#testing out some stuff. should have saved larger versions of the ones I’ve already made emojis but eh whatever I can redo em

[badolmen]

Quality Lumbo

[murasaki-murasame]

Thoughts on Higurashi Sotsu Ep6

Let’s just file this one under “top 10 shittiest anime deaths” *badum-tish*

Thoughts under the cut.

I feel like in a lot of ways this episode kinda highlights the highs and lows of the new series, and how it feels like it’s trying to be like three different stories at the same time and usually only succeeding at being one of them.

This episode, and this arc in general, as a standalone part of the franchise was actually really good, and delivered on the promise of ‘what if Mion actually became the culprit in one arc’, but as part of the answer arcs for the new series it just continues to feel kinda pointless and predictable. I still think that a lot of this has to do with them trying to be both a sequel and a remake at the same time, but unlike with the Rena answer arc, I honestly feel like even new fans could have guessed everything that happened in this arc, since it didn’t actually go into anything that wasn’t already discussed in Gou. So even on that level it doesn’t really feel like it’s providing essential answers that couldn’t have been worked out in advance.

It’s kinda weird how little this arc actually explored anything about Mion and Shion that wasn’t already shown in Gou, considering how much stuff from the VN related to them hadn’t been covered. A lot of their backstory stuff ended up not exactly being relevant to how this arc played out, but it just feels like a weird thing to gloss over when they’ve spent so much time going over stuff from the VN as it is.

Though on that note, I’m really curious about how they’ve made absolutely zero reference to the fact that Mion and Shion swapped places as kids, or anything about Mion’s tattoo. At this point I have to wonder if maybe Ryukishi just doesn’t actually like that plot point in hindsight, and is choosing to effectively write it out of the story here. I can see why, though, since from what I remember it kinda verges into being a twist for the sake of having a twist, and doesn’t actually do much for them as characters that wouldn’t have happened otherwise.

The lack of basically anything to do with Shion’s backstory and her relationship with Satoshi still feels a lot more iffy, but at least some of this stuff feels like intentional revising on Ryukishi’s part. Which I think is a really interesting aspect of the new series as a whole. It feels like he’s taking the chance to look back on the VN and show us how he feels about it after all this time. The stuff with characters like Teppei and Rina seems to be his way of making up for them being shallow villains in the VN, and Satoko being evil here seems to be in part inspired by how little agency or control she had in the original story. I guess the big issue here is that a lot of people probably just straight up disagree with the things that Ryukishi thinks of as being problems with the VN that he’s trying to ‘fix’ here, but I think it’s really interesting to see him do this sort of thing, even if it’s messy and overly ambitious and doesn’t fully work.

For the most part I agree with all the criticisms about these arcs feeling like a bit of a waste of time as we wait for the story to eventually loop back to the Nekodamashi cliffhanger. Even from the perspective of this being mainly for the sake of new fans, it feels kinda strange to see such straightforward ‘this is what was happening behind the scenes in the question arcs’ style answers, with lots of reused footage and basically zero twists or reveals. The VN’s way of designing separate arcs that provide answers for the question arcs was more satisfying, and Umineko went even further with that by just vaguely going over the basic keys to figuring out all the how-dunnit mysteries of the question arcs, and everything else about the answer arcs there was just a continuation of the meta plot. So it feels kinda weird to see him loop back around to the opposite end of the spectrum here.

It makes me wonder if there’s some sort of larger meta mystery going on here that’ll become more apparent in the next arc, and will reveal that we didn’t actually know everything that was going on like we thought we did, but at this point I feel like it’ll probably all end up being a lot more straightforward than we predicted. But there’s still the looming specter of the meta plane stuff, the hints dropped about where this series fits into the wider WTC universe timeline, and the fact that the whole point of the new series in the first place seems to be guiding Rika and Satoko down the path toward becoming their Umineko counterparts. So all of that stuff makes me think there might be some curveball twists going in the future that expand the scope of the story, but I have no real idea what to expect from that, and if it’d even feel satisfying. As much as I’m a diehard Umineko fan who loves the idea of this being a Lambda and Bern origin story, I still worry that the execution might not work once we get to the end. I also don’t really think that anything the series does in the final arcs will completely make up for how predictable these first few answer arcs have felt on a week by week basis, lol.

In general it gets me thinking that in spite of how predictable the answers have been thus far, I’m largely clueless about how I think they’ll actually wrap up the overarching story with Satoko and Rika. It feels like there’s still a lot of different directions they could take it in, and a lot of it depends on just how far Ryukishi wants to go with tying this into other WTC works.

For one thing, I’m not even sure how to expect them to follow up on the Nekodamashi cliffhanger. It’s at least hard to imagine how they could stop Satoko from shooting Rika then and there, considering how this episode in particular went. And one way or another, we’ll have to see how Rika and Satoko handle being in a situation where they both know what’s going on with each other. I think it’ll then just depend on what Satoko’s mental state is like at that point, and also what they plan on doing with the whole looper-killing sword thing. I think Ryukishi’s implied multiple times now that the next arc will start to test Satoko’s resolve, and going by her attitude during the infamous gut-ripping scene, as well as her traumatized reaction to the punching glove box prank, I think she’ll be much less confident in her goals by that point, and probably more willing to talk about what’s going on.

I don’t think it’ll be as simple as ‘she just gives up and everyone forgives her’, or even ‘Rika beats up Satoko while everyone cheers and they all move on and abandon her’, though. I think there’ll be some kind of balancing act between redemption and punishment, but I also think that ultimately it’ll also tie into the Lambda/Bern origin story stuff they seem to be going for. I think I’ve said this before, but my best guess for how this will end is that the looper-killing sword will be used to separate their ‘meta selves’ who are aware of the loops and stuff, while leaving behind their regular physical selves who thus lose most/all of their memories of the loops. At least that way they can have their cake and eat it too by showing how Lambda and Bern became witches, while also having separate versions of them that get to stay behind and mend their relationship or something. But I’m not even confident about all of that, lol.

