#so much efficiency this time around and on hardcore mode of all things

[tchotchkez]

for some reason this hardcore run has been my best, most successful run of all the other times I've played disco elysium??

the most homoerotic, the most efficient, the most everything. what is happening.

[miloscat]

[Review] Celeste (PS4)

Pure platforming perfection.

This has been on my backlog for a while. People raved about it, uh... five years ago now. Having revisited the “hardcore platformer” genre with the Meat Boy games, I then checked out Maddy Thorson’s Jumper games, one of the progenitors of this style of game in 2004. This was illuminating in showing to me how foundational her work was, and how her implementation built on itself over 14 years, culminating (with the help of a team of collaborators) in this, a finely honed and deeply personal game.

Celeste started as a Pico-8 game (now called Celeste Classic), which is still available for free (and included as an unlockable bonus in this game, which I sometimes like to call “Super Celeste”). That version was a single-screen affair, the limitations of the screen size and the Pico-8 fantasy hardware making for something designed super tightly and efficiently. With this full release it’s been enhanced and expanded a hundredfold, while keeping those devious but fair platforming puzzles. Madeline has an octo-directional air dash and can climb on walls, and Celeste iterates these concepts to death, wringing every drop of platforming bliss out of these mechanics while mixing in new gimmicks.

I can’t overstate how much this game impressed me. Every screen challenged me first to figure out how to do it, then challenged my fingers to accomplish it. And most astonishingly, I never ever got frustrated with it even when dying dozens of times on a screen. My breaking point did finally come halfway through the “Farewell” chapter, added in a free update three years after the initial release; this chapter occasionally seemed aimed more at the speedrunners who had gathered around the game than casual folks like me, and when wavedashing started to be required I had to tap out. Otherwise I’m proud to say I did get all strawberries (an optional collectible scattered around for extra mini-challenges), completed all B-sides (new harder levels in each world), and found all hearts, and I was satisfied.

But! I was able to see the rest of the content, thanks to Assist Mode. These options let you customise your experience and are a great boon for all players whatever their ability. So I could turn on invincibility and infinite dashes just to push past those final sections that were at my limit, and choose when to try again without them. Everyone is going to have a different breaking point in these games after all, so making it more accessible is a wonderful thing, especially if you want to experience the full story.

It’s well worth it to do so, as the narrative weaves through the gameplay and they only enhance each other. Madeline’s struggles to climb the Mountain reflect her own inner struggles, her self-exploration as meaningful as her exploration of the beautiful but harsh locales, and her personal demons become externalised, confronted, and cathartically reconciled with. The game has a lot to say about mental health and I feel like it treats it sensitively and honestly, not to mention the underlying trans allegory (for more on this please do read Maddy’s essay on the subject at her website Maddy Makes Games).

On the one hand I’m glad I waited at least three years so I could play the game in a more finished state, with the extra content (and deadnames removed). But I also regret waiting too long to join in conversations about it with my friends when it was the hot new thing. Because I want to talk about this game now, I want to watch speedruns and secret guides, I want to read and reread Maddy’s essays. I fell in love with Celeste, I think it’s the pinnacle of its genre... and I can’t wait to see what the team comes up with next (it’s called Earthblade and it looks great so far!).

[obeymeluv]

Hey ^^ may I please request something? If you won't do it then that's totally fine but could you maybe write about how the demon brothers would react if MC got kidnapped and cannot summon any of them? If you don't have time to do it that's totally fine and remember to take care ^^

Quick rundown on my headcanons for bonding with demons:

When I read this, it made me question whether bonded brothers would instinctively know if their pact mate/bonded person was in trouble? Would they be able to tell if the bonded person was unconscious instead of just...contained? I’d like to think that when demons bond to the point of making pact marks, they can kind of “tap in” or “tune in” to the bonded one to make sure things are okay. When they do, they feel what their pact mate is going through. The longer they stay connected, the more they can share.

For example: a 5 minute connection can allow the bonded pair to say a few things mentally, and would allow the demon to fully tap into their bonded one’s emotions. The telepathic capabilities only work when the two are in eye-sight; the connection grows stronger as the demon moves towards the pact mate.

Basic and superficial wounds can be felt at this point. Pulse rates sync up at about three minutes. If the pact mate is unconscious, the demons can try to push their consciousness into being awake or opening their eyes to try and see through them to figure out where they are (before the conscious mind kicks in, about 5-10 seconds). This connection will also allow them to connect to other senses but the demons will be overloaded and experience them all at once. If their human is conscious and they tap into their senses again, they can filter out senses or enhance certain ones for a short amount of time.

Being connected 10 minutes or longer allows for deeper or graver injuries to be felt, and might help with reflexes. Humans may also take on key attributes of a demon, like sharper teeth or claw-like nails. Subtle changes like being slightly more charming (if pulling from Asmo) or stronger (if pulling from Beel) would start to occur. Using this too much may cause mental or physical pains.

The effects of being connected for thirty minutes or longer are largely undocumented (despite Devildom society being 5,000+ years old) but are assumed to be dangerous for the human (pass out from mental exhaustion, borrowed magic fatigue, numbness or trouble moving limbs if reflexes are enhanced, etc.) Humans like Solomon, who are magically inclined or gifted, will not be harmed or taxed as much as a non-magical human. Connected demons hardly have any drawbacks, save for being sore depending on the extent of their bond mate’s injury if they connect to the point of being able to feel them.

I added all of that because my brain had to know how the bros would find MC. Plus, I’m stuck in chapter 20/21 and think there needs to be more lore about pact bonds/capabilities.

I couldn’t figure out how to squeeze this in anywhere above, but if the demon wants to locate a missing pact mate, they will have an internal compass of sorts. It’s a really strong compulsion to go a certain direction no matter who or what is in front of them. Their bonded one will be at the end of that feeling, and it will intensify the closer they get to each other.

Now, how they’d react:

Lucifer

He’s super pissed, obviously. You’re in trouble and he can’t just teleport to you?! What the hell did you get yourself into?!

Also worried. Did you piss off some figure (witch, etc.) that has magic capabilities or is this just a situation where you, as a human, do not feel safe to summon them?

Lucifer has been alive for 5,000+ years and is one of the strongest in the Devildom. He will use the above-mentioned brain push to get you to open your eyes and look around. He needs an idea of where you’re at (he’ll apologize about your migraines later)

I headcanon that he’s good with directions and has a strong memory, so he’d probably be able to recognize your surroundings and find you personally

When he sets out to find you, he’s a one man army. A one-man wrecking crew of death.

Considers that your captors may be magic-proficient or have some sort of anti-demon items (why else would they be stupid enough to take you?) so he packs an old fashioned, heavy-ass sword or dagger in case hand-to-hand fighting isn’t an option.

Those gloves come off, and he rarely takes his gloves off. Lucifer will make sure your captors suffer a long, slow, painful death that illustrates why he’s a demon and why they should be afraid of him

He fought bare-handed. The dagger/sword wasn’t necessary.

Mammon

WHO JUST TOOK HIS HUMAN? WHY? GET FUCKIN’ READY, BUDDY!

Stuck in an angry panic spin of ‘HUMAN IS MISSING? WHAT DO I DO? HOW DO I FIND HUMAN? GOD DAMMIT!’ until his brain kicks in

Doesn’t think to use the brain push thing. His first thought is: people will sell information

Mammon is the Avatar of Greed--he knows what people want and he knows how to manipulate them. He’s actually pretty slick in a ‘watch this hand, not this one’ kind of way

Also caught in the feels and will not hesitate to beat somebody up for that information.

If he feels asking around will waste time, he’ll teleport to one of his witch acquaintances and have them find you. It may cost him another favor, but it’s worth it. SOMETHING is keeping you from summoning him, so he has to find a way around it.

You’ll hear Mammon coming before you see him. He’ll be complaining the whole way--(”Making me come all the way out here to save you! What were you thinking?!”) but he’ll be kicking ass without breaking eye contact

Being the second-oldest of seven, he grew up fighting several brothers at once and learned how to wrestle in different ways. His reflexes are pretty on point. It’s a very efficient fighting style--hard hits or distance throws that give him time to pick multiple captors off individually

Unapologetic and threatening. Lots of demon noises

He’s pretty quiet and burnt out by the time he finds you. More of a relieved exhaustion than anything. Baby boy missed you and just wants to hold you.

A little paranoid for the next two weeks. You’re basically on lock down with your main man until he feels better about everything.

Levi

THIS HAPPENS ALL THE TIME IN ANIME AND MANGA AND IT DOES NOT END WELL!

Spends a solid 5-10 minutes hyperventilating BECAUSE SO MUCH COULD HAPPEN!

Has something already happened to you? What have they done?! Will he get a ransom note? A spooky encrypted video email?

WHAT WOULD HENRY DO?

That ‘admiral of Hell’s Navy’ personality kicks in and after a mild panic, he’s all business. He WILL figure out a way to find you

 He’d use that “compass” connection I described. It goes well with his one-track mind/hyperfocus he tends to get.

This is one big ass-whoopin’ quest in the making and he’s fixing to get that achievement trophy

Levi’s more of a strategist than a tank. He’s basically banking on his demon form to help rip your captors to shred.

Were you held hostage by a decent-sized body of water that connects or is fed into by other bodies of water? He’ll be coming at your captors like a Sharpedo. You’re in the splash zone.

Has a very merciless and interesting fight style. It’s kind of cheating in that Levi’s biggest tactic is ‘don’t give anyone else room to fight’, but it works.

Be prepared to see his tail used in interesting ways. Boy has a built-in long-range weapon.

Whether it’s one person or a whole group of people, he may summon Lotan just because they pissed him off. You’ll be safe, of course.

Satan

Boy is big angry

YOU WERE STOLEN? HE CAN’T JUST GO TO YOU?

Satan just wants a nice, quiet, simple life with things that don’t make him angry. This makes him angry. There will be death.

Is very suspicious by nature, and an over-thinker, so he’s probably considered this would happen at one point. Actually already had a plan.

Would use a combination of the “compass” intuition and the brain push to see what you see. Instead of having you look at your surroundings, though, he wants you to look at people.

Does he recognize any of those fuckers? Who’s on his hit-list?

If there’s no immediate sense of a threat, he’s interrogating Asmo. Between the two of them, they WILL find the person/people who took you

There’s probably at least one book in his connection that works like the mirror from Beauty in the Beast where he just has to ask it about you and it will tell him.

When Satan comes in to rescue you, it’s all demon noises. He comes in terrifying and strong and leading with magic.

Probably smells like fire and blood. Is covered in the latter and basically none of it’s his.

Big fan of using his tail like a mace.

They get the horns (literally)

Asmo

Someone stole his precious darling?! Um, no. Not okay. THE FARTHEST THING FROM OKAY, ACTUALLY!

I feel like we don’t have a lot of character depth for Asmo. I’m hoping once I get un-stuck I’ll be pleasantly surprised with Asmo content. I can’t decide if he’d panic a bit or just go into straight, hardcore bitch mode.

The definition of “looks like a cinnamon roll but could actually kill you”. Big dick energy. Big bitch energy.

 I feel like Asmo wouldn’t be super organized because this isn’t usually a kind of stressor he deals with. What he lacks in tactical thought, he makes up for in connections

Boy would probably find you fastest out of all the bros because he can make a few posts across Devilgram, get some celebrities to do the same, and SOMEONE would find you.

Would stay mentally connected with you for as long as your body could handle it, and would be very soothing. A panicked kind of soothing, like pouring his heart out to you and just gushing, but soothing

Like “Baby, I love you so much! I’ll find you soon, I promise! We can even beat these assholes together!” ❤︎

Usually hates getting his hair or nails dirty, but he might just break off a nail in someone’s eye. Or, you know, come find you in a nice-ass pair of heels just to shove one down someone’s throat (or up someone’s ass).

He may look dainty and gorgeous but DO NOT be fooled. This boy has SATAN for an older brother and BEEL for a younger brother. He knows how to throw down.

In general, he’s just a vicious little shit. Asmo knows how to fuck people up physically. He just doesn’t like doing it.

Depending on how many captors you have, Asmo will charm them into killing each other and just watch. It’s not the most satisfying thing, but there is SOME satisfaction to it

Couple snuggles and major pampering after you’re back with him (and you’ve been checked out by medical staff). Lots of kisses.

He cries and it’s very quiet and heart-felt.

Beel

The worst thing to happen in the history of ever. Literally.

In Beel’s world there are two things YOU DO NOT DO: 1) eat his food, 2) fuck with his family

It’s hard for him to think rationally because he’s just so stressed/angry that he’s stumbling around in his demon form and he’s ruining everything.

His full strength is on display and he’s leaving cracks in walls, scratching up things--just general, accidental destruction. He’s breaking things on accident and trying to write out plans on paper that rips up and it’s starting to wear on him to the point of being genuinely destructive

Beel feels first and thinks second, which makes this a lot harder

Uses the “compass” thing. Becomes demon juggernaut.

 Likes to fly and divebomb where possible, so someone’s getting knocked THE FUCK out

When he sees you, or gets to the end of that “compass” feeling, Beel’s football training kicks in and he just demolishes anyone that’s in his way.

People just get tossed around like rag dolls. He doesn’t check to make sure they’re down and out, just clears the way.

The type to try and hold you or touch you first. Then, if anyone’s still standing, he makes sure they get put down before going back to you.

Carries you all the way back, his wings buzzing and singing happily because you’re safe and everything’s okay

Once you’re back in the House of Lamentation his stomach goes off loudly. You guys have a big feast to celebrate.

Belphie

The list of things Belphie likes in this world: 1) Sleep, 2) Beel, 3) You. Do not mess with the things Belphie likes.

Is most pissed that one of his favorite people in the whole damn world have gone missing and can’t summon him. Is side-pissed that he’s losing so much sleep to come find you. It’s not your fault, but still

Someone will die, and only Belphie will have fun

Is sleepy enough that he doesn’t panic and awake enough to think

I headcanon that Belphie in particular has a special kind of brain push due to being the Avatar of Sloth and making people sleepy. When he pushes your brain, he can also pick through what’s at the forefront of your mind or your most recent conscious moments. It’s like being able to link up to dreams, just not limited to dreams.

 Periodically uses the telepathic link as a radar of sorts Uses it in conjunction with the “compass” instinct to make sure he’s going in the right direction. Using the telepathic link once he’s in the general area just helps him find you faster

Belphegor, like Satan, has a lot of reserved anger. It will be well-used.

