centipede. I attribute this to the fact that in previous years, my enjoyment of RePlay FX was partially about the nostalgia, and Centipede was not one of the best-loved games of my childhood. When my attention shifted from nostalgia to a pure gaming experience, one game of Centipede led to another, and now I would like to tell twelve year old me to play more Centipede.

The third trend in how my RePlay FX experience is changing is that I’m playing more pinball, which is the by-product of my son’s fascination with pinball. In previous years, while I played a few pinball games, I was mainly interested in the art values of the machines. At each pinball game my son played, he wanted to play it several more times, and this zeal rubbed off on me to a degree, so that I watched his games with growing interest and played a little more myself.

If I have any regrets about my arcade experience at RePlay FX 2018, it’s that I didn’t play more Joust, and never played Gauntlet. It wasn’t for lack of trying, but because, whether it was due to its popularity or my luck, Gauntlet was never unoccupied, and my wife and daughter took every chance to play Joust. (Not that I should complain, considering how long I made them wait between turns on two-player Ms. Pac-Man.)

Being RePlay FX veterans, we played only coin op games on Friday, when the lines are lighter and you can go game to game. Even if you’re champing at the bit to play Tempest, which we were several times, you’ll eventually find one by going with the flow, game to game. By comparison, Saturday we played guilty pleasures, those coin op games that are in bad taste for one reason or another, such as Saito’s Superman in which the Man of Steel throws fireballs, adding another apocryphal power to Superman II‘s cellophane S and amnesia kiss. There is never a line on Saito’s Superman, and I do like to play it when I find one.

Saturday is also a great day to learn a new boardgame, as while this was the biggest and best year for the tabletop area, there were always available chairs. This year we taught ourselves Kodama: The Tree Spirits, which, though we weren’t able to finish, seems not only like a fun quick game, but one of those elusive four player games that also plays well with two players. While the game materials are average, the art values are high, so Kodama‘s competitive and strategic aspect is also accented by the visual pleasure of crafting a tree bearing flowers, mushrooms and caterpillars.

Kodama (2nd Edition) Board Game

An Area of Opportunity and an Exciting Development

The only area in which RePlay FX has not exhibited much growth is in their alley of vendors, which has not increased to match the pace of this burgeoning convention. This may be the vendors’ fault, I imagine, as it seems like there are nothing but missed opportunities for merchants at RePlay FX. For instance, on Saturday, the board game area had 50-100 people seated at any given time, and there was only one tabletop game vendor at the convention.

Although Vendors aren’t savvy about RePlay FX yet, several indie game creators attended and brought playable games. While an arcade game developer attended a past RePlay, if indie game designers start to see RePlay FX as a viable showcase for their work, this could be an exciting development for RePlay FX that might lead to RePlay growing to something like a Pittsburgh version of PAX, or–fingers crossed–a hybrid event with tabletop developers as well, adding that je ne sais quoi of GenCon.

The most striking indie game was ParaLily, a puzzle sidescroller that had three of us enthralled for about twenty minutes. While it is not yet available on Steam, here is some in-game footage:

Conclusion

Once again, RePlay FX brought the dazzle, the pixels, and an arcade glamour to the David L Lawrence Convention Center, transforming the hall from a rectangle of only so many dimensions into a brightly-colored platform bearing the backdrops, levels, and stages of many games. In this galaxy of games, the fun is universal, not only for coin op gaming fanatics, but for gamers of all stripes, cosplay enthusiasts, families, and anyone else looking for a broad spectrum of entertainment.

Cross-posted on NerdSpan.com. Board of Life uses affiliate links.

RePlay FX 2018: A Review of Pittsburgh’s Gaming Convention While RePlay FX 2018 has its roots in a festival for pinball enthusiasts, it has developed nicely over the years into Pittsburgh's premier gaming invention, a locus for not only pinball and old school coin-op video games, but console and tabletop games, as well as a showcase for cosplayers and gaming inspired musical acts, such as Super Thrash Bros and The Triforce Quartet.

[delirium-finalproject]

Delirium Overview

Game Concept

Inspired by the Resident Evil game series, Delirium tells the story of Detective Nolan West, a former Oklahoma sheriff who now resides in the dreary yet lively borough of Camden. After a near death experience whilst on duty in the US, West made the move to the UK to seek a new start in the hopeful city of London.

After the discovery of Dillon Clarkes body in Flat A of St Martin’s Tavern, an investigation into his murder is underway with Detective West at the forefront. The game concept starts on the street outside the foyer of the apartment block, with the player taking control of West. The main objective of the game is to investigate the crime scene and find a conclusion to what happened on the night of February 10th, 2021.

Navigating the apartment and local vicinity, the player will discover clues, interactable items and evidence that will help in finding out what happened to Clarke, helping to solve the case. Whilst exploring the playable environment, unlikely situations may occur that will not only hinder the investigation but change how the players interact with the environment. Events such as power shortages, “paranormal” occurrences and other worldly experiences will encourage the player to work as quickly and as efficiently as possible to uncover the answers to Dillon’s death.

Without spoiling the core story of the gameplay, the answers that the player finds may not meet the expectations they at first assumed. The flow of the game will make use of several plot twists that will finally lead to the conclusion of Delirium.

 Setting and Environments

As aforementioned, the primary gameplay will take place inside Flat A of the St Martin’s Tavern apartment block and the surrounding areas outside. Although the player will have access to the nearby area, the majority of the story telling will take place inside the building with the core gameplay residing inside the apartment. The general aesthetic of the building will be stylised with a modern look and feel, appearing as a normal, well lived in home shared by two occupants.