It’s also worth noting that the key visual for Sotsu features Satoko and Rika as teenagers, and the OP also features that pretty heavily, along with an ominous scene of the other main characters as teenagers. So that makes me think that the story will somehow get back to that whole time period, which makes me a bit more unsure how the last arc will go. One option is that the final Nekodamashi arc will just keep going until they become teenagers again, but the way those scenes are presented in the promo material makes it seem like Satoko and Rika’s relationship is still bad then. So maybe on the other hand we’ll just go back to the original Matsuribayashi timeline where Satoko first met Eua, but I feel like that’d probably be the happy ending where everything goes back to the original timeline and they all end up reconnecting again, so I’m still not sure how the ominous presentation of the teenage characters might play into that.

Either way, I think all of that stuff will probably just come up in the final arc. The next one will probably be covering Tataridamashi and Nekodamashi from Satoko’s perspective. The next arc should be where things start to shake up, but I still think they could easily cover both of those arcs in just five episodes. Nothing much seemed to be happening with Satoko until the final days of Tataridamashi, and I can’t imagine there being much to explore with how she set up the rapid-fire loops in Nekodamashi.

With what’s been hinted at about the next arc not going according to Satoko’s plans, and her resolve being tested, I think that this will probably be where things go entirely out of her control and she starts to doubt whether or not she should continue with her plans. Specifically I think that being in a new loop with Teppei being nice to her, and watching everyone else try to save her from her [perceived] abuse, will start to sway her toward thinking that maybe that sort of timeline is worth staying in, even if it means giving up on controlling Rika.

One way or another I think Ooishi went crazy all on his own. I think Ryukishi explicitly said in an interview that Ooishi went L5 naturally, and I think the manga version of Tataridamashi made it clear that Satoko was genuinely thrown off by how things went there, so she probably didn’t want Ooishi to kill anyone. I can see how he might have gone off the deep end by interrogating Teppei and realizing that there was basically a witch hunt going on against him, but I’m not sure how he would have ended up specifically blaming Rika unless Satoko pushed him into it. Either way, Teppei probably really did attack Keiichi at the end of the arc, and we know that Satoko just has one syringe to use, so at most she probably injected Teppei and then Ooishi went L5 naturally.

I’m also curious to see if/when Satoko learns about Rika being given the power to remember her deaths, since that’d also go a long way toward explaining what her intentions might have been with how that arc ended. I think Satoko is at least aware that Rika doesn’t remember how she dies, so I’m at least not sure what she’d try and accomplish by setting up a loop that only goes to shit at the very last second. It feels like it wouldn’t do a whole lot aside from making Rika confused in the next loop. But Rika only gets her ability to remember her deaths after that loop already ends, so Satoko could have only known about it if there’s some sort of conspiracy going on about Hanyuu. Which there probably is, since her whole presence in this is weird and her deciding to give Rika a new set of powers was always super suspicious, but still.

I’m also curious to see if we get any real payoff to the idea that Satoko’s looping is causing more and more people to remember past loops. Especially when it comes to the main club members, since there’s various moments in Tataridamashi and Nekodamashi, both in the anime and manga, that seem to imply that most of them are starting to remember things.

Even though the execution of this whole new series makes me a bit more wary about how any sort of new anime for Umineko along these lines might pan out, I can’t help but still really hope this is leading to something like that. For one thing I just think that if he’s going for a Lambda/Bern origin story with this, at the risk of alienating lots of existing fans, I think there should at least be a more concrete payoff to that than just ‘ok now you can go back and read the Umineko VN’. But I think there’s a lot of potential to be had with some sort of remake or sequel to Umineko where he gets a chance to revisit it after more than 10 years. One of these days I should still just make a whole post about my hopes and predictions for what could be done with any sort of new Umineko anime, lol.

Anyway, this got longer than I planned, but all in all I enjoyed this more than it probably comes across like I did, lol. Even if the plot’s been kinda boring, I think Sotsu has done a great job of elevating it with good direction and visuals. The moment to moment pacing can still be kinda choppy, and sometimes the presentation of flashback scenes is confusing and ambiguous, but in general it still feels entertaining to watch unfold, and the brutality has a lot of impact. I’m just hoping that the rest of Sotsu is more ambitious and surprising than these first two arcs have been.

[wildlyminiaturesandwich]

🏠 Tiny Living Stuff Pack Review 🏠

Thank you to the EA Game Changer Program for providing me with the opportunity to play with Tiny Living Stuff early!

I didn’t have a lot of time to play around with this pack because I had some real life obligations during the early access time frame and the embargo time was once again at a ridiculous hour of the morning for me (don’t get me started on that mess), but here’s what I did learn about the new Tiny Living Stuff Pack.

I feel like I need to say straight away that this is my favourite stuff pack so far. The reason I feel the need to say that is because when I sat down to go through the notes I’d made during early access and type up this review, the more I got into it, the more it started to sound... aggressively ranty 😬

I was going to try to tone it down a bit, but honestly there are already so many reviews out there that gloss over the glaring bugs that I figured I might as well just leave it. It’s my honest opinion of the pack, and what’s the point of doing a review if I’m not giving my honest opinion, no matter how ranty? lol

I’m gonna put this under a cut, because spoilers.