I bet his tail works like a real whip. It’d be demeaning as hell to get hit with it and Belphie wants to see your captor suffer. The tail will be used

Imagine the last thing you see or feel is getting hit by a demon cow tail. He’d definitely do that.

No holds bar when it comes to fighting. Your captor(s) signed their death wish when they took you.

Mostly fatal bites and deep scratches. Probably some limb tearing or pulling things out that should be kept inside the body. May definitely get a few nut shots with the tail if you have any male captors (you know, just because).

He doesn’t show up as bloody as Satan would, but there’s definitely blood on his face and under his fingernails.

Carries you out of wherever you’d been held. Gives you firm instructions not to look at anything. Just kind of gently pressed you into his chest before readjusting you and carrying out.

I hope you liked it :D

[nad-zeta]

Match up (´∩｡• ᵕ •｡∩`) ♡

hey!! matchup for ikesen pls? (i hope this ain’t too long hsjdjd)

i’m a straight intj-t female. i’m a lawful neutral, slytherin, & scorpio, and i have a younger twin sis. i’m 5'5 ish (still growing!). my black medium-length straight-ish hair is usually in a ponytail & i have dark brown eyes.

i’m vvv secretive, smart, competitive, ambitious, deep, open-minded, passionate, dark, insecure, observant, resourceful, and mature. i’m generally a shy/quiet person (esp. at first, n w/ boys since i’m in an all girls school), but i’m really talkative when it comes to topics i love, and when i’m already comfortable. sometimes i get too arrogant/confident. i’m quite distant and i easily get jealous, annoyed, lazy, n bored. i’m also a fast learner, hopeless romantic, daydreamer, thrill-seeker, & pessimist/realist! i help others a lot, but i find accepting help hard.

i love receiving praise, attention, & affection, along with cleaning and organizing (but i’m quite messy myself). i love a bunch of stuff, esp. gaming! i also love reading/writing, astronomy, history, war (i love the thrill of it!), weapons (esp. snipers, swords, n bows!), mythology, nature, learning new things, & testing myself. i want others to always tell me the, brutal truth even if it hurts (i don’t see the point in sugar-coating n lying to make others feel better), but i’m really good at lying.

i have a great memory, but i’m quite forgetful. i also really like messing w/ others and i have a rbf. some are intimidated by me, it’s funny. i’m vv good w/ technology too, and i’m GREAT in school. esp. math, science, history, english, and french (foreign language!). i love the language latin a lot (and other aesthetic stuff sm!), along with mystery and the like. (but not horror. i’m kind of a coward, but i like the feeling of being scared? idk?)

i coop up my emotions a lot, along with otherthinking. i also hate a lot of stuff, such as being weak in front of others (crying), others being better, and blind faith. i usually love being alone but at times it gets too lonely. it takes a while for me to open up, i rarely trust others. i don’t really take good care of myself, and i try to block out my emotions, so i tend to be apathetic at times. i swear a lot and i’m loyal. it seems like idc, but i care a lot a lot. it’s vvv embarrasing crying in front of others—i hate it. i tend to carry all the weight. i usually give and take care of others more than the opposite. i think to myself a lot. i’m have a lot of contradictions, n i’m complex tbh.

i tend to get carried away, so pls tell me if it’s too long! take your time, no rush, take care of yourself! stay safe, n tysm in advance ♡

Hi hi Love! Thank you so much for the request hehe i hope i didn't make ya wait too long!🌻 Lol this was not too long at all, the more details the better!❤😊 And can i just say u sound like a super cool person🌻🔥 I hope you are keeping safe and well! And i hope ya enjoy!❤❤😊 @x-jodi-x

So I match you with…………. Nobunaga

The first time Nobunaga sees you, he is hella intrigued like, not only did a smol creature like you manage to save him from a burning building but you were also now even too shy to look him in the eyes. You were like a crazy walking contradiction, bold in the one moment, yet meek and reserved in the next. He brought you back with him to the castle and named you as, the princess of the Oda forces. It took you less than a day to get bored with your title as princess and opt to help the maids out with cleaning and organizing the castle. 

By the end of the week, all the castle staff were super impressed by you, not only did you introduce them to new easier ways to get the job done, but you also managed to sort out and organize the dreaded archives. 

Nobunaga had been watching you and he was most amused by you, you had this ability to intimidate all those around you, yet you were always there to lend a helping hand. You had even managed confused the castle mother, your work for the castle had always been so diligent and precise, yet when he walked into your room to bring you a letter, it was like walking into a hurricane. He never thought someone with such efficient cleaning and organizing skills could live in what could only be described as a clutter box.

Nobunaga had taken a BIG interest in you and had summoned you to his room to pull his classic, warm my bed pick up line, except what he didn’t expect was that you would truth bomb his ass. He was sister shook, he had never met such a blunt, brutally honest woman in his life, not only that but every second word coming from those beautiful lips were, swear words. You low key lost your patience with him and for a second you forgot your shyness at the door, as you were now in gamer rage mode. Cue Nobu smirking, he had truly stumbled onto the most amusing fireball. 

The two of you spent the rest of that night just sipping on some tea and chatting. Nobunaga’s interest was definitely peaked as, in your rejection of his offer to warm his bed, you had told him off in at least 3 different languages. As future conqueror of Japan he had also picked up a few languages in his travels and via the foreigners who would visit his ports. So, he definitely surprised you when he started speaking Latin to you. You couldn't help but be impressed, this also low key helped you open up a little more to him, as the two of you seemed to have found common ground. Nobunaga couldn't help but smile a small smile at how talkative you had become, especially when the two of you started talking about topics that interested you. Not only that but when he had pulled out the game of Go for the two of you to play, you definitely gave this boy a run for his money.

The next morning Nobunaga had announced that you were to accompany him to the next war. You had no time to even get a word in, as before you knew it you were on the back of his horse on your way to the battlefield. Nobunaga smirked as he imagined you covering in fear, in the corner of the camp, so imagine this boy’s surprise when you walked around camp with the most carefree smile on your face. Just before he could question it, the enemy forces managed to break through the ranks and was now riding straight into the camp. 

You acted on instinct, you loved weapons, so you were well versed in the art of using various weapons. From the corner of your eye, you could see an enemy archer aiming to strike Nobunaga down. Without a second thought, you had grabbed one of the bows laying by your feet and took aim. “Oi Nobu duck!” those were the only words that left your mouth before the arrow you had fired, went slicing through the air to strike down your opponent. Nobu got back up and looked behind him to see that you had skillfully taken down a hidden archer. 

Nobunaga without a second thought, mounted his horse and gave you a hand up and rode out into the front lines with you. The two of you made an unstoppable team slicing through the enemy ranks, and earning the Oda forces a swift victory. 

The ride back to the castle was filled with chats, laughs and light banter between you and the devil king. He found you incredibly interesting, the adrenaline pumping through your veins had cause that arrogant and confident side of you to show. You loved war for the thrill of it, you were a master of many weapons and to top it all off, you spoke to him as your equal. You had shaken this poor man to his core, never in his whole entire life had he met a woman like you. So shy and reserved at first, yet a true fireball laying beneath the surface. Needless to say, this boy was falling and falling hard for you

Often the two of you would spend nights together, deep in conversation about anything and everything or playing a game of GO. Nobunaga loved your open-mindedness and your ability to pick up on concepts quickly. He also low key likes your ability to be an excellent liar, as it made the candy heists together all the more interesting. Especially if the two of you would be caught together, in the middle of the hallways dead at night, pockets full of candy. You always seemed to manage to get the two of you out of the extended scolding and lecture sessions with Mamahide by blatantly lying through your teeth. Although, even-though you were an excellent liar, your lies never did seem to work on Nobu as he could always tell if you were bending the truth slightly. You also appreciated that Nobunaga was just as blunt as you, never sugar coating the truth and always speaking openly and honestly with you.

It is also definitely a favourite past time activity for you and Nobunaga to team up and mess with people. If the two of you aren’t sneaking alcohol into Masamune’s water during banquets or tricking Hideyoshi to reveal all his deepest darkest secrets, the two of you are messing with each other. Both of you stubborn cuties are also very competitive, so you best be sure that the two of you have a running bet, to see who the ultimate prank master is. These pranks range from harmless, for example crude drawings on official reports, to more hardcore, shoes on top of doorways and glue on each other’s chairs. Although all that change one day when the two of you decided to team up and work together as a unit to pull pranks instead of work alone, and that is the day the two of you got together.

Both of you by this point was head over heels for each other, but neither was willing to admit their feelings. That is until one-day Nobunaga took you on a romantic getaway to one of the neighbouring regions. You weren’t too sure exactly where he was taking you, but you loved adventures, so you decided to roll with it. 

The two of you arrived at a hot spring where, to your surprise Nobunaga waited on you hand and foot. After a long relaxing soak in the soothing water, you walked back to your room to find Nobunaga sitting in the centre of the room with a Go board in front of him. “Come fireball this shall be our final game, winner takes all.” 

It was a long and hard game, and you enjoyed every moment of it from the smack talk, to the getting frustrated at unpredictable moves. But in the end, the results were most unexpected. It was a draw, “It seems I have truly met my match with you fireball.” He had intended to win this game and fully conquer your heart, but instead you had just proved to him how equally matched you were for him. Thus strengthening his resolve to confess his feelings and make you the one and only queen of his heart.

Nobunaga couldn’t hold back his feelings for you any longer, the next evening you walked into your room to see it filled with flowers, he had told you how much he loved and adored you, and he asked you if you would be the one and only conquer of his heart. The two of you then met it the most passionate of kisses. The rest of the weekend away, Nobunaga spent pampering you, the one true love of his life.

Nobunaga absolutely adored every part of you. He loved that you were just as jealous as he was, often being twice as clingy and affectionate towards him whenever a visiting princess arrived. He loved your writing and would often rest his head on your lap after a long day and insist you read to him, the newest piece of your writing.

He adored that you kept him on his toes with all your various interests, and he loved how you just knew a bit of everything. 

He would especially enjoy holding you in his arms at night as the two of you share a drink out on the balcony. He loved to listen all your stories about mythology, as he affectionately stroked your back.

This softy boi knows that, you tend to bottle up your emotions and that you hate crying in front of others, so whenever you are feeling down or faced with problems, he is by your side in an instant. Clearing his schedule and handing off all his duties to Hideyoshi, so he can envelop you in his love, and shower you with endless amounts of affection and attention. He would patiently hold you in his arms, as he coaxes you by rubbing small soothing circles on your back, to tell him all that burdens you. He would do absolutely anything to make you smile and melt away all your insecurities. He would always be there, to wipe away every one of your tears, while whispering in your ears just how much he adores you. 

He knows that you are entirely selfless and tend to neglect yourself, so you best be sure he is going to be by your side and give you all the help and support, whether you asked for it or not. If you forget to eat, he will bring you every meal, and make time to eat with you, just to make sure you are getting enough nutrients. If you are working too hard and not getting enough sleep, he will pull you into his arms and let you rest your head on his chest, while he gently stokes your hair, to coax you to sleep. 

Nobunaga absolutely loves to sneak a few passionate kisses with you in the hallway on his way to his next meeting, just as a way to remind you, just how much he loves and adores you. He is also forever giving you words of affirmation for everything you do. 

The two of you can often be found snuggled up together on the balcony of your shared room just exchanging sweet kisses and words of love

Other potential matches…………… Kenshin   

I hope you enjoyed this dear, it definitely turned out a lot longer than expected whooops! 🙈🙈❤😊

[casinoscabana268]

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[moth-fuzz]

20 Questions for 2020

I got tagged by @bumblequinn and tumblr hasn’t been my #main #platform for a while so I miss these things and I never pass up the opportunity to read about people and share about myself x3

1. Do you make your bed?

no lol

in all honesty, sometimes. it makes me feel better when I do. But I like to just jump out of bed and get working when I can

2. Favorite number?

love 6... love 16 as well. 6 is a nice number. divisible by 2 AND 3. Honorary odd number. 16 is a nice 2^2^2 or 4^2 or 2^4.. nice round number.

3. What’s your job?

I’m not working currently but I’m due to start working at a software consulting company a month from now... I don’t wanna be rude but I’m looking for other opportunities in the meantime x3

4. If you could, would you go back to school?

definitely not for computer science. They don’t teach you anything a programming job expects of you. IF I went back to school it would be for philosophy. Philosophy’s the only thing that makes me feel like I’m doing something real (ironic when you consider philosophy’s public image). I took a few philosophy classes, 2 entry level and 1 upper level. They were the most impactful and the most far reaching classes who had a real and legitimate connection with me as a person I ever took. I’d pay just to have those experiences again. Everyone deserves those kinds of experiences.

5. Can you parallel park?

Kinda? I mean I did it when I took my first driving test, but I haven’t tried in a few years and I don’t have a license so I don’t really have the opportunity to tell.

6. A job you had which would surprise people?

I’m sure they’d be surprised that in my 4.5 years of college I never pursued work til my last semester hahaha

7. Do you think aliens are real?

I’m sure by all statistical likelihood they’d have to be... but the universe is a huge place. And human’s lives are short, compared to our modes of travel. We haven’t seen any simply because we can’t, in our lifetimes, drive out far enough to see them. And they probably haven’t visited us because... I mean we’re a tiny dot in the middle of a trillion stars. It’s like finding a single grain of sand on the beach. It’s just hard. I gotta give em a break for that...

8. Can you drive a manual car?

no...

9. Tattoos?

okay this one’s a toughie for me! I want, at some point in my life, to be covered in tatoos. I think it’s just a beautiful look. But also! I can’t think of anything meaningful enough to me to put on my skin. Let alone a dozen or a hundred of meaningful images to put all over my body. So I’m stuck on that...

10. Favorite color?

I love purple. I love honest, muted, natural colors. My favorite pallet is purples and grays. Maybe black too. I love cloudy skies, smoky rooms, and furniture faded with use. I like pastels that just seem to add to the scene, to paint the scene with a subtle hue, soft colors that diffuse outward and bring a certain quality to the entire area instead of bold colors that just draw the eye to the single colored object... je ne sais quoi.

11. What’s your guilty pleasure?

I love comfort food. I feel like a child whenever I eat anything that isn’t like ... complex. Granted I love complex foods too (indian cuisine particularly is my favorite) but there’s a special place in my heart (and my stomach!) for like. Candy and mcdonald’s and sodas and stuff.

12. Things people do that drive you crazy?

blatant contrarianism. People who just pick the worst hills to die on, all the time, forever. Their entire public image is hatefulness. It’s so so tiring I don’t know how they do it. Are you happy? Do you enjoy this?

