#subsurface circular

[sugarflow]

[furnass]

Bitches be like. Look at how cute this character is.

[image of a massive mech / robot character]

[veebs-hates-video-games]

Ok I guess this week has been all about going through a bunch of short stuff (and finishing one old thing I was almost done with), so you get to drink from the firehose.

The old thing was Bayonetta 2, which for some reason I took a break from for like 2-3 years. The first game had a bunch of good ideas in it but felt like it wasn't quite finished to me, but this one improved on all that and polished everything better, and it was a lot of fun. I'm not great at it, especially not after trying to jump back in in the middle after not playing for multiple years, but I was managing ok by the end at least. It's just non-stop nonsense that's constantly escalating and getting more ridiculous, and somehow they manage to pull that off. I kind of almost wish they leaned even more into the camp aspects of it sometimes, because the moments where Bayonetta comes across as "what if a cis woman was a gay man?" are always fun, and I'm always a sucker for female characters who are kind of snarky/bitchy/sarcastic.

Subsurface Circular was pretty good too. I knew the name Mike Bithell in the opening credits sounded familiar but was not prepared for it to directly reference Thomas Was Alone (the original thing he became known for and another great game) at one point in the story. "You are a robot detective solving robot crimes by talking to other robots on the subway" is a great premise, and it went in some reasonably interesting directions I wasn't expecting by the end. Some of the characters are kind of fun too.

I gave up on Can Androids Survive really quickly, like a few minutes in, which is a shame after how amazing Can Androids Pray was. I actually have a feeling it's probably fine or even good, but I didn't love the default controls, and when I tried to remap them the game softlocked. I'll probably give it another shot at some point when it goes on sale on itch.io or Steam, but the Switch version isn't happening.

Florence was pretty cute and good though. It's another one of those things that manages to tell a story and develop its characters with almost zero text or dialogue, and it does it well. I don't really have a ton to say about it beyond that it's a good use of a couple bucks and less than an hour of your time. Oh, and that I appreciate the stuff they managed to pull off entirely through very simple gameplay, like showing characters getting closer and more comfortable with each other just through how you put together speech bubbles for implied conversations. Very simple but very effective.

And then finally there's Death Becomes You, which I have mixed feelings on. I guess I'd call it a yuri murder mystery VN with much more emphasis on the murder mystery than the yuri. There are definitely some good ideas in it, and I like that it's not afraid to focus on toxic or even abusive relationships and recovering from them, and the world it takes place in is more interesting than I expected. That said, the writing isn't really my style overall. Some of it works pretty well sometimes, but I had a bit of a rough time getting into it at first because of how unlikable the characters and their interactions came across at first, and not in a way that made me want to know more. I did warm up to them somewhat, but like a review on Steam put it I was more intellectually interested in what the story was doing and not so much emotionally invested in the characters or what was going on. Also most of the endings feel really abrupt and like they needed slightly more to them to feel like they were really earned. I'm still curious what they'll do in the future though because there's definitely potential for something interesting there.

[0rb0t]

also i finally started playing Subsurface Circular today, and I love it. I enjoy a good talking simulator detective game!!! gotta pay attention and accumulate the knowledge!!! it's good. though i am starting to wish i had a steamdeck so I could play it on the couch rather than at my desk. Body Hurty

[who-do-i-know-this-man]

⚠️Vote for whomever YOU DO NOT KNOW⚠️‼️

[eliasdrid]

I had to cut some AIs/robots from here because... 10 options only but I want to give the poll some videogame variation (and also have characters that are better known so people are more likely to reblog).

Honorable mentions (off the top of my head): V2, Mirage and the other machines (Ultrakill), Ghost and Failsafe (Destiny 2) , Red (The Enigma Machine), Buddy (Buddy Simulator 1984), Grace and Blue (ROM: 2064), Million and Superduck (Norco), the characters from Primordia - especially Horatio, Crispin and MetroMind, RT-217NP (The Uncertain), Theta One One (Subsurface Circular), P03 (Inscryption).

Acronyms only poll

[c-53]

Do you have any robot video game recommendations? Always looking for more

heres a whole list of the robot games i have!

I 100% recommend Subsurface Circular, Observation, Ghostrunner, Enigma Machine, and Event [0]

[amphipodiel]

Adding super simple birds with Niagara System in Unreal Engine.

So you want your scene to have a couple of extremely low poly flying birds like this? Here's what I did to make that happen.

First you nee dto go into Maya/Blender or whatever you use to 3D model and create a shape similar to this. It can have as many polys as you want but it needs to this semi circular shape and about 10 "pages". These will act as a flipbook.

Next, go on google and get a picture of the kind of bird you want, it doesn't matter much for my purpose because I don't need th ebird to be anywhere near the camera. I grabbed a dove, removed the bacground and cut it in half. You could also add a butterfly wing, or a bat as logn as it's transparent and symmetrical.