— What I loved —

🏠 Create-a-Sim:

I’ve been saying for a long time we need more comfy casual clothing for our sims and with this pack we finally got some! LOOK AT THOSE JAMMIES!

To be honest, I wasn’t expecting any CAS items with this pack, but we got some amazing clothing that I will no doubt use on literally every sim I make lol

The hairs are good too, and more options are always appreciated, however I honestly feel like we already have different variations of most of them.

The best part about the hairs is that every single one of them has been made available for kids and toddlers! Apparently one of the gurus found a quick and cost effective way to convert hairs, so hopefully we’ll see this happen more and more with each future pack!

🏠  Buy Mode:

The Buy Mode objects are 100% the star of this pack for me. I don’t think there is a single thing in the buy catalogue of this pack that I didn’t absolutely adore! Some of the objects have issues — and I’ll get into that in a bit — but overall I love, love, LOVE the general concept of everything.

[click for larger]

The objects in this pack were based off the Scandinavian concept of Hygge and I really think they hit the nail on the head! Everything feels so cozy and comfy, with a little hint of Ikea to the furniture and I just... I can’t even really put into words how much I love it all. I honestly can’t remember a single previous pack (expansion, game or stuff) where I have loved every item in the buy catalogue, there’s usually always something that’s like “Meh” or “I don’t like this at all” to me, but the objects in this pack are 10/10.

I also love that they combined so many things. Like the murphy bed with the couch on the front (though I do wish we were also given that couch as a separate couch as well) and the TV unit that’s also a bookcase AND a stereo. And I really appreciate that they went back and redid some of the old book ends to make them functional bookcases. 

— What I didn’t love —

🏠 Create-A-Sim:

I say it with every pack and I’m going to continue to say it even if no one is listening...

WHERE ARE THE KIDS, TODDLERS AND ELDERS CAS ITEMS!?

I know the kids and toddlers got some hairs but that doesn’t make up for the serious lack of CAS content that every age range besides young adults has and it’s getting really hard to make unique sims when there isn’t enough content to choose from.

🏠 Build Mode:

For a pack dedicated to Tiny Living, I was really disappointed to see literally only one door in the build catalogue. ONE. I was expecting some small windows, maybe some sliding doors, but nope; just one door. Hell I would have even been happy to have less CAS stuff in exchange for some build stuff!

I get why they haven’t added bunk beds and spiral stairs yet, those are a lot of work and I’m ok with waiting until they perfect them BUT this would have been the perfect pack to add ladders. We already have ladders in game that are fully animated (pool and island living ladders) it really wouldn’t take that much work to make ladders work between floors. I HATE the idea of having to put stairs outside in tiny builds and ladders are the ultimate in space saving “technology"; I feel like the team really dropped the ball on that one.

🏠 Murphy Beds:

Listen, I love the concept of the murphy beds and the design of them looks really cool but I can’t see myself using them at all as they are currently.

I was almost immediately disappointed with them when I realised they were remote controlled. I know that it makes it easier for the Sims Team so they don’t have to work so hard to animate them, but I really wanted sims to pull them down by hand. The reason I wanted murphy beds in the game was because they would fit better with small apartments and homes of sims who don’t have a lot of money, and to me a remote controlled murphy bed sounds incredibly expensive. 

Oh but don’t worry, because apparently the remote control is invisible?

Now, the version of the game that the Gurus were using for the stream didn’t have invisible remotes BUT they use a dev build of the game that isn’t the same as ours, and many other Game Changers are also saying its invisible for them too, so I dunno what happened but that’s just one of the things that needs to be fixed.

The other issue, which is the biggest deal breaker for me, is that the damn things constantly break! And I do mean CONSTANTLY. You know how when you buy a cheap stereo or sink it’ll last a few days/uses before it breaks? Yeh, not the case for the murphy beds. They break instantly, and they break often.

I was REALLY looking forward to murphy beds being added to the game and I thought if there’s one thing I need to do above all else with this pack, it’s test out those glorious murphy beds! Well... I managed to play for roughly three sim days and here’s what happened during that time:

Bed 1 (never used before) got stuck on first use and squashed Sim 1

Bed 1 got stuck on second attempt and killed Sim 1

Bed 1 got stuck on third attempt and squashed Sim 2

Bought brand new bed

Bed 2 pulled down without issue for Sim 2

Bed 2 broke at 11pm while Sim 2 was sleeping and squashed Sim 2

Sim 2 refused to sleep for 3 hours out of fear while Sim 3 was able to sleep in broken, sparking bed for that time without issue because they weren’t in it when it squashed Sim 2

Sim 2 repaired bed while Sim 3 continued to sleep

After 3 hours Sim 2 went back to sleep and Bed 2 broke again almost immediately

Bought brand new bed. Again.

Bed 3 got stuck on first attempt and squashed Sim 2

Bed 3 got stuck on second attempt and squashed Sim 3

Bed 3 pulled down without issue on third attempt for Sim 3

Sims 2 and 3 slept for another 2 hours before Bed 3 started sparking again but didn’t squash them

Woke Sim 2 up to repair bed and immediately sent Sim 2 back to bed (the fear moodlet only happens if they get squashed but the bed can break without squashing them apparently?)

Bed 3 broke again 3.5 hours later and squashed both Sim 2 and 3

I rage quit.

For the so-called “Hero” object of this pack, this is just unacceptable. The percentage for breakage REALLY needs to be turned down because in my opinion they’re not usable as they are.

And even if it weren’t for all the bugs, I probably still wouldn’t use them in tiny homes because I don’t think they’re space saving at all. They take up exactly the same amount of space as normal beds do; 6 tiles. You can’t put anything in front of them or around them if you want them to be functional on both sides, and you can’t even put dangling lights above them because I guess, realistically, the bed would hit them on the way down?