Another thing I can‘t stand is people who think they’ve got everything figured out. Not so much people who claim to know things, but people who claim to have some mental framework that covers ... everything. And often they’re wrong!! But, of course, according to their own mental framework, they’re right and everyone else just hasn’t figured it out yet. Insufferable.

13. First thing you remember you wanted to be when you grew up?

I wanted to be a theoretical physicist pretty much up until I got to middle school and discovered programming. I like math and science, I still do. Computer science at its highest level is basically just applied math with a bit of imagination. Theoretical physics is... kinda the same thing too. Except instead of computers you have stars and atoms. Just subject material. Same mental space. Same abstraction of nature that becomes a sort of nature in itself.

14. Favorite childhood sport?

Okay I loved the variation of soccer I used to play in elementary school where the athletic kids would play actual soccer and me and the other unathletic kids would just slowly walk around the field and give a kick here and a kick there...

15. Do you talk to yourself?

Yes! All the time. Mostly when other people aren’t around. It helps me realize and catalogue my thoughts because otherwise my brain moves too fast to keep up :3

16. What movie do you adore?

I think my favorite movie ever was kimi no na wa or Your Name. It had AMAZING pacing, AMAZING visuals, AMAZING characters and the plot was just so incredibly written and everything was so well tied together and everything came at just the right time and the conclusion was so so so fucking satisfying I dsajkfghdf UGH

and the SOUNDTRACK!!! FUCK!!!!

17. Do you like doing puzzles?

Big ADHD feel. I love puzzles. I love puzzle based games. I love the elation of figuring something out. I love puzzles so much, in fact, that I kinda think of everything I do as a puzzle in some way... Programming is definitely a puzzle. Finding all the pieces that fit together - except, you get to design the pieces!! But now >:3 the burden is on you to make it elegant and adaptable. Anyone can hack something together but the REAL puzzle is designing a system that both solves a problem and does it in a way that’s efficient and Also elegant and easy to use. Puzzles within puzzles.... ohhhhhhhfh I love thissssss

18. Tea or coffee?

100% coffee. I drink tea but I’m not a ‘tea person’. I love coffee so much. Black coffee. Lattes. Starbucks sweet coffee concoctions. Espresso. Coffee from all around the world. God Do I Love Coffee.

My favorite coffees tend to be from asia, currently I’m really liking sumatra mandheling. I love coffees that taste like dirt. Rich, earthy, complex. Real dark and real bold. Usually those are from asia. I’m okay with african coffees but they tend to be really deep and fruity, sometimes even chocolatey, which, is real hit or miss for me. If you’re from america usually you’ll have south american coffees which tend to be light, woody, nutty sometimes. They’re usually too light for my taste but sometimes they really really hit. Gross generalizations aside, I love trying out every coffee and there’s more exceptions that blow my mind than anything else. I don’t think I’ve ever had a coffee I actually didn’t like, just many I like better. In any case I just love coffee!!!

19. Phobias?

Ocean. Don’t like big bodies of water that I can’t see down. Also there’s weird stuff in there. I don’t know how people just hang out at the beach with crabs and urchins and crawdads and jellyfish and sharks and riptides I’m just scared out of my mind!!! This is their land!! Not mine!!

20. Favorite kind of music?

Alternative rock of all sorts. Shoegaze, grunge, post-rock, math rock, electronic rock, emo... I also love hardcore and post-hardcore as well. A lot of metal does it for me but also a lot doesn’t so it comes and goes. I love music with a strong groove and complex textures. Me big ADHD so I like to tap along in weird and complex ways so it really helps if the meter is weird and complex already x3

Big runner up is hip hop and pre-2000s edm. Big groove, heavy on the swing, lots of samples, really rich. Future funk also falls under this category even though it’s modern.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

The Inevitable Part Where It Asks You To Tag 5 People

Feel free to pass up on this but here we go!

@mothman @bobbybobertson @exowave1 @reydiantskyes @sylvium-z and p much everyone else who follows me! I’d love to hear more from everyone else :3

[thesevenseraphs]

Director’s Cut: Part II

Hey everyone,

This is Director’s Cut – Part II, a now mega-long update looking at the last six months of Destiny 2 and looking ahead to Shadowkeep, and maybe a bit beyond. If you missed Part I and have an afternoon to yourself, go check it out. 

As the first section grew in length, I figured this section would be the last one. But at some point Avengers wasn’t going to be split into Infinity War and Endgame, either. So there will be another part. I love you 3000.

Looking Ahead (to Shadowkeep)

This fall is a necessary first step in turning Destiny 2 into the game we want it to be.  

It’s been a busy year, so let’s recap:

We assumed publishing control of Destiny and wanted to get something new into your hands as quickly as possible (Shadowkeep!)

We paired it with a free entry point in New Light to welcome new Guardians into the fold.

We wanted to bring Destiny 2 to new platforms to keep heading toward the you can play Destiny anywhere dream (Steam and Google Stadia).

We’re taking the initial steps toward building Destiny as a single, evolving world.

And we’re doing all of this while cranking on a bunch of the systems changes we’ve talked about and will continue to talk about heading into Shadowkeep.

Here’s where we’re going this fall.

THE CARE AND FEEDING OF THE RPG: ADD DEPTH, IMPROVE CUSTOMIZATION

We want to give people who love the RPG aspect of Destiny (like many of us) more stats and depth on the character sheet to sink their teeth into. We want to give players more agency over how they look. We also want armor to have that deep pursuit players love about Destiny—which brings the victory of finding their perfect roll.

Let’s Talk About Armor, Part I: Mods, Stats, and Tradeoffs

In order to allow players to independently pursue gameplay mods and further customize their Guardian fashion, a lot of work has been done to update armor for this fall. We’ve refactored a number of the stats in the game, we’ve overhauled the UI, and we’ve begun to separate capabilities from aesthetics.

Time-out.

Before I go on, I want to interject: It seems like some comments from part I around MTX are being misconstrued. Maybe I wasn’t clear enough. Maybe it felt too ambiguous. Let me try and clear this up before we get into armor.  

Destiny has and will continue to have Weapons, Armor, Ghosts, Ships, Sparrows, and Shaders that you can earn from activities to prove to the people looking at your character that you did the thing, whatever that thing is: I beat the Raid a bunch; I earned Iron Banner gear; I played a ton of Crucible; I wanted to gather rain in my shoulder pads so I played Gambit a ton; I made a sweet set of Astroshaman gear at the Rune table; I farmed that Strike for the Mindbender roll that makes people rage; et cetera. 

Let me be crystal clear: That isn’t changing.  

What we are doing with the new armor system is saying: Find the perks you want, find the armor look you want, (from the megalist of currently available Destiny 2 armor) and pursue that armor to get the elements/stats you want and combine them to make your Guardian.  

Destiny also has an MTX store that houses things like Sparrows, Ships, Emotes, Ghost Holograms, Weapon and Universal Ornaments. The items in that store rotate and can be purchased with Silver or Bright Dust. And starting this fall, Bright Dust is just another in-game currency that you can earn by completing Bounties, instead of buying a bunch of engrams and sharding them to generate Dust.  

In Shadowkeep, there are armor sets, weapons, Ghost, Ships, and Sparrows coming from the destinations and activities.  

Time-in. Back to Armor.

We started out by looking at what period in Destiny’s history was a good starting place for evolving the stat game (we felt like it was The Taken King/Rise of Iron) and what principles were guiding our new designs (we want to separate gameplay and aesthetics to grant more agency over both). 

There was a deep dive stream about this topic on August 14, but let’s recap some of the high-level points.

Armor now has an Energy meter ranging from 1–10.

You can use materials and currency to level up the Energy value on a given piece of armor.

Mods have both an Energy cost and an elemental affinity. In order for a mod to be equipped, your armor needs to have rolled the correct element and have enough Energy available  (e.g., Hand Cannon Reloader costs three Void Energy to equip, so your armor must have rolled Void and have three Energy available in order to use it).

Fundamentally, this means we have additional vectors for tuning things like mods. We could tune their effect (how much speed does the reload effect add?), we could tune their cost (how expensive is this mod to socket?), we could add mods to the pool for a different affinity, et cetera.

When you acquire a mod from the game, it’s like getting a perk that you can put on all armor. So once you’ve found Enhanced Hand Cannon Reloader from pinnacle activities (enhanced perks will come only from pinnacle activities), you’ll be able to socket that mod into new armor that meets its criteria (the mod is not consumed and can be socketed in and out at a small cost).

Here are the elements of armor that can roll randomly:

Elemental affinity rolls between Solar, Arc, and Void

Armor’s starting Energy value can roll randomly as well (they can all be leveled to 10)

Stats all roll random values (intellect, discipline, strength, mobility, resilience, and recovery)

Like in The Taken King, the stats will have break points that decrease their cooldowns (yes, your Sparrow now shows up on the character sheet).

Begin Math Time:

Today in Destiny 2, the base recharge rates convert to a stat value of 30 in the new system. Getting to 30 isn’t too difficult, though of course some people (but certainly not you!) will ride the RNG roller coaster to get the stat they really want to 30. By chasing a good stat roll, you can achieve the fast recharge rates available in the game today without needing to use mods. It is totally possible to put together a +100 intellect build (100 is the cap) without socketing a single mod. Some of the new mods will provide +10 to a given stat to help you shore up stats you care about.

But, that specialization may come with a price. Because you’ve specialized in intellect, you may be making tradeoffs for other stats (e.g., grenades come back slower or something—it really depends on your stat rolls). But if your grenades came back slower, then maybe that Demolitionist perk that you’ve been dismantling (I know, I know, Demolitionist is actually pretty good on non-Primary weapons!) would start to look appealing.

End Math Time.

We’ve made a bunch of armor in Destiny, and we didn’t want to leave behind any of the armor that players can currently pursue. So, we’ve also updated every new drop in the game to integrate and leverage the new system. This means if you want to go back and get the small Titan shoulder pads from Sloane on Titan, you can go chase a roll of them that uses the new system.

A number of the current mods will not work in the new armor that’s dropping this fall. But those mods aren’t being deprecated at this time. For example, your Super mods on your current armor will still work, but Super mods cannot be socketed into the new armor (you could socket your armor with intellect mods instead, though).

We did this because, while we think the evolutions we’re making to armor are a great step for Destiny over the long haul, we want you to decide when you migrate to them.

Part II: The Armor Migration Amplifying depth and choice via the new stats system ushers in some changes to armor. We’ve converted all current Destiny armor to use the stats, so cooldown durations will change as we migrate to the new system. You’ll be able to see the cooldown timers of your legacy armor when Shadowkeep’s patch goes live.

Here’s what we don’t want to happen: you feeling like “the game deprecated my old armor and perks; that time I spent playing Forsaken and its Annual Pass content was a waste, since all of the perks on the armor got turned off while Bungie forcibly migrated to this new system.”

Here’s how we hope this works:

If you’re a pretty hardcore player (or really lucky!) and have a set of armor today with perfect-for-you perks (like a fully loaded Enhanced Gun You Like set of perks), I think you’re going to keep using them for a while. I certainly expect the World First raid teams are going to go in with Forsaken-era gear that they’ve infused up throughout their Shadowkeep Power progression.

As the weeks go by and players approach the Shadowkeep Power cap and start finding mods with enhanced perks, we think that’s when our most invested, progression-chasing players will start to move over. Players can totally mix and match between new armor and the armor they have today as well.

For players without perfectly rolled gear, we think the transition to the new armor system is one they’ll make pretty quickly. In our long-form playtesting, our internal teams (not Velveeta—these are other internal players and playtesters. Sidebar: I’m real disappointed I missed out on the “kraftiest” opportunity in Part I. Good catch, Reddit!) have found that they’ve used their current armor on their “main” Guardian but rapidly switched to Armor 2.0 on their less-played alts.

Remember LiveJournal? Let’s do it.

With how I play, it’s a crude mix of fashion, function, and economic efficiency. I rarely invest resources in an item until it’s an item I know I want to use. I don’t infuse very often unless I need a specific piece/roll for an activity. I do not have a favorite class, I play all three. I tend to rotate them based on what is most effective or needed for group play in a given moment. I personally love it when the game gets hard, and I feel as if we would benefit from more challenge (I really liked how Contest mode enforced an action game skill component on World First attempts!). I totally have my favorite weapon archetypes (which I’ll spare you), and I get really frustrated as a player when there is an archetype I feel like I absolutely have to use all the time because it is far and away the most efficient thing. This is because I do—when playing content that matters—have to be using the most efficient thing. This creates some interesting discussions with the team at work when they create something that is super fun but isn’t actually efficient to use. I will totally mess around and get a triple double in patrol with a weird weapon, but the weird stuff isn’t getting used in a Crown of Sorrows group early in the season. Even then, I want to get through that content as quickly as I can.

My characters generally look HIDEOUS on the climb, and then I start to make them look good again once I get to the end game (and since I’m color-blind, my friends think my characters look pretty hideous in the end game, too). I think for me, I’ll shelve my nicely rolled items, delete everything that I wouldn’t wear raiding, and start using new equipment while I power up and find some looks I like—and then, when it’s time to go on JacketQuest, I’ll infuse up my well-rolled raiding equipment.

End of LiveJournal post.

Back to what I started this with—we want the transition to ultimately be your choice, one that you decide to make when you want to make it. Maybe you’re ready to start tinkering with stats. Maybe you really want to start combining universal ornaments and currently dropping armor to up your fashion game. Or maybe, like me, you’ll do both at the same time (but hopefully with less mocking from your so-called friends).

THE PURSUIT OF POWER: INCREASING PLAYER AGENCY

We’d like the act of chasing Power and stats for your build to be something you have a bit more agency over. Not a full-blown “play whatever you want all the time”—because that means people just find the most efficient thing, rather than dipping their toes into a bunch of different activities—but certainly less restrictive than it’s been in the past.

We’ve also had a long-standing challenge in Destiny of making XP matter, and that feels like a real growth opportunity for us to dig into something we’ve wanted to look at for a while.

This section discusses Power and the changes coming to it this Fall.  

Part I: Powerful Sources, Primes, and the World Like I mentioned in Part I, the number of powerful sources in Destiny 2 ballooned during the annual pass. We’re curating down the sources in Shadowkeep. Our target is to get the number of powerful sources closer to Forsaken-launch levels. In Forsaken, as you over-leveled an activity (meaning your Power gets higher than the activity), the activity’s rewards would become less valuable (the inverse was also true for being under-leveled). In Shadowkeep, we’ve changed that. Instead, the system will advertise a consistent expected powerful reward, regardless of your Power relative to it.