As the playable area is based on a real location, the floor plan diagram seen below in the reference images will resemble that of the layout within the gameplay. Basing the location on an existing building not only brings development time down but also gives familiarity to the player. Trying to create convincing building layouts often misses the mark and creates an illusion of something that could be real but doesn’t quite give the desired effect. In this case, the decor and furniture arrangements will all be fictitious to meet the needs of the story and core gameplay features.

Key Gameplay features

Delirium will make use of a first-person perspective, putting the player directly in the shoes of Detective West. Although the gameplay won’t include any action-based gameplay, the core mechanics and features will put the player in complete control of the story of solving the murder of Dillon Clarke. Keeping with the feel of the game, the playable environment will at times require the use of a flashlight. This will be equipped at all times with the player able to turn it on and off using the right mouse button. Note, using the torch for an extended time will drain the battery. More batteries can be found around the playable environment.

Whilst exploring the environment, the players main objective is to find answers and clues to assist in solving the murder mystery. There will be many different items located around the building and local area with some giving clues or direct hints on what to search for next. Along with this, there will also be numerous “red herrings'' that aim to take the players attention away from the main quest, creating more questions than answers.

The majority of the gameplay hooks require fetch-quest style mechanics. This also necessitates a general inventory system to store and organise items of interest that the player has acquired. Other mechanics will include:

-       Manually opening/closing doors

-       Inspecting items in further detail

With the use of Unreal Engine, the development cycle of Delirium should be achievable in the given timescale.

 Game Rules

While Delirium is not fundamentally a survival horror game, it fits nicely into the genre when it comes to defining the game rules. More specifically, Delirium will not have a set of rules per se but a specified play area that should not be breached at any point. The player will also only be able to interact with the environment when permitted to do so, such as when discovering an item of interest. The following presents a list of more generic rules to be considered:

-       The player must not exploit any bug or glitch in the game to progress through any stage of the story.

-       The player must stay within the compound of the playable area as permitted by the boundaries of the game.

-       The player will only use each item of interest once for its specified objective.

Game Flow & Progress

With the core gameplay taking place inside the apartment, the flow and progress of the game will have to be staggered in order to preserve a fair game time. Locked doors will prevent the player from being able to progress without acquiring the correct items of interest, motivating the player to explore and exhaust each playable room thoroughly. With each new discovery the player makes, new items will be added to the players inventory for inspection at a later time if necessary. These items will then help to progress through the main story and ultimately finish the main quest.

Game Controls

As aforementioned, Delirium is targeted to release on PC as its prime platform. With this in mind, it’s important to ensure that the player controls feel comfortable and familiar. The main focus is to allow the player to be able to explore the environment with ease of mind without having to consider which keys and buttons correlate to an action. As a standard, Delirium will use the W, A, S, D keyboard inputs to control which direction the character walks in. Alongside this, the mouse will be used to point the camera in its desired direction giving a full view of motion. Other controls will consist of the E key to interact with objects and items within the environment. This will include opening and closing doors, collecting items of interest and inspecting other environment assets. On screen prompts will appear as the player approaches an item or asset, making it clear to the player that it can be interacted with. The flashlight functionality can be toggled on and off when desired using the right mouse button.

Objects/Characters

As talked about in the Game concept, the story of Delirium focuses on the mystery behind the murder of Dillon Clarke. Clarke shared an apartment with a housemate but his identity and current whereabouts are unknown, something the player has to discover throughout the gameplay. The player will take control of Detective Nolan West, an ex US county sheriff now working in the UK as part of the London Metropolitan Police force.

With the core gameplay mechanics focusing on fetch-quests, there will be numerous items of interest for the player to collect and investigate. These items will range from the murder weapon to unopened mail and everything in between that could potentially assist in the investigation. Other items such as keys for locked doors will play an essential part in the flow of the game. As previously mentioned, other “red herring” items will be positioned in the environment in an attempt to hinder the player's progress.

Game assets management

With such an extensive library of assets available via the Epic Store, the majority of resources needed will be sourced from here. This will include furnishings and general environment assets. As for texturing and asset materials, I will be taking advantage of the Quixel Mega Scans software. Quixel allows users to download high fidelity materials and 3D assets and import them directly into Unreal Engine, allowing for an efficient workflow. Any additional assets needed will be created using Blender and imported manually into Unreal Engine. This process is more time consuming yet allows the creation of more specific and bespoke assets.

Walk through

The camera fades from black to full colour and you’re now in control of Detective Nolan West standing outside St Martin’s Tavern on the streets of Camden. The rest of the street is cordoned off with police tape, only able to access the building and the alley to the right leading to the park behind the newly refurbished build. You walk towards the main entrance and find yourself in the foyer. Everything is seemingly normal other than the overflowing mailbox labelled “Flat A”. You ascend the first flight of stairs and locate the apartment marked “A”. Entering the dimly lit property, you turn on your flashlight revealing what seems to be a well looked after home. After trying the light switches, your attention turns to the breaker box to where you find a missing fuse, the likely cause of the power outage. Navigating your way through the apartment, you realise you only have access to the main living area and bathroom with both bedrooms behind locked doors. Entering the living room, you find a set of keys sat on the dining table labelled “Foyer Breaker Box”. As you leave the apartment to further investigate the foyer, you hear the slamming of the living room door behind you. Once back down in the foyer, you notice a locked unit that you now have access to. Opening the unit door, you find several fuse boxes and take the fuse from the array marked “Foyer”. The lights cut out and your flashlight once again becomes visible in the dark. Ascending through the stairwell once more, you re-enter the apartment and insert the fuse in the correct location lighting up the main hall, bringing to life a silhouette in the doorway into the living room...