It’s especially annoying with the murphy bed that has the couch attached. It would have been really nice to add a small coffee table or ottoman in front of it but you can’t because then your sims won’t be able to use the bed. I really wish they had have made at least the little round coffee table and the ottoman from this pack inventory-able. Sims could have them out during the day, and throw them in their inventory when they need to use the bed at night, then place them back down in the morning when they wake up.

I think it’s this aspect — not being able to put things around/in front of the murphy beds — that actually annoys the most; the bugs will probably be fixed eventually but I can’t see this ever changing. I spent most of the three days we had for early access trying to work out how to fit a murphy bed into a 32 tile micro home without having it just sitting in the middle of an empty room and let me tell you, it’s not worth the frustration.

— The Verdict —

🏠 7/10 Would go Tiny again

As I said, this is my favourite stuff pack so far and I will get a lot of use out of the CAS and Buy stuff, but because of all the things I mentioned above I can’t give it a 10/10.

I do love the content of this pack, but right now I’m getting kind of fed up with the issues that keep happening with every pack lately. It’s all stuff that should have been caught by QA testing, stuff that is glaringly obvious to the average player, and stuff that would have only taken two minutes of gameplay to find out was a problem. I don’t know who tests these packs, but whoever it is needs to step up their game in a big way.

Overall I really do love the pack, but some major aspects fell a little flat for me. And the fact that that’s not at all a surprise, and that this feeling of “I like it, but...” has become the norm with new packs is really quite sad.

If you have questions about Tiny Living Stuff, feel free to drop an ask in my box, anon will be on right up until the release 😊

[mango7889]

Prance. One of many nations that are now all part of the greater Equestria. Each nation had been pulled into Equestria in order to extend the control of Queen Nightmare Moon, But to this day each nation still maintains a sense of independence in a form of a commonwealth. Prance was always famous for its fine art and food, the latter being something that drew ponies in from all across the empire.

Eclair was one such pony. She came for one of Prance’s most prestigious culinary schools, L'Academie de Cuisine in Maresailles. Some of the empire’s best pastry chefs got their start at this fine establishment, and Éclair was hoping to leave with a degree that would get her a job as lead pastry chef at none other than Canterlot castle. It was her dream to get to craft amazing dishes for the queen herself. It also helped that her sister, Aurora, worked at the castle, which gave her an excuse to spend more time with her. 

Eclair’s time in Prance was not as fun as she had hoped it to be, much of the opposite in fact. Eclair loved her home back in Canterlot. Despite being from a family of pure blooded bat ponies, her family wasn’t wealthy. In her household, they’d decided to simply live alongside the other races of Equestria, rather than flaunt their genetics. But in their modesty, they still had a nice house just outside of the main city of Canterlot. She missed waking up and helping her mom bake for their small bakery. She missed having to drag Aurora out of her bed after a late night of studying for medical training. She even missed her dad’s annoyed rants about the “stuck up'' pure blood nobles looking at him funny. 

Here in Prance, every day was long and not quite pleasant. It wasn’t from a language barrier or anything; Eclair had a very good understanding of Prench, and most schools in other nations taught Equestrian standard as the official second language. What had really started to get to her was the culture. People were more reclusive, keeping to themselves most of the time. Eclair and her sister had been taught by their mom to always try to make friends wherever they went. The two of them took that to heart and would always strike up conversations with anypony they found themselves standing next to. Here though, they just gave her odd looks anytime she tried chatting with someone she waited in line with or passed in her school. On occasion even going as far as to mock the ‘silly foreigner’. 

Eclair did take solace in the fact that she was almost done. Two long years of studying in Prance were coming to as close as their final assignment closed in. 

And Eclair was in full panic mode. 

Eclair had never been bad at baking or decorating, far from in fact. But even though she was good at what she did, she had no idea what to make for her final presentation. She knew that the ponies back in Canterlot loved fine foods from all over Equestria. But she also knew that the ponies who lived in Canterlot castle, the place she wanted to work, preferred seeing stuff that was more locally classic, but with a flare from other nations. It was Eclairs hope that she could really master the art of making Prench spins of classic Equestrian fair. However anytime she made something like that, the teacher would insult her dish, saying it was “An insult to Prench cuisine,” or “A failure to understand the finer things.'' It was frustrating to say the least, but she had pushed through it this far and wanted to finish. 

The problem was that her teacher had assigned each of them a recipe to carry out, and she had even stopped to tell Éclair specifically to make it the actual dish and not “A peasant’s rendition.” Aside from feeling insulted by her remark, Eclair was in a panic as she tried to figure out how to make her dish special, but traditionally Prench. The dish in question was eclairs, She figured it was her teacher's version of a joke. As to say that if she did poorly, she failed her own namesake. 

Eclair flipped through one of her cookbooks frantically and pausing every once in a while to compare recipes with those from another book she had found in one of the campus libraries. As she tried desperately to find a good starting point, a pony she only knew in passing sat down next to her. The pale pink unicorn with a two tone red and silver mane that she knew as Étoile Rouge, or just Rouge because it was easier to say. 

She wore a nervous smile. “Your name is Eclair right? I saw you grabbing a bunch of books for baking and I was wondering if you wanted to swap ideas for the assignment.” 

Eclair was honestly a little shocked, because for the entire time she was at the school, her interactions with other students had been either occasional small talk or some of them being rude to her. “Yeah, and sure, I’d love to work with you! …I do have to ask though… Most ponies haven’t really approached me the whole time I’ve been here. So why now?” 