Over the years, we’ve come to discuss several parts of Destiny in terms of short-, medium-, and long-term goals.

In the simplest terms: Short-term goals can be completed in a night or a week, medium-term goals can take several weeks, and long-term goals can take anywhere from a Season to several Seasons. For some folks (like me), getting good at a part of the game may take a lifetime (that’s a personal-mastery goal).

We think reaching max Power can be a medium-term goal for Power-progression-focused players. For those players, we hope pursuit of stats and someday trying out new builds is their long-term goal. I say “someday,” because while we’re taking our first steps in buildcrafting with a new armor/mod framework this Fall, I think we’re going to learn a bunch about what making a viable build in Destiny requires. You’re going to surprise us with crazy, creative things we’ve never seen once this is live—we’re all looking forward to it.

Prime Engrams We’re doing some minor housekeeping on Prime Engrams. They’ll begin dropping once you hit 900, and you’ll accumulate charges for them as you make your way from 750 to 900. We’ve increased the number of Prime Engrams you can earn in a given week and rebalanced the value of each one to account for the increase in volume.

World Drops As far as contributing to your Power level, world drops often feel like a waste. To get away from that, we’ve made some changes that allow these drops to help players progress beyond the soft cap. World drops in Shadowkeep will have a chance to drop at a player’s current Power level.

Here’s an example: A player has an overall Power level of 912. Gloves are their lowest slot at 906. A player might open a Legendary engram and receive 912 gloves (an increase of 6 Power).

We’re making this change because we feel like the world Legendaries are a little undervalued at the moment. This isn’t some grand accelerant for Power progression, but rather a little quality-of-life experiment to reward your free-roaming adventures or random Legendary-activity drops.

Part II: Preparing for New Light One of the essential parts of New Light is crushing the barriers between friends. Today, one of those barriers is the Power level.

To players, Power level can mean “we have different goals, so we don't play together.” A new character starting at 10 Power would naturally feel that they had to go play all this other content—and in many, many hours you can play with the friend who recommended the game to you.

That does not sound very sweet. It’s like telling someone to play a MOBA and then saying “we’ll play with you in 100 hours when you’ve learned to last hit.” (This is what my friends said to me. Do I have bad friends? As I’m writing this, I’m starting to wonder.)

That’s not what we want in New Light.

We want to get new players and veterans colliding quickly. After Black Armory, we made a deliberate choice to try to do this with each Season. Both Season of the Drifter and Season of Opulence had bounties to boost up players’ Power levels. With New Light and Shadowkeep being bigger moments of collision, we’re continuing that philosophy, but optimizing the mechanics to fit the moment.

We’re setting the Power this Fall to 750 for both returning and new players. We want you to all be together when Shadowkeep opens. Here’s what this means:

Every single item in the game is being raised to a Power floor of 750 when Shadowkeep and New Light launch. 

Every item in your inventory (and vault) is going to automatically jump to 750.

It's like a free global burst of infusion for all players.

Which means that right now, you could (should!) stop spending currency to infuse your gear sets or that C-tier of weapons that you're keeping around until the patch notes just in case they are going to be good after the changes (there are many buffs coming and it is very tempting to spoil a bunch of them, but I said this wasn’t gonna be the patch notes!).

Part III: More Power, More Problems (We originally had this as Mo’ instead of More, but I changed it upon the sad realization that there is an entire generation of players who missed out on Biggie, Puffy, and Mase in the Bad Boy era. Yes, it’s kind of weird that I changed this and left the Highlander reference in. Especially when neither is T for Teen.)

I’m the first to say it: Raising the Power of all players globally is indicative of a greater problem. It’s real weird that someone will boot up New Light for the first time and immediately be 750.  

The capital P Power level in Destiny (or Light as it was called in D1) has been asked to do a lot over the years. For a time in Destiny 1, it was one of the only things players had to pursue. In D1, Power/Light meant something in terms of achievement—but that badge of honor had its problems (forever 29 via raid boots, etc).

Destiny 1 put the Light/Power level over the player’s head and drove players to raid and raise it. Over time, we gave players other paths to raising their Light/Power (Nightfall, Iron Banner). We took Light off the nameplate and made it three digits in The Taken King, trying to turn Light into something more like a three-digit item level, but without the stat budgeting assigned to it where the stats dictate true character power.

At D2 launch, we shortened the Power climb, over-simplified the game, made it too easy to get items, focused on bringing new players in, and hoped that players would pursue looks alone as their endgame (we were wrong!) while we continued to build features like what would become Forsaken Triumphs.

During that period, we also democratized Power so that players didn’t need to raid or play Nightfall to reach max Power. They could kind of just do any weekly. Forsaken introduced gold sources onto the map, and over the course of the year, the number of powerful sources continued to increase.

See, Power has a lot to do with the amount of damage players can both deal and receive. In fact, it's the biggest factor in it. It’s also been the thing to pursue. Our gameplay specialists—the roles where dedicated Destiny players come in and participate in long-form playtesting with their imported-from-home character—frequently point out that they can’t engage with a number of parts of the game ’til they’ve “completed the Power climb.” Over the years, we’ve made the Power climb shorter and shorter. We’ve made it easier and easier to reach max Power.

We’ve also introduced things like Triumphs, titles, and Collections to provide additional stuff to do as the prestige of Power waned.

In Shadowkeep, we’re trying something a little different.

First, we’re introducing a Seasonal Artifact, unique and thematic to each Season.

As the artifact levels up, it can do a few things: First, it becomes a source of seasonal artifact mods—unique mods that can be equipped only during that Artifact’s season. These mods may be brand new experimental mods or powerful mods with reduced energy cost enabling players (and us!) to experiment further in the buildcrafting space.

Second, the seasonal artifact can award players a Power bonus, but that bonus is not applied to gear (nor does it increase the Power of future drops), but instead to all of your characters. This is meant to give players who can’t or don’t want to play pinnacle activities a seasonal path to Power. This way, even if a player doesn’t play the raid, Iron Banner, or the [REDACTED], they can still have a high Power value for the Season. Leveling the artifact to raise your Power is meant to be Seasonal character growth. Each Season, we’ll have a new artifact with new mods that change how you play—and the Power bonus will reset.

In addition to curating the list of powerful sources, Shadowkeep will also introduce pinnacle powerful sources. These sources are the only way to earn gear drops above power 950 in Season 8.

Here's the thinking: Pinnacle reward sites can award players Power above 950. This is a way of reclaiming a little bit of the character Power prestige that the initial D1 Power climb created. If you inspect a player and see their gear is 960, you know they’ve done a bunch of pinnacle activities. It’s worth mentioning that as you raise your Power via pinnacle activities, other powerful reward sites will continue to drop powerful sidegrades.

All of this said, Power in Destiny 2 is still imperfect. We’re making some adjustments to it this year for Shadowkeep: things like Seasonal Power bonuses and pinnacle activities awarding pinnacle Power. But when we look to the future, we feel like the Power system may benefit from a rework further down the road. There’s real potential in creating more agency for players, figuring out if Power should be prestigious or not, and taking on the challenge of how to keep players relatively close together Season after Season, while still allowing them to make progress.

Here’s something I miss from Destiny 1: filling bars on my items and using materials to level items. Even though I ended up with more ascendant and radiant materials than I ever could’ve needed, the existence of these materials meant the hunt for powerful rolls could go on longer. I think wanting and needing materials is a good thing—as long as you know what you can do to go pursue that material. I’m glad we’re getting a little more of that back into Destiny with Shadowkeep.

Need Masterwork Cores? Well, we didn’t have a very good answer for that much of the year. Lesson learned.

Stay tuned to bungie.net for the third installment of Director’s Cut. It focuses on the action part of MMO-action game (think: combat and PvP, with a bonus section on the evolving world) coming to Destiny this Fall.

[weaselandfriends]

Hymnstoke XIV

Like Act 2, Act 4 opens with a walkaround game.

I didn't comment much on the game at the beginning of Act 2, despite it being one of those much-discussed multimedia elements that make Homestuck so distinctive. In Act 2, the movement from linear story to game serves several purposes. First, it demonstrates an increase in scope, both in terms of Homestuck's story and in relation to Hussie's previous effort, Problem Sleuth. While Act 1 incorporated a couple of new elements not seen in other MSPA comics, such as protagonists capable of speech and a handful of simple videos, the Act 2 walkaround is the first dramatic increase in what readers could have reasonably expected from the comic at the time.

Secondly, the novel concept of incorporating a game into the story corresponds to and emphasizes the novel concept of SBURB within the narrative of Homestuck. Just as the world in which John now finds himself is completely new and unexpected, so too are the readers introduced to this world through a new and unexpected medium. This world is even called the "Medium"—and surrounding a space (Skaia) described as a crucible of pure creation. I previously discussed the significance of SBURB's geography in regards to Gnosticism, but one could also interpret it as a statement on Homestuck as a creative enterprise. A crucible of pure creation through which a new world, or a new mode of expression, will be built. Like how John and friends attempt to create a new world from the fragments of the old, Hussie creates a new kind of story from the fragments of all types of storytelling that came before it. Image, text, video, sound, game—Homestuck strings together these disparate modes of expression into an original creation. In short, the method by which Homestuck is presented mirrors its explicit thematic content.

Wikipedia defines phenomenology as "the philosophical study of the structures of experience and consciousness." Remember how I mentioned that the modernists were often concerned with the conscious and subconscious, and how many attempted to reach truth by depicting the subconscious? Similar concept here.

I was introduced to the term "phenomenology" in relation to art history. In particular, my professor applied the term to modernist painting and sculpture that was designed so that the act of experiencing it changes its meaning. Let's take the following sculpture:

"Sculpture?" you may ask. Yes, I know. It looks more like a misshapen industrial structure. The problem with this sculpture is that no single photograph can truly depict it. Here's the same sculpture from a different vantage:

Another:

Still another:

Top down:

Is this sculpture broader at the bottom or at the top? What shape is it, exactly? You can find this sculpture at the University of California, Los Angeles, and you can even go inside it through the opening visible in some of the photographs. Inside, it takes on a completely different appearance, although unfortunately I couldn't find any good pictures of the inside that didn't have a gigantic Getty Images watermark on them.

In art, this phenomenological experience often boils down to optical illusion or a similar technical trick that appears novel at first but lacks much substance beyond its presentation. What meaning can we derive from this experiment or others like it?

I believe that the phenomenological creations of the modernists eventually reached an apotheosis in a more contemporary form of creative expression: Video games.

The way the player perceives a video game, even a video game you might consider simplistic or linear, is directly affected by how the player plays the game. Take, say, Super Mario Bros. (1985) for the Nintendo Entertainment System. In this game, the player moves Mario left to right to reach a fixed goal. But even this game is affected immensely by the innumerable choices each player makes in playing the game. For an extreme example, compare how a speed run of Super Mario Bros. looks compared to any casual experience of the game. Some elements of the speed run even involve elements assuredly not intended by the game's creator (glitches, for instance). But even at a less extreme level, every player's experience of Super Mario Bros. will differ depending on the routes they take to reach the end, the strategies they employ to evade obstacles, or even the amount of times they die before finally succeeding.

Why do I bring this up? The concept of phenomenology ties into Homestuck's "reader participation" elements, both via the prompt suggestions early on and the more psychological effect the fandom has on Homestuck's development in its back half. Of these two "reader participation" elements, the latter is the one that is probably better described as "phenomenological," in that it is the readership's perspective of Homestuck that eventually drives its trajectory (as opposed to the prompt suggestions, from which Hussie could pick and choose at will). In the back half of Homestuck, the narrative plays more and more on the author's interpretation of the readership's interpretation of the narrative, becoming a perspectival mobius double reach-around where the true driver of the narrative's creation becomes increasingly unclear.

But more specifically, I want to discuss this walkaround game at the beginning of Act 4 in particular. Compared to the one at the beginning of Act 2, this walkaround is not increasing Homestuck's scope. John is entering a new location, but the experience is less novel than entering the Medium in Act 2, both in terms of John's perspective and the reader's. While the Act 4 walkaround features mechanical improvements (inventory, combat) over the Act 2 walkaround, it is still essentially the same thing: a video game. The reader has seen this before in Homestuck. It's not new.

I cannot speak for the experience of every reader, but each time I read Homestuck I am tempted to skip this walkaround entirely. The combat mechanics are banal, the camera is zoomed too close to John to allow for satisfying exploration of an unfamiliar world. In Act 2, the walkaround takes place in an area with which the reader is already geographically acquainted (John's house), so the camera issues are less apparent. But trying to navigate this twisting maze of blue paths, surrounded on all sides by nondescript rocks and mushrooms, can become frustrating. Even if I consult the supplementary map image, I find it somewhat difficult to figure out where I am and where I'm supposed to go.

Which is just the thing. The reader is not supposed to go anywhere. There is no real resolution to this walkaround. The same, in fact, can be said for every walkaround, and we will continue to get amazingly nonessential walkarounds in the acts to come. What does the reader miss if they skip this Act 4 walkaround? Some tedious exposition on the nature of John's planet, its consorts, its customs. Superfluous W O R L D B U I L D I N G that the Homestuck narrative is quick to forget from henceforth on.

It kind of makes me want to, shall we say, skip to the end.

In Act 5, Vriska and Tavros will discuss how the way one plays a game affects the way the game is perceived. Hardcore speed runner Vriska will take my side of the argument and skip what she can; Tavros, more in line with readers inclined to learn as much about SBURB's lore as possible, will argue instead for assiduously completing every task. This conflict—between speed and lore, content and fluff, meat and candy if you will—eventually becomes the core and final dichotomy of Homestuck. But in Homestuck's later stages, the characters and narrative will apply this dichotomy not to how we experience video games, but how we experience all art—and how we experience our actual lives. I intend to trace that development, and this walkaround serves as a fine introduction.

In a few years, Flash will be deprecated and you'll only be able to experience this walkaround through this series of images. I don't know who created these images, or whether laziness or incompetency made them so shitty and SBaHJ-esque. But I give that person props for maintaining that sense of "God this sucks, can I just skip it?" Good job, intern.

You switch to PICTIONARY, a choice based on a strong whim from the mysterious ethers of democracy.

Another one of those traps, like the suggestion prompts. Wow! The readers get to pick Jade's fetch modus! What an amazing display of reader/author interaction! Except Jade's fetch modus doesn't matter. In fact, as we transition into this next phase of the story, nobody's fetch modus will matter. The fact that all of Jade's possible fetch modii are total jokes only emphasizes the point.