Bring your mesh into unreal and create a new material. You'r egoing to create the panning systme that makes it look like the wings are moving.

This is the basic node layout. Make sure your blend mode is Masked and your shading model is subsurface and two sided.

Plug the transparent texture RGB output into Base Colour and subsurface colour. Download the texture below or make your own. It is a mask that will make the panning act like animation frame. Multiply it with the alpha of your wing texture and your opacity mask.

Not ot set the frame rate. Because we are using a particle emitter later when we set up the niagara system, we put in a dynamic parameter node. Use the set parameter of speed and multiply it against an added time node. Mulitply this against a scalar parameter which is going to be the set frames. Because we don't want half a frame, or to skip frames, just for safety we add a Ceil node. Divide the output through the frame count. This informs the time parameter of the panner. Add a texture coordinate nod into the coordinate input of the panner. Finally, plug all of that into the UVs of your Texture sample. And you're done with your material.

Now create a new Niagara System. Add your mesh which has had the material you've just created applied to it via the asset manager.

In the Emitter State, make sure the life cycle mode is set to Self and the Loop Behaviour to Infinite. In Spawn Rate, I had what I wanted with a value of 1.0 but it is highly dependable on the project.

The shape location should be a Box. I set the midpoint way off so that my birds woudl spawn off screen. This will let them fly in one direction once I set the Gravity Force.

Scale mesh size helps you decide the size of your bird.

Now, Gravity Force is important if you want your bird/butterfly etc.. to fly in a straight line. Set a value that goes in the direction that you want. You might have to fiddle with this until it looks natural.

However, birds don't fly in a straight line, so add a curl noise force and play with the noise strenght and noise frequency value.

Now place your Niagara System into the scene and you should be good. All of those settings will need heavy adjusting but I find that this is a really great way to add some life into a scene and some visual noise.

[radioactiveshitstorm]

Fave character tag game

Rules: Make a poll with five of your all-time favorite characters and then tag five people to do the same. See which character is everyone’s favorite!

thanks for the tag @staubhase :D

i'll tag... @kajenus, @nodaudaboutitt, @sweet-mephistopheles, @ruvviks, and @kozlatko

[ipsl0re]

With the steam summer sale ending in a few days, here’s a list I’d compiled earlier of great games currently under £5 ($6.40)

We Know The Devil is £1. 03

Heaven Will Be Mine is £1. 70

Cultist Simulator is £3.74

Full Metal Furies is £3.35

Pyre is £3.35

Transistor is £3.35

Bastion is £2.55

Rogue Legacy is £2.55

Misericorde is £3.71

Tangle Tower is £3.35

TOEM is £3.35

The Red Strings Club is £2.55

Thomas was alone is £1.19

Death's Door is £4.18

Journey is £3.59

Subsurface Circular is £0.95

Magicka 2 is £3.19

Monster Prom is £2.32

Monster Camp is £3.39

Celeste is £1.67

Castle Crashers is £0.99

A Short Hike is £3.18

Landlord of the Woods is £0.44

Dicey Dungeons is £2.77

Little Inferno is £3.18

FIGHT KNIGHT is £2.84

Aragami is £2.24

Hope this helps you find something good!

[beautifulmars]

HiPOD 6 Jun 2023: Wrinkled with Age?

This image shows wrinkled terrain (sometimes dubbed by scientists “brain terrain”) in association with other features including mounds and circular patterns.

Scientists are still trying to understand how these terrains form on Mars, but it is likely linked to seasonal processes involving near-subsurface ice.

Also of interest is whether the associated circular features are formed by the same ice-related processes, or if they are preexisting features that have been affected by the processes causing the surface wrinkling. Studying this image in detail may shed some light on the geologic history of this complex terrain.

ID: ESP_077844_2170 date: 5 March 2023 altitude: 295 km

NASA/JPL-Caltech/UArizona

[fernsnailz]

Subsurface Circular has some good robots. It's short and sweet but memorable.

And I absolutely can't neglect 2064: Read Only Memories and it's sister game Va-11 Hall A.

Turing is AMAZING

OOOH I LOVE THAT ART i'll check these out!

[delta-orionis]

Who’s your favorite robot that feels niche to you? (Regardless of how niche it is in reality)

I’m extremely biased in my answer because SOMA is one of my favorite games ever, but Simon Jarrett is the Guy of All Time. SOMA is kind of niche, it was a very popular indie game when it came out, but its popularity has dropped off since 2015. So I think I’m still kind of justified in calling it niche.

I’m trying to think of some of my other fav robots who seem niche… I really liked Hal 9000 (2001 a space odyssey) and Marvin the Paranoid Android (Hitchhiker’s guide to the galaxy) when I read their respective books.