Rouge looked rather embarrassed. “Well to be honest, I don’t think it’s personal for most ponies here. You see, in this part of Prance, ponies are really reserved. It’s a culture that exists in many of the larger cities here. For example, I come from a rather wealthy family from here and growing up, I was taught to reject anything seen as unrefined or uncouth. For most it means that we often shy away from foreign ponies as we can’t really gauge you. For others, they’ve actually grown to resent ponies like you as inferior.” 

“Hmm, well that explains a lot. Honestly I kind of feel bad for you. Does it ever bother you that you need to look at everypony under a microscope, rather than just giving them the benefit of the doubt and having a conversation?” 

Rouge’s expression turned a little douer. “Yes, every day.. Don’t get me wrong, I love many facets of my life here in Prance, the art, the music, the food... But I’ve always felt like I didn't belong. Then you came here and I couldn’t help but feel a little jealous of what you had. And to answer your original question, I was hoping to get a chance to really learn about you and Equestria’s heartland as a whole.” 

Eclair blinked. “Sooooo, you’re saying that you want to be my friend?” Rouge blushed and nodded. Eclair was smiling widely. “Yes! Finally I can actually talk to somepony. Help me figure out a good recipe for my eclairs and I’ll tell you everything about back home!” 

Rouge gave a sheepish grin. “Actually could you also help me with a recipe for cupcakes that’s like something you would make in the Canterlot region? I know our teacher won’t really like it but I already have great grades and I would love to learn about your cooking.” She then paused for a second. “And wait a minute, She’s having you make eclairs? Seems a little mean.” 

Eclair laughed despite the stress. “I know right? And I’d love to show you some of my recipes!” 

The next week was by far the best week Eclair had during her entire stay at the culinary school. She finally had somepony pleasant to talk to, and she was making real progress towards a final product her teacher might actually like. She had come to really see Rouge as a friend, and through her, she learned more about Prance as a whole. Getting to see the country through Rouge’s eyes made her see why she had trouble fitting in. It actually felt similar to when she was a filly going to a nice school in upper Canterlot. The parents there would make snide comments about her befriending “lower class ponies” and acting improper for a “pure blood”. Only now, she couldn’t really escape it, She was, however, experienced in just dealing with it. 

Eclair wasn’t the only one learning from the unlikely pairing. Rouge had always felt out of place in Prance, and the more she listened to Eclair talk about life back in the heartland of Equestria, the more she longed for a life like that. She had also been learning to put an unorthodox spin on her dish that she knew their teacher would hate, but her grades were already stellar and she was guaranteed to pass anyway. 

It was the last night that they had to work on their assignments and both of them had a final recipe ready for the morning. It was finally time for R&R as the two relaxed in Eclair’s dorm room. Eclair was packing up her stuff since her airship would be leaving the evening after the teacher graded her final assignment and decided whether she passed or not. 

She looked over at Rouge writing a letter. “You know it feels like they’re really trying to shove me out the door. I mean do I really need to leave the day of my final? Can’t I have like one more day?” 

Rouge sighed, also dreading losing the one pony she felt like she really got along with. “It’s how they usually run it. They aren’t exactly eager to keep foreign students in Prance for longer than needed. It mainly comes down to old grudges really.” 

Eclair stopped packing for a moment, really starting to feel the sting of having to say goodby. “I’m gonna miss you Rouge, and we better keep in touch.” 

She just smiled back at her. “Oh don’t worry. I’ll make sure you don’t forget about me. Now come on, you should be packing. I mean, we do need to be getting some sleep soon.” 

The moment Rouge turned back to the letter she was writing, she felt Éclair throw her hooves around her in a crushing hug. Startled and blushing she launched her paper and quill across the room before settling. After their hug, they shared a laugh as Rouge then needed to go pick up her papers and practically pull her quill out of the wall. 

The next morning was a blur as Éclair flew around her workstation, sometimes literally, putting her dish together. She had made a recipe that was far more Prench then how she normally made her eclairs, but it would definitely buy her more points with their teacher. All that stress and testing would finally pay off as she pulled the finished product out of the oven and put it together with the chocolate and filling. 

She brought it before her teacher, brimming with excitement. The teacher simply gave her a stern look. “Eclair perhaps you should save your excitement until after I’ve tried your dish. And if you truly want that certificate, this better be an improvement on the other parodies you served to me before.” 

Eclair deflated as the gravity of the situation flooded in. She silently begging her teacher to like the pastries. Otherwise, the last two years would have been for naught. She watched with bated breath as her teacher tested the dessert, watching for any change in expression or sign that she had done it. 

Finally, the teacher put it down, made some notes, then looked at her. “Well Eclair, I must say, you have actually managed to impress me. This éclair actually tastes comparable to something made here in Prance. I asked that you show me improvement and you have. Keep baking like this and I’m sure there is a bright future ahead of you. You’ve passed.” 

The teacher signed off on a certificate with Eclair’s name on it and gave it to her. Eclair silently and respectfully took the now rolled up certificate in her wing. “Thank you miss. I’ll keep improving.” 

She made her way out of their classroom and into the hall. The moment the door was closed though, she started jumping up and down. “Yes! I did it, I’m finally done!” 

Rouge had been waiting outside for her to finish. “Congratulations Eclair!” 

She ran up and now she was the one hugging Eclair. The two stayed there for a little while talking about the final. Sure enough, the teacher was rather displeased with Rouge’s dish. Asking why she had chosen to throw away all her knowledge and make something so uncouth. All Rouge did was smile and tell her that she was mixing things up a bit. 

As much as both of them wanted to stay and chat for the rest of the day, Eclair had to get ready to leave. Rouge stayed with her all the way up to the skyport and they said their goodbyes as Eclair boarded her airship. One fifteen hour flight later, and her airship was arriving at the Canterlot skyport. Eclair had made it just into the main building when she got her welcome. 