I mentioned in the previous Hymnstoke that we're entering what I'm calling the "clockwork" part of Homestuck. In this part, Homestuck's audience has the least amount of control over its progression. While the suggestion prompts were mostly irrelevant because Hussie could pick whatever prompt he wanted, they occasionally paved actual story or character developments ("Become the mayor of Can Town") or formed memetic jokes that would mutate over the course of Homestuck into part of its mythos. And in Act 6, the immensity of the Homestuck fandom and its increasingly vocal demands will lead to a more subtle transition in what Homestuck becomes—the mobius double reach-around I mentioned previously. But here, in the clockwork part of the story, it's more Hussie than anywhere else. Of course it would be. It's Dirk, Hussie's analogue (connected via a series of motifs like horses and robotics), that comes to represent the Meat side of storytelling, that describes the way a story should be told as a perfect machine. An unfocused, nebulous gaggle of "readers" cannot hope to coordinate among themselves to create something so precise and efficient. Their strengths lie in different directions.

Ok, have at it! If you're at a loss, click the controller button up there.

This may or may not mean anything to you depending on your current perspective.

As it turns out, the story retreads everything that happens in the Act 4 walkaround anyway, making it even less relevant. Even Crumplehat and the Salamander Wizard appear as the walkaround's events are depicted from PM's perspective. This recap is actually pretty extensive, similar to the shitty SBaHJified image walkthrough that got put up in anticipation of Flash's deprecation.

I wonder if Hussie was self-conscious about people's patience for the walkaround? Or maybe he already anticipated Flash would not last forever? Perhaps he added this recap for accessibility reasons, in case of visually-impaired readers? Maybe he felt some new insight would come from seeing the same events replicated from a different character's viewpoint? Or maybe he simply wanted to reveal that the person speaking to John during the walkaround was PM instead of WV?

I'm doing exactly what I said I wouldn't do and trying to delve into Hussie's psyche. As it stands, the addition of this recap makes certain elements of the walkaround mandatory experiences for the reader to progress, as opposed to the walkaround itself which can be ended without experiencing anything. I'll leave the discussion by reiterating the second part of the quoted text:

This may or may not mean anything to you depending on your current perspective.

And I think it's safe to say our "current perspective" is much different than those who read this first.

[amphtaminedreams]

VERY Late Festival Looks (Practical vs. Completely Impractical): Lookbook no.5

Hi to anyone reading,

This post is kinda redundant, I know. It’s the end of fucking October. Festival season in the UK is looooong gone. I would be better off doing a Halloween lookbook. But there’s always people getting drunk in a field somewhere, right?

I PLANNED (planned being the key word) to do this way back in like late August/early September but in all honesty, my mental health has been a bit wack since the end of summer and then it seemed as soon as I got back into a good headspace, I started getting a load of overtime at work. So, late. Very late. I still wanted to do it though because we didn't end up going to Reading Festival in the end so I had to wear the outfits I’d planned somewhere, even if it that somewhere did just end up being in front of my shitty camera and Amazon lighting. My friend got jury service and though I was really disappointed at the time, it ended up so that I got back from being out of the country for over a month at 11PM literally the night before the morning we were supposed to be leaving; I don’t think 5 days straight of being out of it, surrounded by huge crowds and loud music was really what my stability craving self needed, incredible line-up aside. Next year hopefully!

Anyway, getting to the actual looks, I’ve done 4 “aspirational” (read: ridiculously impractical) ones and 4 more realistic ones. None of the clothes are new and even if they were, I doubt I’m in the position to influence anyone to do anything other than close the tab lol, but I’ve still put where they’re from just because the photos feel kind of empty without it. 

To start is these 2 totally wearable, mosh pit approved outfits:

In reality these are obviously the impractical outfits. Good for a photo but pretty much nothing else if you really want to enjoy yourself. Those buns were precariously positioned enough to the point they dropped to resemble ballsacks just from standing in front of a camera so I’d imagine they wouldn’t do all too well jumping up and down! Heels also aren’t really gonna work. That being said, if you swapped the boots for some converse or trainers and lost the  harness, you’d probably be alright! The hat would be kinda impractical for me personally on the sheer basis that my giant head is much too big for it to stay on without me tugging it down every few seconds but any person with a normal sized head (lmao, I cri), a hat is probably a good idea if you’re trying to keep your face out of the sun.

To make these two practical, I’d, again, lose the heels and maybe swap the top with the outfit on the right; if you don’t mind your nips slipping out, power to you, but that would be a concern of mine and the last thing you want to be thinking about whilst you’re trying to enjoy yourself is whether you’re inadvertently flashing your bobbies at strangers. The fringe belt could potentially be a bit of a hazard but I think I’d just grin and bear it because dancing around in that thing with tassels flying everywhere would be very-

The next looks are the ones I planned on wearing a variation of to actually go to Reading so they’re a lot more wearable.

See, I didn't really plan for anything other than hot weather which seems kind of dumb bitch like behaviour for a festival in England but IIRC it actually did end up being pretty pleasant around that time so let’s just call it me being a canny genius and efficient packer (though the things I DIDN’T pack for inter- railing versus the things I did probably says otherwise). My thought process was that at the beginning of the festival you’re probably not gonna mind putting in a bit more effort with hair and makeup and you’re not yet sweaty enough for wearing mesh to be a problem. I don’t know what it is but the moment I put one on my armpits go into hardcore excretion mode. Too much information, I’m sorry. 

Day 3 and 4, I know my legs are going to be resembling cactuses. Damn having thick, dark hair. And as much as I’d like to make some kind of feminist statement, I’m personally not a fan of bodily hair. If you’re like me, trousers are going to be your best bet, plus a light jacket you can put on so you’re not shoving unshowered armpits in people’s faces. Festival etiquette, y’know. 

Realistically though, I don’t think that anybody really cares all that much how presentable you look, especially by the last day. Everyone’s just there to have a good time and even if festivals have kind of become a bit travelling fashion show on a field the last few years (online retailers who launch specific festival collections months in advance, I’m looking at you), as long as you’re not wearing those high vis trousers, you’re not going to get judged; I’m sorry but I really cannot get behind that “trend”. I really think that some buyer at Pretty Little Thing found out you could get construction worker jackets really cheap on some kind of builder’s wholesale website and was like “yep, fantastic, we’ll take 50,000″.

All in all, not a super long post as I'm conserving my energy to do a huge overview of the 2020 RTW shows and a winter lookbook. But if anyone did read this far, thank you! As always, if you have any other suggestions on things I can write about, send me a message on here or Instagram and I will definitely make a note of it.

Lauren x

[breakingbytes]

PROGRESS UPDATE

Hey guys and gals!

It's time for a meaty XYDONIA development update!

We very well know that we've been a bit silent lately and we're sorry if that has somewhat got you worried about the project's future. That's totally legit but, as we've been affirming all this time, we will never give up, whatever happens!

Things got pretty dark at some point, not gonna lie, and after all we had to endure, as was already disclosed in previous updates, it would be rather foolish to both nullify our efforts and fail your expectations in one fell swoop. Wouldn't it?

That said, we decided that it was really necessary to focus on restoring a healthy, productive work enviroment for ourselves before anything else, and that unavoidably forced us to scale our social media activity back for a while.

Speaking of actual workflow now, one big step forward in that regard has been made by our pixel artist and game designer, Walter, who has now moved to Northern Italy to closely work with Dario, the programmer/other designer. This means that XYDONIA's development is finally getting a very consistent boost to its efficiency, which will resonate through the overall quality of the game!

So, we're quite excited to show you some of the new stuff that's been cooking during this new phase!

NO REST FOR THE SHMUPPERS

Part of the new content we've been churning out is obviously related to boss fights, so let's take a peek at our hairy friend Mr. Sibomba!

The result of a biotech experiment aimed for the mere entertainment of our fellow earthlings, Mr. Sibomba is half-ape and half-machine mixed with a considerably short temper.

Soaring through the skies of Neo Tokyo-6 could result in stumbling upon the Flying Circus' crew keeping this big guy locked in a giant cage. Thing is, its cell wasn't built with the best safety protocols in mind, which makes it fairly easy for this green furball to escape!

It'll be up to you to cool him down, but beware, spaceships look awfully similar to bananas through Sibomba's (undoubtedly poorly) augmented eyes!

POWER-UP!

One of the biggest upgrades we've been undergoing in the past months was shifting XYDONIA's engine to GameMaker Studio 2, which has been helping a ton in smoothing out our development process.

Relocating the entire game from GMS1 took a while at first, but it definitely payed off. We can now take advantage of a greatly streamlined interface and a much more powerful room editor.

Another big feature we're currently experimenting is an alternate 16:9 mode to go along with the classic 4:3 view we all love and are accustomed to.

This will provide a different take on the game while also making the most of the entire screen area offered by modern displays. It will be surely necessary for us to tailor the gameplay to this new aspect ratio, that's why we decided to approach it as a separate game mode.

We're still keeping the original 4:3 aspect ratio and everything is being built around that first, so you'll always be able to fire XYDONIA up on that dandy CRT display of yours!

We've also been hard at work on something that the most hardcore among you will surely appreciate, and that is pixel-perfect fast bullet collision detection. Can't blame the game for failing that flawless run anymore!

Last but not least, a big chunk of time was spent on perfecting a new method of frame updating which will greatly improve framerate consistency even on the lowest specs!

FINAL NOTES

Yet another reminder, work on backer content is still ongoing so it won't be long before it's your turn!

Here's an-in game test of backer-designed enemy BABY C soaking damage like a pro.

And it's finally time to wrap this up, congrats for getting to the end of this huge update.

As you can see, we are definitely catching up with the schedule and the next step on the roadmap will be the release of the upcoming playable alpha, exclusive to the ALPHA FIGHTER tier (and higher).

Sorry to keep you waiting, but it was definitely necessary as our top priority is to give you a real slice of the final game to collect your personal feedback, which is crucial, and it wouldn't be as useful if we delivered a rushed build. We need your help to make this the best SHMUP possible!

From now on, we'll also resume our social media activity, although the main focus will still be the actual development of the game.

There's yet some great news we will share in the near future, so stay tuned for more XYDONIA goodies!

See you next time!

[aion-rsa]

The Nintendo Fan Games That Tried to Revitalize Pokémon, Metroid, and Super Smash Bros.

https://ift.tt/331g4Zh

In 2016, Milton Guasti’s Metroid 2 remake (AM2R) was released online after a decade of work. One day later, Nintendo sent DMCA takedown requests to the websites that hosted it. Many fans were shocked by the decision. Guasti seems more surprised by the efficiency of it.

“Throughout the years I started seeing that [a takedown] could be possible,” Guasti recalls. “What I was not expecting was that it happened so fast.”

New fan-made gaming projects are developed and distributed all the time, and often embraced by studios, but as those in the creative community know, Nintendo has historically been adamant about protecting its properties and taking down fan games. From novelty game mods to NSFW art of Bowser, there’s no guarantee that fan creations based on Nintendo games will survive online for long.

So what makes someone spend years on a game that may only be widely available for one day? For Guasti, it was the chance to learn programming within a fascinating framework.

“I decided I wanted to practice a little bit of programming, so I downloaded GameMaker and did a couple of mini-games here and there just to learn a little bit of how game logic and design are done,” Guasti says. “Since most of the effort in designing something is getting the first couple of decisions, remaking something that’s already done seemed like a good idea to save time. I had recently played Metroid: Zero Mission on the Game Boy Advance [a remake of 1986’s Metroid], and since there was no similar treatment for Metroid 2, I said, ‘Well, this is a black and white game. Whatever I do with ripped sprites might be better than this. So I guess I can make a Metroid game.'”

For Guasti, the appeal of making his own Metroid game was more about the design of the franchise than his overwhelming love for the series. He described himself as more a Metroid “enthusiast” than a “hardcore fan” when he started working on the game. For others looking to learn how to develop and design games, the choice of which game to use as a starting point comes down to franchises they’ve always loved.

“It was my childhood dream to make my own Pokémon game,” says fan developer Involuntary Twitch. “Thus began my nine-year journey with fan game development as a hobby.”

That hobby became Pokémon Uranium, a Pokémon fan game the size of a major franchise installment. Involuntary Twitch wanted it to feature all of the things that she loved about Pokémon games: “pixel art, exploring, discovering new creatures, and uncovering mysteries.” For the many ways that Uranium was designed to be an homage to Pokémon, there was at least one element Twitch hoped to improve.

“I have been my entire life saying that Pokémon can and probably should do a little bit better with the stories,” Involuntary Twitch says. “I don’t think Pokémon needs to tell this grand, epic story with all these plot twists and betrayals and darker themes…but I think that what makes a good story is just the feeling that your actions actually matter, that the things you do are instrumental to the outcome of the plot.”

As the tale of a young trainer whose mother was lost in a nuclear accident roughly 10 years before the mysterious appearance of radiated Pokémon coinciding with the construction of a new power plant, Uranium‘s plot is darker, more complicated, and perhaps a bit more mature than what many of the games in the Pokémon franchise aim for. It’s also a big part of the reason why Uranium was widely hailed as a breath of fresh air for a franchise that largely sticks to the same formula put in place in the ’90s.

Yet, the story of Uranium that many more people are familiar with is what happened after the game was released. Much like AM2R, Uranium was hit by DMCA takedown requests issued by Nintendo shortly after the project’s 2016 release. After over nine years of work, Uranium‘s widespread availability could be measured in hours. Once again, the move did not come as a complete surprise.

cnx.cmd.push(function() { cnx({ playerId: "106e33c0-3911-473c-b599-b1426db57530", }).render("0270c398a82f44f49c23c16122516796"); });

“I think our mentality was that we’d already had multiple playable releases out of the game, and so whatever its ultimate fate may be, we owed it to ourselves,” says Involuntary Twitch of the decision to continue working on the project despite the likelihood that it would eventually be taken down. “This is the single biggest project that any of us had ever done in our entire lives…So, we owed it to ourselves and we owed it to the people who were excited to see this game fully realized to see it all the way through the end”

So why didn’t Involuntary Twitch and her creative partner JV just make a copyright-free clone of a Pokémon game? 

“I did consider it, but I mean, at that point, we were in too deep,” Twitch says. “Literally every single part of the game would need to be thrown out and reconstituted to the point where it would be unrecognizable. And in exchange for doing that, we would get way less exposure, and we would basically just be filing the serial numbers off something that’s meant to be our love letter to a franchise…I feel like doing that would’ve drained what drove us to make this game in the first place, which was our love for Pokémon.”