There’s other indie game robots of course… Horatio Nullbuilt from Primordia, Turing from 2048 Read Only Memories, Theta One One from Subsurface Circular, The Transistor from Transistor…. Five Pebbles from this funny little game called Rain World that I’m sure none of my followers have heard me talk about before…..

I’m sure I’ll end up thinking of more later, there’s probably some really important ones I somehow forgot. Simon will always be my #1 ultimate existential crisis robot man, but if any piece of media has a funny little robot guy in it I’m guaranteed to pack bond to it instantly.

[who-do-i-know-this-man]

⚠️Vote for whomever YOU DO NOT KNOW⚠️‼️

[cyberkn1fe]

I played subsurface circular the other week as well, but that one is genuinely best experienced blind

[dawn-of-worlds]

Three-Dimensional Thinking

War engulfs the subsurface realm. Cities starve, children perish, temples are reduced to rubble. Twice-vassal Siktun City is no different, and large portions of its populace revolt against Chivik rule. Remote Siktun is resentful over a lack of imperial protection, and hard to pacify for much the same reason that made it hard to defend, and so the revolutionaries are powerful there.

But a lopsided war may still be long and bloody. And so Siktun is engulfed in war all the same as the other underground realms, and its people watch their city slowly ground to rubble, and despair. Many agonizing voices all speak the same prayer, whispered in ruins and shouted in echoing caverns.

"Circadian! Day and night that are changing! Sky-gleaned-from-tales! Instigator, wheel-turner, transformer! If we must fight and starve and kill one another, if there must be upheaval and bloodshed, then show us a sign of your support for our struggle! Reveal those cosmic truths that we echo with our deeds, oh great revealer!"

And for many years, the prayer went unanswered, even as it was taken up by ever-more voices. Until at last, a reply came; not from high above, nor from far below, but from within the city itself, a rumbling through the large cavern in which it was constructed.

"THE SKY SHALL NOT FULFILL YOUR WISH." the voice proclaimed. "IT IS ITS NATURE TO HONOR BOUNDARY, TO ENFORCE SEPARATION, TO PRESERVE SURFACES SACROSANCT. IT CREATES REFLECTIONS AND IMPRISONS THEM IN MIRRORS. IT SPINS GREAT ZODIACAL WHEELS OF SYMBOLS, WHERE EACH MARK CHASES AFTER ALL OTHERS, BUT NEVER COMES CLOSER TO REACHING THEM. IT WILL NEVER UNDO THE BARRIER THAT VEXES YOU."

Then one Tiktik, who refused to accept this answer, yelled out: "Then, whoever you are, act on our behalf! Show us what we fight and die for, if this lies within your power! Tear away all that which separates us from the divine!"

And Haebarik, maker of paths, horizon walker, star-bridger, breaker of traditions, castaway god, one-armed realm-forger, responded:

"WELL, IF YOU INSIST."

And there was a great earthquake, and through the cavern-ceiling then descended the great black whale Maretik, maw opened wide as it feasted on the stone. Round above the city it circled, eating away at the rock, until at last it disappeared once more, having devoured the barrier between realms above and below.

And through the hole in the roof of their world, the Tiktik beheld the moon, shining brightly, its bloody lake like a great lidless eye. And the defenders took the bloodstained sky as a sign of divine favor, and all their foes were converted or banished or slain. And so remote Siktun became the first city to claim true independence from Chivik; and though its people are loyal to Corobel first and foremost, a number of them worships the Carver of Paths as a lesser deity.

------------------

From the surface, the passage to Siktun appears like a great circular pit, its sides gently sloping in, with a hole at the bottom through which one might look upon Siktun and its subsurface lake. Paths have been dug through the soil and stone, culminating in great elevators that ferry travelers up and down to the city.

Though brighter than most of the underworld, the sun does not directly shine down into the city, though the summer noons get bright enough for the Tiktik to briefly stay within their dwellings. Despite their lack of adaptation to sunlight, the Tiktik have responded to their surface access with great enthusiasm, and eagerly harvest the nearby natural resources, foremost among them wood.

The reactions of nearby realms differ. Besieged Wera, though closest of all human cities, must remain dedicated to its own defense, and interacts little with Siktun. Its hinterlands, long since abandoned by their ruler-in-name, are quick to strengthen ties with this new regional power, and many come to call Siktun's rulers lord in time.

Unimaa, whose access to subsurface goods was largely controlled by the Hewn, eagerly cuts out the middle-man and sends emissaries to trade with Siktun directly. And to the southwest, locked in a decade-long stalemate, the malevolent Kalkayer reigns over artificial deltas and mud-choked farms. It hears whisperings of a new city, and so sends scouts upriver; eager to find out whether Tiktik shells, too, can host its algae...

(Shape Land 8 pt., Command Avatar (Create Order) 1 pt., 0 power remaining.)