“Eclair!!” She suddenly felt her hooves leave the ground as a dark blue blur slammed into her. Now sprawled on her back, her wide eyes looked into the equally wide eyes of her sister Aurora. She was quickly pulled up into a hug. “Oh I missed you so much! We have so much catching up to do, and I wanna hear all about your classes, and try all your new recipes, and I’ve gotta tell you aaaaall about my job at the castle!” 

Eclair hugged her right back and started telling her about her time in Prance. Some of it was a bit of a shock to Aurora, hearing about the unfriendly nature of the ponies she was meeting. 

“I’ll have to tell you more over some coffee when we get home. And I definitely want to hear about how your placement in the castle clinic is going.” Eclair started dusting herself off. 

Aurora clapped her hooves together. “And you’ll bake me some of your pastries that I’ve been missing for two years?” 

Eclair laughed and ruffled her mane a bit. “Yes, I’ll bake you one of your favourites. Now come on, I’m sure mom and dad want some time together too.” 

“Oh, and you aren’t going to introduce me?” Eclair’s spun in place to see Rouge standing a little bit behind the two of them, carrying two suitcases in her crimson magic. 

Eclair looked at her in disbelief. “Rouge? What are you doing here!?” 

Rouge walked up to them so she could put down her bags. “Well I told you about how I feel back in Prance. And that letter I was writing the night before you left was to my family, a sort of formal declaration of my moving to the Heartland to pursue my passion. They’ll probably be livid, but I don’t really mind. All I want is to work in some small bakery here in canterlot.” 

Aurora took the chance to speak up. “I know a really cute little cafe in lower Canterlot looking for a baker!” 

Rouge smiled at Aurora. “I assume this is your darling sister you told me so much about. If I remember right, your name is Aurora.” 

Aurora blushed a bit, hearing that Eclair had been talking, which usually meant she told the embarrassing stories. Not really saying anything, she simply nodded to Rouge. 

Rouge hopped over and threw her hoof around Aurora’s shoulder. “Well I’d love it if you could introduce me to the pony who runs it! In fact, How about you give me the directions and I’ll meet you two there at five for coffee?” 

Eclair stepped in. “That sounds like a great idea. It gives me some time to get home and see my parents. So I guess I’ll be seeing you later Rouge, and for the record, I’m really happy to have you here.”

[theconcernedpotato]

Information overload

So today marks the first round of closed alpha tests. i am finally there. The feed back i got already was mostly good, some good points that were made along with some being completely irreverent. But i Get more into that later on within this blog. 

A ton of work has been done just in this last week, which generally means going to bed at four/five in the morning and up at seven for another round, all week long, so here it goes.

  Knocking out a basic Figma ui/ux flow, i set to work trying to get that within the game. For the most part it stayed quite close to what i had within Figma.

After having to steer at a screen for so long, i darkened up the whole game so it was easier on my eyes. 

So the basic Home screen remain the same with only getting an icon swap since everyone understands what a play button is. (Which by the way, everything you see including icons are all placeholders). Here you will see Stan within his house/caravan with all items you have won displayed around his home. With future updates having items you can buy (using in game money made from your stunts) to customize your home and stunt items. 

Both the Movie selection and stunt selection remain untouched from prototyping.

The game screen again mainly remained the same, with small changes here and there. icons would get a a face lift with trying to keep to things people could identify and understand without words. 

The item selection on the right is no longer retractable, although i may add that back for anyone that wants to navigate the level with a much larger screen visible, i mean whats the harm, use it or not?

The pause button has been removed completely since it was just irreverent in a game like this. 

The stunts budget and how much you currently have spent added  and also a working bin

You may have noticed a new button.. Was meant to be highlighted and was within the giff tool but oh well. At the push of this button it it takes your finish point, then once released, returns you to your previous point. 

Also you may have notice an increase in select-able items. i wont show case the crash mat since its just that. Stops Stan going splat. Currently you dont need it since i have yet to place in a payment system, but future updates will see you using them else Stan’s med bills will come directly out of his pay (med insurance can become expensive 😷😰).

The second item is a high powered fan. Self -explanatory really. Been having quite a bit of fun with this item.

The option menu remains a sore point. As it is I think the current one lacks the looks the mock up one did. Unfortunately its not clear the back arrow takes you back to the stunt screen rather then the game. Hopefully i will find a pretty solution.  

So once you finish the stunt, the man in charge looks over the sheet (figuratively speaking) and you are evaluated on how well it went. Now it may not have been clear but all those white dots are camera shots your producer really wanted to get for the movie. So you are evaluated on how many of those shots you got and how well you managed to keep under budget. 

At the end of the day there isn’t really a lose condition. As long as you get to the end point, you’ve completed the level, so its very possible to be way over budget and not get a single asked for shots, cause at the end of the day, no footage is wasted.

Once all the stunts in the movie are complete its released out into the world to be judged, much like this game will D: 

For reasons i wanted to go with having a rotten tomatoes score system within my game, mostly because i think it gives a better over all idea on how you went. You can totally boom the egg score but might kill on the Audience. leaving many options for rewards and different out comes depending on your own play style. 

I decided to condense the reward screen and movie screen in one. Just made sense, plus i was rushed off my feet, so anything that saves me work (like making, setting up or coding another screen is a win in my book).

So what didn’t make it to alpha.. mainly the in game shop. Not only was I crazy rushed off my feet, but i had no items for people to buy for Stan, nor did i have his payment for doing the stunts set up.

This will differently be rectified come the second round of testing (third i guess since you guys weren’t in on the first).