That certainly seems to be the dilemma. Many Nintendo fan creators are often inspired by their love for Nintendo games, but there are times when Nintendo can be hard to love. The company will go years without even acknowledging beloved franchises but it’ll immediately litigate when fans pursue the projects and ideas Nintendo won’t. 

Those bespoke projects are often designed to appeal to a section of the fanbase Nintendo has sometimes ignored. Uranium featured a more mature story not commonly seen in Pokémon games. AM2R focused on one of Nintendo’s most complex (and often ignored) franchises. And in terms of notorious Nintendo fan projects designed to address something that was missing, few titles are as compelling as Project M: a Super Smash Bros. Brawl mod designed not to reinvent the wheel but simply make that game feel closer to its predecessor.

“Brawl took away almost everything that many people enjoyed about Melee from a gameplay design perspective,” says former Project M webmaster Taylor “Warchamp7” Giampaolo. “The floatier gravity, the slower gameplay, the removal of many character control nuances like dash dancing and wave dashes, and random factors like tripping that took control away from the player all contributed to a game we found less enjoyable. Project M‘s main goal was to bring back the elements of Melee that we all enjoyed like the faster pacing and balance of risk/reward.”

On the surface, a mod like Project M probably comes across as the work of a fanbase that felt Nintendo had gotten it wrong. Yet, that’s not necessarily the case. If anything, the game is more often talked about as a kind of “What if?” scenario designed to explore what may have happened if the competitive community that embraced Melee had become the primary audience for future installments.

“Project M is definitely our alternate take on what we’d like the series to look like,” Giampaolo says. “Melee‘s competitive nature is sometimes considered a happy accident, and I’d say Project M is a deliberate execution of those competitive aspects.”

Read more

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Melee‘s expansive multiplayer modes make it clear the game was intended to be played competitively between friends, but what many believe Nintendo did not necessarily anticipate was how the game would be embraced by more “hardcore” fighting game fans. What was essentially conceived as a Nintendo mascot brawler became a mainstay in the competitive fighting game community, and some of the things that made the game so different are also what made it popular among the genre’s most dedicated fans.

“Melee‘s mechanics offered an extreme freedom of movement that provides limitless options in various situations,” says Smash Bros. modder Dan Salvato. “I think most notably, simply moving your character around on the screen is extremely fun in itself. Most fighting games are balanced around what you can’t do in any given situation, but Melee kind of rips out the brakes and hands the keys to the player. You might get a lot of Melee die-hards giving you a list of reasons that Melee is ‘better,’ but I think that it just provides a different experience that captures a different audience of players.”

As a look into a kind of alternate reality for the Smash Bros. franchise, it’s easy to again wonder why the Project M team simply didn’t create their own Smash Bros.-like game based on Melee‘s mechanics. Much like with Pokémon Uranium, the decision to stick to the Smash Bros. name and the many copyright conflicts that come with it can be attributed to a combination of love and logistics.

“Everyone on the Project M team was incredibly talented but a lot of members had skill sets that were specifically tailored for modding Brawl,” Giampaolo says. “Some of the people that did programming on the team didn’t know any normal programming languages; they only knew assembly and had learned it through modding. Some of the animators didn’t have any experience with industry animation tools; they only knew how to use the community-created ones designed for Brawl‘s file formats. I consider their work even more impressive because of that but it means they wouldn’t have had an easy transition to making a ‘real’ game at the time.”

The Project M team was aware of the risks associated with the game they were making, and, as such, decided to institute a series of rules that they hoped would help protect the game against an immediate takedown. For instance, they encouraged people to play a “hackless” version of the mod that still required them to purchase Brawl, and they didn’t add new characters to the mod that weren’t already present in Brawl in some way.

In a way, the guidelines worked. Project M wasn’t hit with an immediate takedown request, but the constant threat of future legal actions and the desire to start on an original project accelerated the end of its development. But before that happened, Project M was embraced by the Smash Bros. competitive community who began using it and other modded versions of Smash Bros. as the feature attraction in many tournaments.

It doesn’t seem many of those fans expected Nintendo to embrace Project M or officially support any Smash Bros. mod. However, many of them wanted Nintendo to at least recognize their passion for the series’ competitive elements and how many felt Melee, in particular, best represented those qualities. There’s a degree to which the competitive Smash Bros. community lived in that same “under the radar” territory that Project M tried to exist in, and there’s a degree to which the competitive Smash community just wanted to be seen as fans who built a tournament scene based on love and shared passions. When Nintendo finally noticed them, the real trouble started.

“Over the years, the most community backlash hasn’t come from Nintendo not caring, but it has come from Nintendo interfering,” Salvato explains. “I think a decade ago, the Smash community felt more desperate for Nintendo’s acknowledgment…but once Nintendo stepped in, though, all of their regulations followed, and the Smash community started to question whether they actually wanted it.”

In 2020, Nintendo sent a cease and desist letter to a beloved Smash Bros. tournament that planned to use a Smash Bros. Melee emulator to host a digital event during the Covid-19 pandemic. The letter even targeted the event itself, which meant the hosts couldn’t simply feature the latest Smash Bros. game instead. After years of being ignored, the Smash Bros. competitive community was dealing with the fallout of being seen. While Nintendo has helped event organizers in the past, it was that lingering threat of things quickly going the other way that so often made the relationship uncomfortable and, at times, impossible.

Guasti can tell you more about Nintendo’s history of acknowledging the work of fans in their own strange way. A year after shutting down AM2R, Nintendo revealed and released an official Metroid 2 remake for the 3DS called Metroid: Samus Returns. Given that the franchise had been dormant for some time and that an unofficial remake of that same game had just been taken down a year before, the reveal of Samus Returns came as a shock to many, including Guasti.

“It was quite a surprise. Nobody saw it coming,” Guasti recalls. “Once I finished seeing the trailer, it was like, ‘Hmm, so that’s how the Metroid fights look with a budget.'”

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Samus Returns and AM2R are actually quite different in terms of their visuals and mechanics, but in a way, the differences made the speed at which the latter was taken down before the former was released that much more surprising.

“If you think about it, it’s super fascinating,” Guasti says. “These two points of view of the same story have been developed in parallel. At least one of the parties didn’t know that the other existed. Even if there are a couple of elements in common, the way that they conveyed the game feel and the whole environmental design, how Samus moves around and all of the elements in the design are completely different.”

Maybe there’s an alternate timeline where the differences between the two games meant both were allowed to exist, but Guasti doesn’t seem to dwell much on that. As strange as it may seem for someone who spent so many years of their lives on a project they couldn’t profit from, Guasti seems satisfied with how things worked out.

“I can’t be mad,” Guasti says. “I reached the audience that I wanted to reach. I learned everything that I wanted to learn from that…I’m really happy how that stage in my life turned out.”

Considering that Guasti’s work on AM2R helped him find a job in the video game industry where he later worked on the Metroidvania title Ori and the Will of the Wisps, you may think that the fate of AM2R is only easy to accept given that it led to a career and all of the benefits that come with that. Yet, there are many creators who share the belief that the real value of their work was the chance to share something with other fans like them.

In fact, some wouldn’t even mind if Nintendo essentially released the games they worked on without even giving them direct credit, much less a check.

“I would be ecstatic,” Giampaolo says of the possibility of Nintendo releasing its own Project M without acknowledging the mod’s creators. “We created Project M because it was the game that we wanted to play and it is, to date, my favorite entry in the genre. I’d love nothing more than for more players to get to enjoy that.”

Of course, Project M is a mod to an existing Nintendo game, and its creators were always aware of the fine line they were walking when working on it. They also got to end it on something closer to their own terms, and the mod is still massively popular among its intended fanbase to this day. But what about Involuntary Twitch whose project was hit by one of the swiftest and most complete takedowns in fan game history? How would she feel if the next Pokémon game was essentially a copy of Uranium but she received no credit?

“I’d be thrilled,” Twitch says. “I wanted to play one of my own games on a Nintendo handheld my entire life. And even if they didn’t put my name in the credits, I would still know that I was there, that I had inspired some type of its DNA. That, to me, would be enough. I mean, I am not here to chase clout. I don’t make fan games for attention. I make it because I like to do it and it’s a fun hobby for me.”

While there is something exceptional about those who create to fulfill a vision and share it with the world, this mentality seems to be the lifeblood of the fan game community.

“The modding mentality is that you have a community that loves a game so much that they want to extend its lifespan and help each other enjoy the game even more,” Salvato says. “In my experience, mods are always full of a lot more love for Nintendo than they are of disappointment. Modders are proud and passionate, and they love what they do.”

You could argue this love is rarely reciprocated by Nintendo, but some creators suggest we may need to change our perception of success by recognizing that completing and sharing these projects can be more important than profits and fame. 

“I hope that it brought them some joy because, to me, creating stuff is something that defines who I am,” Involuntary Twitch says. “I hope that it can help other people to find out who they are and develop their skills and find a place where they belong.”

Why does someone spend years of their lives on a project that can’t make money, will probably be shut down, and will never be embraced by the company that inspired them? The answers vary but seem to often come down to a surprisingly simple philosophy. You can spend years waiting for Nintendo to do make something, or you can spend that time doing it yourself and letting the memories, the love, and the quality of the games justify it all.

The post The Nintendo Fan Games That Tried to Revitalize Pokémon, Metroid, and Super Smash Bros. appeared first on Den of Geek.

from Den of Geek https://ift.tt/331lELf

[alexchristin]

Mark my dear friend,

What do you mean "Dark Souls only needs one difficulty mode?" You yourself know and have made a video on the fluid difficulty of Dark Souls. In my book, that's how accessibility should be handled. Text and UI options are THE WORST when it comes to communicating game elements and mechanics for many reasons I'm sure you realize. They don't really show how much you care about diversity of players as much as they show that you're hesitant about letting players tinker with your design.

In short, good difficulty design is where, to the player, there are no difficulty modes at all. Instead, there are only the effective/efficient strategies (but more grindy, repetitive, boring) and the not-so-efficient strategies (but more challenging, varied, satisfying). The problem here is, you should NOT put players on a linear graph of 'play ability' where there are people who are simply "better at games" than others. Instead, you should put players on a spectrum between "people who prefer the outcome over the gameplay itself" and "people who prefer interesting gameplay over how effective/efficient their approach is." If you approach difficulty that way, nobody will find any approach to the game superior or inferior to any others.

I can give you some examples off the top of my head.

So I'm no Overwatch veteran, but I know in that game, Bastion is a VERY STRONG hero, and there's not a lot of mechanical downside to playing him. The real downside is, Bastion is incredibly boring to play. He has a typical self-repair ability, and his killer mode is a static turret form. Any Overwatch beginner will likely love him because he can help them even up the playing field with the more experienced players. But when players reach a certain level of experience, their need for variety of gameplay, to show how skilled they are and how well they know the in-and-outs of the game, will start to trump their need for effective gameplay.

Another shining example I can give you is from XCOM (I'm talking about XCOM2012 here). Even though I picked up this piece of design from the Long War mod, but just for the sake of understanding, I'm going to summarize the mechanics a little bit, and they may not seem the same with the vanilla game. So there's a "cheesy" tactic in that game that can almost ensure victory, that is to have a cloaking unit spot the enemies for a sniper from across the entire map to pick them off one-by-one safely without any real repercussion. This strategy is perfect in virtually every mechanical aspect of combat. The only problem with it is that it is INCREDIBLY BORING: your snipers just simply shoot every turn, and you can only take a few shots every turn, not to mention reloading. This strategy is best suited for (1) beginners and (2) people who have made mistakes and want to get out of the downward spiral. On the other end of the spectrum, there are players who understand how the game and the AI of every alien unit in the game work, so they are more confident about moving up close and personal with the aliens with minimal armor. Because for them, it's not about defending against the aliens, but about manipulating, "nudging" the aliens into behaving the way these players want them to (nobody needs armor when aliens are only gonna shoot at the tank; nobody needs to take good cover when aliens are too scared to move to flank in front of your Opportunist unit; etc.)

All of the above is to say two things:

Difficulty should not only be designed around the mechanics of a game. It very much should also take into account the AESTHETICS or ELEGANCE of those very mechanics.

You should not put people on the linear graph of "playing ability" where some people are simply "softcore, not-so-good at video games" and some other are "hardcore and challenge-seeking." The idea alone is absurd, because people on such a graph would move up and down constantly, even during a single playthrough. Some people pick things up faster than a game can predict with its tutorials' pacing. Some people due to real life reasons have to abandon the game for some time, and they lose a bit of their touch when they come back to it. People should be put on a spectrum between "effectiveness" and "aesthetics of play", and games should be designed so that they can accommodate almost anyone on that spectrum.

[bisokubira1995]

How the Porsche 959 and 918 Supercars Became Ultimate Test Beds for Go-Fast Tech

If you have a Porsche with adjustable suspension settings or a plug-in hybrid system, you should probably thank the company's most exclusive, cutting-edge supercars. The Brumos Collection doesn't just have a bunch of Brumos Racing's iconic race cars over the years-it also has several important supercars. The collection's YouTube channel recently did a deep dive into some of the more important innovations that Porsche debuted on two of its supercars, the 918 Spyder and the 959. Racing isn't manufacturers' only place to test out new tech that makes road cars faster, more enjoyable and more efficient. Sometimes they do this on other road cars, and limited-run supercars are the perfect place to try new things. People expect them to be at the bleeding edge of technology and a bit of a showplace for whpany is capable of, after all. The Porsche 959 was Porsche's first true supercar, autel maxitpms ts401. and many credit it for saving the 911, which eventually got a lot of the 959's up-to-date technology. One of the 959's unique gauges features some settings that are pretty familiar to all-wheel-drive cars today. Symbols for different kinds of weather conditions (plus one for "traction") denote settings that determine how the car's all-wheel-drive system behaves. It can send varying amounts of power to the front axle and change the amount of lock in the differential. The 959 also had dials on the center console that adjust ride height and the stiffness of the shock absorbers. Those are both pretty common nowadays, with that adjustable height capability having saved many a low-hanging 911 nose from certain scrapey doom. Even the 959's engine was far more modern than the regular 911's aircooled engine, featuring watercooled heads and sequential turbos that produced more torque at lower revs to avoid having so much turbo lag. The early 911 Turbo had such brutal turbo lag that it was called the "Widowmaker," and getting rid of that hard-to-control kick over the years made 911 Turbos so much more accessible to the masses. Nowadays, we're seeing more of the influence of the 918 Spyder across the Porsche model line-up. It was the second plug-in hybrid Porsche ever made. It features some tech from previous supercars, such as a full carbon-fiber monocoque like the Carrera GT and all-wheel-drive that goes all the way back to-you guessed it-the 959. Supercars are a great place to test out new manufacturing processes, so only time will tell if we'll see more carbon-fiber-bodied Porsches come around. One of those innovations is the little drive mode selector on the steering wheel that let the 918 drive in all-electric, hybrid, sport and race modes, all of which determine how the car uses its energy, and in the case of race mode, opens up the rear spoiler and lowers the car. That same dial has spread across the Porsche line from there, even appearing on brand-new, family-hauling Cayennes. Perhaps the 918's biggest contribution to present-day car tech was through its hybrid drivetrain. It wasn't just part of the wave of hybrid supercars that actually made hybrid technology cool to a bunch of hardcore car people-it forced Porsche to improve the cooling systems for the 918's two electric motors and batteries. It's easy to write off supercars as expensive toys that you may never see in real life, but it's worth paying attention to the cool new tech. That same lightweight material or drivetrain innovation that's being used in a one-of-50 supercar destined for a secretive oil mogul's collection could eventually make its way into your driveway.