Now i know I’ve been pretty bad at this blog thing on this project, mainly because so much is going on with in-work and out that it's kind of been pushed to the far side of the brain. 

 A few notes that I failed to mention, in my prior posts is i have been corresponding with a musician over discord, who I only no as Greg. 

Things started with a bang, with me having all these grand ideas of themed music for each stunt, and other areas of the game like within Stan’s home. Even ideas of tracks being able to be purchased if you wanted something different to listen to. What I didn't account for was this would increase the file size dramatically and being on mobile, contrary to what you have herd, size is everything.. 

Currently I have placeholder music within the game, one tract that plays throughout the entire game. Passing the bad news to Greg, he came back with a single track will hopefully find a home within my this game. 

Now lets take about development. What a week, had its ups and downs and even learnt some new dance moves this week- I call it pushing alpha. 

 Five forward, seven back, three forward, two back, two forward. Kind of sums up the state of affairs this week, but at least it's moving. 

 Friday I was on fire! Unfortunately in my sleepy slumber I forgot to check off or write down where I was at.. this bit me in the ass I decided to take my little's out into the world for the day, mostly because i needed to step away from work. This landed me laying on the beach half the day looking up at the sky. Later with mind cleared, tea done and little's down, i jumped back into it. 

Unfortunately a large part of Saturday night saw me retracing every job I had done Friday night to see if it was done, set up for, or half completed.. once thinking I knew where I was, I was off again making progress. 

Before getting into the crazy stuff, i looked at the levels i had chucked together. Although not final levels as i had yet to design any, what i did through together needed reordering. turns out the second was way harder then the first four..

Along the way I started working on a job that gathered all the information of each level, then using that information, turned it into a usable score which would tell you how the movie was receive at the end of the last stunt. (Egg and Aud score) but It seemed I had actually wrote such a code the night before, but completely different to the one I had just done. Now I will fully admit I was on that next level shit and may have been possessed by the coding God when I wrote it, because as it stands, I have no idea how it works, but it does, so it's probably best I don't touch it and keep fully away from the Alien code. 

So with my eyes glowing red probably from Rad poisoning being on the computer for the last eight hours straight  #justjokingbutprobilynot, and Saturday resulting in nothing but net.. i went and did something stupid again. Last minute I break my game completely.. Half four and the kids will be up in a fe hours a head to bed in such a foul mood.

 Up a few hours later to make breakfast, as the little’s ate i jump back on. i in my state renamed one script somehow which saw the whole game destroyed.. on the plus side i found it, plus see that it needs to be more robust if one naming convention can do that.   

Wasn’t the first time. earlier in the week i spent two day looking for a bug that stopped play after you finished the first level, one that wasn't throwing up any warnings or stopping any other function. I had paused time at the end of the level and hadn’t turned it back on.. To be fair I’ve had about two hours of sleep every night for the last week. Don’t do it, its not good nor does it help in the long term. seems all these little mistakes caused from being over tied has pushed back the project rather then moved it forward.

Sunday nights I was up hitting all those notes till 5:20 this morning yet again, then up an hour later. Play test day.

So all that work came falling down in a heap on the floor in my time of need. Now i didn't ask for much but i figured when you put work in to something it should pay off.. Built out the game for the test phone i had and boom, I’m holding a seven week turd in my hands. Functions that worked before no longer did for some reason. Panning the camera, so placing items where you wanted them couldn't happen. the bin also no longer worked, nor the restart button. 

Deciding not to shit myself in front of a room full of people really to test the game (along with other dev games), coffee was needed.

So the game works well enough on the computer still which is good. Although not for the computer, i did at least have the functionality in there that aloud it to be tested to an extent, so i built out a computer version. Which is where some of the irreverent feed back comes in.. UI too big,  no exit button, no zoom in or out.. 

I wont go into it fully, as it made me realize a few thing like why not add functionality for the computer? Controls at least at the moment since a computer version will need more items and options etc. But as it stands, as annoyed as i am with a broken mobile game, its coming together. 

Hoping to fix those Mobile issues, and add some computer functionality, then push it out to the world on Wednesday. Till next time, Fingers crossed!

[gascon-en-exil]

I Liked Fates Before It Was Cool!: Birthright Part 1

Prologue

Opening Chapters

Chapters 6-11, in which Hoshido’s military is extremely disorganized and only regroups because the mere idea of Ryoma is just that awesome.

Chapter 6

Not much to say here. Corrin tells Xander they’re siding with Hoshido against Garon and implores him to do the same, Xander accuses them of being brainwashed and, after repeated refusals, tries to kill Corrin. Following this is a chapter that will probably be finished during the first enemy phase unless Ryoma gets really unlucky. I suppose it makes sense that this is the shortest of the three versions of Chapter 6 as Corrin went to the border already with the Hoshidans. While it’s kind of neat that all the Hoshidan royals are playable on this map as a bit of a preview, note that this is the fourth of just seven chapters in which Ryoma has appeared as a unit prior to his formal recruitment. We get it already, the guy’s an OP powerhouse and a clear favorite of the writers.

This is also where I should probably bring up My Castle, but I don’t have much to say here as it was never a feature I particularly enjoyed. Other FEs have addressed the concept of a base for your army integrated into gameplay far better than this. Genealogy and the Tellius games and others may not let you perv on your units taking a bath or disgust them with your horrendous cooking, but what does that really add to the experience? I know, I know, a bunch of small and scattered stat boosts....