[mitsubishifever]

Mitsubishi Pajero 2020 Review

There are no assurances the  Mitsubishi Pajero 2020 is the very last one we’ll see, but further updates for Mitsubishi’s long-runner are off the cards.

With a lineage that stretches back to the first-generation Pajero, revealed at the 1981 Tokyo motor show and sold in Aus’ from 1983, and four generations over the years that followed, the Pajero has earned icon status.

In fact, the current generation alone is something of an icon in itself, arriving in 2006 and given its current styling revisions in 2014. It’s no spring chicken, then, but the best off-road legends tend to have long unbroken runs – think first-gen Mercedes Benz G-Class (40 years and counting) and Land Rover Defender (at 33 years).

For the 2020 model year, Mitsubishi has made a few changes. Most significantly, the previous range-topping Exceed variant has been dropped, leaving a two-model range that starts with the Pajero GLX from $49,990 drive-away, and tops out with the GLS The powertrain is unchanged, meaning the long-running 3.2-litre four-cylinder turbo-diesel engine continues with 141kW at 3800rpm and 441Nm at 2000rpm. Only one transmission is available, a five-speed automatic, sending power to Mitsubishi’s Super Select II four-wheel-drive system.

Official figures suggest mixed-cycle fuel consumption of 9.1 litres per 100km. 

Underpinning the Pajero is an ‘integral frame’ monocoque chassis – not typical of most hardcore 4x4s that use a separate ladder frame, but able to blur the lines somewhat between passenger car comfort and off-road ruggedness. The result is a sizeable four-wheel-drive that, even given its age, is thoroughly pleasant to drive.

Acceleration is leisurely, but for a car with the Pajero’s capabilities that’s fine. There are also hints of diesel soundtrack depending on engine load and conditions, but overall the 3.2-litre engine is muted and smooth for its age.

The IVECS II (Innovative Vehicle Electronic Control System) transmission smarts aren’t at the cutting edge of control technology compared to the era in which the system debuted. Adaptive logic and the ability to ‘learn’ driver patterns mean Mitsubishi’s five-speed auto responds favourably to driver inputs without hunting for the right gear or swapping cogs unnecessarily.

For drivers who would rather mete gear changes themselves, a floor-mounted manual mode allows gears to be held as required, which is handy in some off-road situations or when towing.

On the subject of towing, which is a primary purchaser consideration, the Pajero claims a maximum 3000kg tow rating. It pays to keep in mind, however, that up to 2500kg the Pajero carries a 250kg ball limit, at 3000kg the ball limit drops to 180kg – limiting flexibility somewhat.

Unlike most recreational 4x4s such as the Toyota Prado, Isuzu MU-X and even the slightly smaller Pajero Sport, the Pajero runs on fully independent suspension. That helps give it a more settled and stable feel over smaller blemishes in the road surface, more in line with 4x4s like the Jeep Grand Cherokee and Land Rover Discovery.

While the Pajero legacy (in more recent times, at least) is forged on its simplicity and dependability, those same provisions cost it points on presentation.

On the inside, the fourth-gen Pajero looks every bit its age. The dash design – one massive tombstone of black plastic – makes no attempts to position itself as a premium product. It’ll survive spills, scuffs, moisture, dust and dirt no worries, but won’t be mistaken for a luxury product.

The newest part of the Pajero’s interior is its 7.0-inch touchscreen infotainment system loaded with features like DAB+ radio and smartphone mirroring for Android Auto and Apple CarPlay, but lacking in-built sat-nav or a CD player, which seem like oversights given its propensity for remote getaways.

The driver faces analogue instruments with no digital displays. The darkly shrouded two-dial gauge cluster can be hard to clock at a glance.

Ahead of the driver, there’s no trip computer info or digital speedo readout; however, an LCD display in the centre stack offers some additional info, like barometric pressure, fuel monitoring, time and temp.

Ergonomics aren’t always on point, like the (admittedly minor control) switches hidden from view on the lower dash to the left of the steering column, plus limited seat adjustment (powered upfront) and lack of steering wheel reach adjustment mean the Pajero may not be an ideal fit for all drivers.

Despite generous external proportions, the interior may be less spacious than expected. There are no issues upfront, but adult passengers in the second row will find the seat base undersized with a lack of under-thigh support, though there is an adjustable backrest.

Getting into the third row is relatively simple, but once there, the tiny dimensions rule the rearmost seats out for all but the most compact passengers. A small, low seat, lack of toe and knee room, and no ability to slide the middle row forward force an awkward side-skewed seating position.

Comfort and convenience are covered by features like single-zone climate control, rear booster controls and overhead ventilation to all three rows, power windows with auto up and down for the driver, cloth and ‘synthetic leather’ seating surfaces, Bluetooth connectivity, heated front seats, auto lights and wipers, self-dimming interior mirror, HID headlights, and remote central locking with key start.

Items that have gone missing with the removal of the higher-spec Exceed model include a sunroof, leather trim, and sports pedals – but the GLS also gains Rockford 12-speaker audio, an alarm and auto high beam, while also coming in at more than R160K under the old range-topper, which seems an agreeable compromise.

With all three rows of seats in use, there’s barely enough space left to handle a couple of grocery bags. The final row of seats can be stowed flat in the boot floor, which is a fiddly multi-stage process.

Behind the second row, Mitsubishi claims a whopping 1069L to the top of the seats, meaning plenty of useful acreages to pack your luggage into, along with plenty of bag hooks and an included cargo blind. Drop the second row and there’s 1789L, with a load length of just over 1.4m.

On the safety front, Mitsubishi provides six airbags, ABS brakes, traction and stability control, plus three top tether and two ISOFIX child seat mounts for the middle row (positioned inboard and ruling out the use of the centre seat).

Against more modern competitors, the Pajero misses out on technologies that are fast becoming commonplace on much cheaper vehicles. Features like adaptive cruise control, attention monitoring, lane-departure warning, blind-spot monitoring and the autonomous emergency braking are nowhere to be found.

Mitsubishi touts a five-star ANCAP rating, but the assessment is dated from 2011, meaning the data is now considered out of date with the lack of crash-avoidance technology making the Pajero ineligible for a five-star finish under current criteria.

For buyers seeking simplicity, the Pajero’s more basic range of features appeals to staunch traditionalists, but as a flagship vehicle, it leaves much to be desired. Particularly amongst peers like the Ford Everest and Toyota Prado, which carry more safety and luxury tech, but also wear more expensive price tags.

Similarly, the way the Pajero GLS comports itself on the road feels much more like past generations of 4x4s and not the newest or most advanced. The engine can’t be rushed, and would rather dig into its torque reserves than fly through its rev range.

There’s around 2300kg of kerb weight to shift, so the Pajero is no traffic light Grand Prix racer. It needs a moment to really get rolling, but between 1500 and 2500rpm it feels almost unstoppable.

Steering is on the heavy side at low speeds, with an 11.4m turning circle making for a somewhat cumbersome feel in tight quarters, but head onto the open road and it is much more stable and secure as a result.

Ride quality also favours the open road. It’s absorbent enough to soak up jagged rural road surfaces and doesn’t jar or shock occupants.

You can also point it away from made surfaces, with the Super Select II 4x4 system accommodating on- and off-road use with shift-on-the-go ease. To keep fuel use trim in town there's two-wheel drive, and should conditions turn damp there's on-road four-wheel drive for added traction. Head into the rough stuff and 4HLC mode locks the centre diff, while 4LLC adds low-range gearing into the mix for heavy-duty work.

In factory form, there’s 225mm of ground clearance and up to 700mm wading depth should things start to get hairy. While the lack of rigid axles won’t work for rock-hopping traditionalists, the four-wheel independent set-up holds its own on moderate off-road terrain, as does the standard rear diff lock.

As a touring vehicle, travelling noise is low, engine and road intrusion are well managed, though wind noise can factor in depending on the conditions. The block-shaped Pajero isn’t necessarily the most aerodynamically efficient.

Now that the newer Pajero Sport has established itself, it's clear that buyers after a better-equipped, plusher, or more high-tech four-wheel-drive have an option. Be that as it may, there’s still a clear audience for, and plenty to like about, the Pajero.

Its amount of time on the ground imparts the perception of having proven itself (recent recall notwithstanding), and certainly, on the used market, there’s no shortage of examples of the current fourth-gen model with well beyond 300,000km on the clock.

Owners are covered by a five-year/100,000km warranty and capped-price servicing for the first three years or 45,000km set at $479 per visit, occurring at 12-month or 15,000km intervals (whichever comes first) inclusive of all fluids and filters described in the regular service schedule.

Because of their dedicated ‘heavy-duty’ focus, cars like the LandCruiser, Patrol, Prado and Pajero are unlikely to ever be part driving, easy to park, economy champions. For their target market that’s absolutely ideal, too.

While the sophistication and complexity of rivals continue to expand, the Pajero sticks to the ‘keep it simple’ mantra favoured by regional and remote buyers and carving out its own niche in the process.

No model can run forever, though, and with production scaling down for overseas markets. Mitsubishi tells us Pajero production will soldier on for a few more years but won't yet commit to an end date.

The Pajero’s future gets even murkier now that Mitsubishi operates under the control of Nissan. While past concepts have pointed to a next-generation Pajero, the need to scale down development costs has put plans on hold while Nissan and Mitsubishi clarify the direction for Pajero and Patrol replacements.

With sharpened pricing over the years (including the ongoing current offer) and a hard-won reputation, the Pajero makes sense as a sturdy rig for touring South Africa from corner to corner reliably and comfortably.

If you’re not swayed by bells and whistles, the Pajero could be just the thing. It won’t stick around forever, though, nor will it have you bristling with joy every time you get behind the wheel, but it will handle anything you can throw at it and come back for more.

Article from: https://www.caradvice.com.au/786021/2020-mitsubishi-pajero-gls-review/

[yes-moin-posts-blog]

Game Weakness

Game I Liked

The Elder Scrolls 5: Skyrim

Skyrim is one of the most played game of all time and is one of the game that brings me back great memories and feeling, never ending missions, Skyrim offers a lot of adventures and quests around the entire world, and it doubles with DLC expansions. Rewards are sometimes not the best, but the time spent on them, resources and experience archived are much more satisfaction and they add more lore and information about the world around you.

Skyrim is an easy game one you pick up and doesn’t offer you difficult situations, you can pause the game and use potions or eat food to recover health, stamina and mana. Enemies are easy to avoid is the lowest difficulty. The biggest challenge is exploring all the world of Skyrim, encounters with legendary dragons, exploring the dwemers dungeons, finding the ancient artefacts.

What I Like

Massive open world, your character is free to travel everywhere around the world of Skyrim, the player can interact with every NPC in the world and create his own adventure.

Character creation and evolution is massive, you character can learn different magics, craft weapons and armours, create potions and poisons, build up your own strategy to survive dungeons and gathered allies to travel the world of Skyrim.

Glitches and bugs are fun and add more hilarious moments in Skyrim, the game can be modified to allow the player an infinite game experience. The game is easy to mod and players keep creating new mods every year.

 What I don’t like

Hostile NPC and enemies have easy patterns of attack and similar interactions, enemies can be easily avoided by running across the dungeons, most of them are close combat and slow. NPC can be killed easily with magic and ranged weapons.

The game can be paused this mechanic is acceptable and a lot of games use this system, but Skyrim allows the player to pause the menu during a fight and fully restore you character attributes and stats by eating or using potions, the player can even change the character gear, armour weapons and magics during a fight (normal enemies, boss battle) by pausing the game.

Stealth in Skyrim is tricky the player can save behind the NPC trying stealing and reloading until he gets all the loot. During a quest in the thief guild the player will eventually get the skeleton key, a game breaking items that allow the player to lockpick all the treasure without breaking the lock and getting caught.

Dragon encounters is one of the key elements of Skyrim, the entire story is concentrated around the returns of dragons and the player is the only one that can stop them. The first dragon fight is memorable due to the iconic song playing during the fight and the element of surprise. After some fights the dragon can be easily slayed by the player, they are share similar attack (breath fire tail swing and bites) they are not challenging at all and they become more that a common enemy in the world.

Boss fights are easiest things to do in Skyrim if you are ranged at low levels, at medium high levelled player can tank the damage of the boss and keep attacking it till he is dead laying in the floor. If the fight gets hard the player can pause the battle and fully restore is health bar.

Bugs, glitches and crashes, Skyrim is one of the most bugged game ever, the games have so many issues and problems that it becomes a key factor of gameplay, players can use bugs to get loots, money, materials and even rare objects by using the game breaking mechanic like walking through walls.

 Improvements/changes

Skyrim offers a lot of choice to the player, one of the most important gameplay aspect is the menu of Skyrim, the game allows you to pause a boss battle or other important encounters by opening the menu.

                        Skyrim menu

Any improvements that the game can add or change for future game of the franchise is to allow the player to have a challenge during fight, players can choose a difficulty level in the game, but this doesn’t affect the gameplay at all. My suggestion is to make the game running when the menu is opened so the player will be cautious when he use the menu for changing items. During fights the player cannot access the menu bar due to a fight with an enemy.

Mod Skyrim menu

 Another options is to create a player character controlling inventory (like the Witcher 3) were the player can controls the status, armours and weapons of the character

Witcher 3 menu

The only available options for improvements for Skyrim and the only version that support them is PC.

Pro

-faster confrontation of items and stats.

-a cleaner gameplay.

Cons

-items can be limited to choose and will eventually open other menus.

-items are separated from each other by section, so the player need more time to search them.

      Dark Souls 3

Dark Souls 3 is the third and last game of the Dark soul’s franchise.

Dark Souls adventures is open and not straightforward, the player doesn’t have a main quest to follow but a world to discover and find is own way to complete the game.

Advantages

Character creation and freedom of choice.

The player can create his own build and choose is own playstyle, lots of different options are available.

Weapons feels unique and they give you a satisfaction when you use them in the correct way.

You can create unique build with variations, you can use magics combinate with sword play, or even cast different abilities with your weapon art or shields, lots of supportive miracles are available, pyromancies allows you to damage multiple enemies.

Online is available and you can summons your friends using a password system, this is one important aspect that dark souls 3 introduced in the franchise, password system allows a player to summon other phantom with the same password, this allow you even to access arenas and PvP areas with your friends.

 What I don’t like

The game has less armour variety that other dark souls (dark souls 2).

Some of the armour are remake from dark souls 1, other armour is just a rusty, broken version of armour from dark souls 2.

The game has different weapons but some of them need high stats to use efficiently and this leads the player to invest more time levelling up to match the stats for use their weapon.

Another weapon is just bad and totally useless, example is the storm rule, a weapon use to defeat a boss, this weapon deal less or even nothing to enemies and players.

Dark souls 2 had a feature that if you use two weapon of the same attributes (example 2 curve sword, two long swords, two katanas) you can use both weapon combined, but the stamina will drain faster.

Dark souls 3 has a simple and more straightforward tutorial and boss fight for the beginning part of the game, nearly removing the element of surprises for veterans.

The easiest dark souls among all 3 and doesn’t offer you a challenge at all except for side boss (nameless king) and few main boss (twin prince, lord of cinder).

DLC have a massive number of weapons but few unique armour and magics.

DLC bosses are over exaggerated with massive amount of health bar and 2 3 different phases of fight.

The game NG+ doesn’t affect anything expect the damage of the enemies and items drop rates.

Armours feel unreliable and boring to watch not like it previous games (Dark souls 2)

Improvements/changes

Dark souls 3 removes a lot of armours from his previous games (dark souls 1-2) one of the core aspect of the game was his various armours and weapons from boss fights and important enemy’s encounters.  Armours weren’t important for the status but for the customization of the character to make all your character look unique and special.

Dark souls 3 allows the player to use the first-person mode with some items (binocles) or weapons like bows, this gameplay can be adding to the main game, the player can have a more immersive gameplay with dark souls 3 using the first-person mode

3rd Person

1st Person

The games will allow the player to play more strategically and think about their actions before striking down their opponents, player can still change the camera in the menu of dark souls 3.

The game will eventually become harder because the player can’t watch his back, but this won’t stop hard core player who is looking for a challenge.

This feature is only available with mods in the pc versions.

Pro

-A more immersive gameplay for veterans and new players.

-more strategical and hardcore.

Cons

-the gameplay can be hard, player can’t cover 360-degree camera.

-first person camera during boss fight can hide attacks from the boss or environments.

 Game I Disliked

 Lord of the fallen

 Lord of the fallen is a RPG game where you control a pre-existing character and fallow is story line.

 What I like

The combat feels satisfy sing at the beginning of the game.

The design of the environment and the music is good in some part of the game.

Risk-reward system (like dark souls)

 What I don’t like

Boss battle are repetitive and boring, makes the player leave the game.

Camera system is bugged and is an obstacle to the player during most fights in the game.

numerous bugs and glitches, that ruins the game and prevent the player to keep playing the game.

some weapon is stronger that other, boss battle is easiest, and some areas don’t give a challenge.

 Improvements/changes

The game start with this character and you are stuck with it for the rest of the game, I really don’t like it and I want to crate my own character. I feel like a character creation system is essential to this type of games. In lord of the fallen you only able to choose the class of the main protagonist.

A class choise is availab;le to choose, but that is the only options we got for the game. I think with a more wide varietion of character the game could really be more enjoyable.

Pro

-more options for character creation, more player will be fashinated and focused in the game.

-more choise, different gameplay.

Cons

-character creation may not capture the attention of casual player.

-difficult to create a character creation system if the story is concentrated to the main protagonist.

 Destiny

Destiny was one of the most played game when it was released, the game offers you a new RPG system, not in a fantasy world but instead in a distant future where you are one of the last survivors of earth.

What I Like

You can choose and create your own character; different race options are available and customisations like face feature and colours.

You can choose your class in Destiny, classes have different skills and they can evolve into side classes and unlock new skills.

Fun with friends for the first hours of gameplay.

Different options and customisations for character, weapons and vehicles.

Different classes and builds, classes can evolve in different sub-classes giving you a vaster choice of gameplay.

RPG skill system work well with the FPS shooting system.

  What I don’t like

Random loot boxes are the reward for completing any missions in destiny, the value of these boxes doesn’t affect your level or your skill in the game, you have high probability to get a bad item even if you perform well in the mission.

DLC add more options to the game and new items, the player with DLC and extra content are stronger.

The game item variation is massive and complicated, players must play missions to get few random items.

Missions are repetitive, and each planet have only one map. Missions are played in the same map for all the campaign.

The game is boring after few hours if you play alone.

 Improvements/changes

An important features of RPG games are items, destiny items are random dropped from mission and creates, reward and some trader around the city.

Having an item shop where you can have a catalogue of items is important for RPG, so players doesn’t get confused by the items system, it allows the player to save in-game currency to buy items that they like.

Pro

-Player will be able to buy items of their choice and complete their gear.

-Players are more motivated to play the game to buy their items.

Cons

-Loot systems fall back, player will no longer grind for items in missions.

-player will may play the one they finished their builds.

  Link to research Pinterest: https://www.pinterest.it/moinmox/boards/

[neuroma-neuroses]

Repeat this three times fast: translabyrinthine resection for an acoustic neuroma

Here’s the bit of this whole brain tumour adventure I was really dreading: actually getting the bloody thing out.

Reuben and I got married two weeks after I was told my tumour wasn’t malignant, an emotional feat in itself. The statistical improbability of a tumour I’d had for at least ten years becoming symptomatic during my wedding is mind-boggling. The neurosurgeons had given me hardcore steroids to reduce the swelling on my brain, but I delayed taking them before the wedding as they could have nasty side-effects. Gargantuan, messy, vain mistake. I spent my wedding night in the emergency room, vomiting up champagne and hors d'oeuvre due to brain swelling. Thankfully, I had the presence of mind to change out of my wedding dress before this adventure.

After a flurry of CT scans and terse conversations with my neurosurgical team, they confirmed my swelling had gotten worse and were unsure about signing me off to travel for my honeymoon. An agreement was eventually reached, whereby I acknowledged the danger of travelling to a far-distant land cast back many decades in medical technology known as ‘New Zealand’. I spent much of my honeymoon guzzling anti-nausea medication, unable to sleep due to the steroids and dreaded the ending of the trip. I knew that as soon as I got back, the cogs would begin to turn and the surgery would be close at hand.

During our honeymoon, we went to Wanaka’s Puzzling World, which had its own tilted room. As a preface to the room, they had a huge sign saying IF YOU HAVE BALANCE ISSUES, DO NOT ATTEMPT THE TILTED ROOM. Well, I had a tumour on my balance nerve. What transpired was one of the weirdest sensations of my life. It felt like my head was on backwards. Reuben had the foresight to film it.

My mum called me the minute we landed, exalting that we were on Australian, tumour-eradicating soil once more. I steeled myself for the frantic phone call, telling me my surgery date.

Then...nothing.

The insurmountable wait before this huge surgery was harrowing from a mental health perspective, but not for the reason you’d expect. I was told my surgery was category one as the tumour had gotten so big it was pressing on my brainstem, but then faced a solid month with no contact from my medical team. I had cancelled all jobs, so I had nothing to distract me. The wait was excruciating.

I tried to keep myself busy, but by this point my tumour was interfering with my everyday life: I could barely walk, was constantly nauseated and dizzy so was mostly bed bound. As though my physical state wasn’t enough, my anxiety disorder decided life could get a bit spicier too. Anxiety is a physical manifestation of the fear that something bad is lurking off in the distance: sweaty palms, racing heart, shortness of breath, a dark shape moving in the water on the horizon. I knew something bad was around the corner, I just didn’t know when it would strike.

I called the hospital everyday; the admin people got sick of me pretty quickly. ‘No, we’ve not assigned your case yet. WE’LL contact YOU when it happens.’

I just sat at home all day, every day, too sick to move around much, willing that phone to ring with every cell in my body. I just wanted the surgery done and dusted, not as a looming spectral presence on the horizon. The pain of the wait seemed so much more intolerable than what I was about to go through.

Being creative seemed to take all my strength and happiness and I didn’t have any left. My picture book ideas were left half-finished, illustrations half-done. I cried to Reuben every day. I was unsure if the surgery was happening in months or a few short days. The cherry on top was the medication cocktail I had to take. The anti-inflammatory drug I was on, dexamethasone, increases cortisol in the body, so I was in perpetual fight or flight mode, one long, excruciating panic attack.

All of my medications for the acoustic neuroma, artfully placed. I call this piece ‘Having a Brain Tumour: My Pharmacist Now Knows Me By Sight’.

Finally, FINALLY, I got a call to meet the ENT team involved in the procedure.

The consultant was brusque and efficient in the way that people whose time is highly compensated seem to be. ‘Your chance of dying or stroke is 1 in 100,’ he told me point blank.

I had a big, gulpy cry in corridor outside his office, which he happened to walk in on. Reuben later told me that was good, ‘You convinced him you were taking it all seriously’. He was full of these inner workings of the mechanisms of the hospital, which were all highly political and cutthroat.

The cogs were finally in motion. Over next two weeks, I was at the hospital nearly everyday after a month of no contact: MRIs, CT scans, neuro meetings, MDT follow ups, clinic meetings, pre-admission clinic...it was never-ending. I sat in waiting rooms for over 30 hours. Finally, I got given a date: 17th of February.

That morning, I was oddly tranquil. I made a plant watering schedule for Reuben. I dressed in my favourite Gorman dress. My parents met me at the hospital at 6am, having gotten up at 4am to make it from their country house. My dad had died of a head-related cause ten years ago in the same hospital. I had to walk the same steps I had taken then through the hospital atrium, when the doctors had told us he could die at any time and I hadn’t wanted to be in the room for it.

In a waiting room, after barely a minute together with my family, I was saying goodbye to them. I had to change into a hospital gown. My rings were sticky-taped to my fingers. I was calm, joking with the nurse about how I didn’t drink or smoke. The bruque consultant appeared again and drew a big arrow on the right side of my neck, marking out the tumour.

It was only as I was wheeled into a small anteroom and the nurses began to congregate and talk to each other instead of me and I knew it was on. My breathing hitched up. The anesthesiologist misjudged his cannula. My blood was everywhere. He cast about wildly for a common topic to discuss as this all got mopped up.

‘Do you like dogs?’

I felt myself laugh-crying.

The hubbub around me ceased and I realised I was alone in the anteroom. If I were to be praying to a god to spare my life, this is when I’d do it, I thought. But I was too scared even for that.

The anesthesiologists returned and wheeled me into the surgical theatre, chatting about ice-bars. I tried to tell them about the amazing one in Queenstown. The next thing I remember is clasping each of my sisters’ hands as I lay in bed, then being very grumpy that someone had the audacity to take me from my comfy bed into a CT scan. I opened my eyes: everything was skewed 90 degrees anti-clockwise. I slept solidly for two days, finally awakening to be told it took 13 hours, had all gone okay but I’d lost my hearing.

I can barely remember the first fews days after surgery. I recall my mum being by my side always, I recall vomiting a lot (a cut balance nerve will do that to you). On the third day after the surgery, I was sitting up in bed and joking about the hospital food. I was discharged after five days.

Post op two days. So much blood and iodine!

I recuperated remarkably fast. I didn’t have any CSF leaks or major complications apart from them having to leave a portion of the tumour behind. I was particularly worried about the pain associated with the procedure and how wretched I would feel afterwards. Honestly, it was bearable and a lot less horrific than I expected. The wound on my stomach from the fat transfer used to patch the tumour resection has been the most painful surgical site!

My tummy post op week two. SO FLIPPING PAINFUL. 

The after effects of the surgery have been more or less what I expected: my dizziness is still persistent like before the operation, but I’ve noticed that I’m not falling over every two steps anymore. Hopefully the dizziness will improve; I’m certainly doing enough physiotherapy! I’m adjusting to the hearing loss slowly, which isn’t helped by the fact that I have raging tinnitus in my dead ear.

I’ve observed the surgical after effects with the detached curiosity of a kid with a science experiment. Oh, I can only taste bitter things on my right side now? Weird! Only the right side of my face is aching like it has been bruised? Strange! I can only cry from one eye now? Cool!

One week post op

Two weeks

Three weeks feat. cat

One month

Five weeks

Apart from intermittent aching which is usually dulled by the painkillers I’m still on, the operation site itself has been numb for five weeks now, which feels very odd. It also feels strangely tight, like they didn’t spare me enough skin when they were stitching me up. I had trouble lifting and lowering my head and mentioned so to one of the ENT surgeons, who cheerfully rejoined that that specific muscle had to be cut the restitched during the surgery. I’d found this to be the most annoying surgical after effect; it feels like I have a painful neck crick if I engage that muscle in the slightest. 

The brace that held my head in place for the 13 hours of the operation left painful indentations on my forehead which I’d read about in others’ accounts. In the first few days after the surgery, their pain annoyed me more than anything else. It looks like they may scar now.

One of the brace wounds. Annoying bugger.

I sustained a second degree facial paralysis during the surgery as the tumour was wrapped so tightly around my facial nerve they ended up leaving a bit in there to preserve it. The paralysis has nearly resolved itself! For a few weeks after the operation, my smile was very wonky. Now it’s only noticeable if I’m tired or putting lipstick.

Two weeks post op, wonky smile!

Five weeks post op, somewhat straight smile! Now, I need my dexamethasone chipmunk cheeks to deflate please.

The slow pace of recovery is also very boring to me. I thrive on stress, with a million plates in the air at all times, so having no purpose but to heal has been a very strange experience.Mostly I just feel like I’m recovering from a nasty flu; all wibbly and wonky and fatigued. I’m slowly picking up work again in my fifth week post op, but I’m being kind to myself and not adding too much pressure to get better right away.