Chapter 7

Oh, silly banter in the middle of an attack while surrounded by wounded and dying soldiers. Never change, FE. But seriously, even if he’s just Cordelia with a dick whose semen produces more Cordelias let’s take the time to appreciate that Subaki is the series’s first playable male pegasus knight. Fates’s take on classes is actually very egalitarian, a fact that often gets lost in its sea of fanservice and subtle story-enforced misogyny and everything about <insert character whose gender/sexuality-related presentation offends you most>. Moving on.

I’m still not entirely clear what happens to the Hoshidan army between this chapter and the preceding one. They really appear to just break ranks and scatter: Corrin and co. go fool around in the astral plane with Lilith, Ryoma and Takumi lead some of their forces toward Izumo (why?), no one cares about Hinoka, and Sakura retreats here to Fort Jinya to tend to the wounded at a makeshift military hospital. It makes sense that the Hoshidan army wouldn’t have the strictest organization thanks to their years of protection under Mikoto’s barrier, but the problem is the game never tells us that and we’re left to infer these things based on the events of the next few chapters.

The Nohrians meanwhile are still on the offensive, but they screwed up by sending Silas’s unit to attack the fort. Silas has an unhealthy attachment to Corrin that frankly rivals Camilla’s, and his abrupt defection here because he wants to hang out with his partially amnesiac BFF undoubtedly bodes ill for anyone associated with him when news of it reaches Nohr. I guess it’s cute in my case that Silas’s obsession with Corrin knows no gender, but the guy probably steals underwear to sniff. Saizo is entirely justified in being suspicious of him.

Paralogue 1

Oh yeah, I forgot all about this chapter. Mozu’s just not as memorably meme-worthy as Donnel, and recruiting her is less frustrating since you’re not forced to make her poke things in her joining chapter. It does make the Faceless seem like more of a threat to Hoshido, although as a consequence playing through this paralogue in Conquest always feels a little weird. This plus the first Castle Invasion were mostly for EXP and support farming. For anyone wondering, I’m going to be keeping most of my characters in their default class sets since I don’t feel like grinding skills or anything elaborate like that. Also, I’m playing on Normal, so I’ve got a lot of latitude in how I play which is how I prefer FE anyway.

Chapter 8

Hinoka sums up my feelings on her and her retainers. Azama’s got some amusing lines and if I knew more about Buddhism his...interesting take on philosophy would probably be even funnier, but that’s about it. And yeah, Hinoka really just does pop onto the scene with no explanation except that she’s also trailing her brothers and I guess everyone really did forget about her. Sucks to be a late development addition.

Iago tosses the conflict ball to ensure the party’s trip to the Wind Tribe village is a rough one, though since Fuga was set on testing Corrin’s worth by sending a bunch of his tribesmen to get slaughtered by their army anyway I wonder why he even bothered. This is a rare case of a desert map that isn’t a frustrating pain in the ass, because it’s small and there are Dragon Veins to reduce the amount of sand. I also like how even on the lowest difficulty of the easiest route the game is already throwing a boss at you with some annoying skills. Fuga’s motivations may be silly, but at least he leaves us with the memory of a good chapter, some cryptic foreshadowing for the Yato, and a shota wind mage who unfortunately continues in the tradition of Ricken stepping away from their archetypical dynamic after Tellius made it just a little too close to explicitly gay.

Chapter 9

Izana, huh...Izana is...

Let’s talk about Zola!

Zola is one of the rare Fates villains who isn’t (always) exactly what he looks like. On first glance he’s just a typical simpering syncophant with a fitting talent for illusions, but he actually comes with a bit of a character arc in Birthright which I have to say I wasn’t expecting. It was almost as unexpected as Leo’s unexplained appearance at the end of this chapter to kick off said arc by leaving Zola exiled. One big problem I have with Fates is how characters have a tendency to teleport around off-screen as the plot demands it, distance between locations or basic geography be damned, but it’s marginally more forgivable here since Leo is shown later in this route to know how to perform literal teleportation.

I believe this is also one of the only times in Birthright where Hinoka gets to do something that affects the plot, so good on her for acting suspicious of fake!Izana. She’ll go right back to being overshadowed by her brothers - including being overshadowed at being overshadowed - soon enough.

Izumo’s role as the designated neutral nation is delved into more thoroughly in Conquest, weirdly enough. Here Corrin and co. get left only with a vague directive to head toward the Bottomless Canyon and some of Azura’s song lyrics. That’s kind of a good thing, because I’ve got nothing on Izana now. I get that he’s an amusing surprise the first time around, but...who wrote him like that?

Chapter 10

Allow me to divert for a moment from the Takumi angst to pick some very large nits with the geography of this game. In the previous chapter Corrin learned that Ryoma and Takumi had been pushed to the Bottomless Canyon, which is nowhere near their location - but hold onto that thought. The canyon is clearly northwest of Izumo, yet the party goes south to Mokushu allegedly in an effort to reach them there. Fates has a bad time in general with giving a good impression of where its events are taking place, partly because the scale of the map is odd and not helped by it being a topographic rather than a political map like in every other FE, partly because there are times like this where the information presented appears to be simply wrong. What’s worse, the major plot development surrounding Takumi’s possession in Birthright does not, at least so far as I recall, necessitate that he have been possessed by Anankos or anyone else connected to the Bottomless Canyon. I’ll certainly be revisiting this when the time comes.

But...whatever. In spite of everyone getting lost except Ryoma (because of course) this is actually a good chapter, with a cramped map filled with environmental hazards to add challenge. The treachery of Mokushu spans all three routes and is one of those set pieces that benefits from development in each of them. Kotaro’s connection to the, er, Christmas ninjas (and elsewhere, Shura) isn’t developed here unless you choose to have them engage him in combat, but that just saves stuff for the other routes. 

Chapter 11

Pictured: easily one of the most forgettable playable characters in this game. It’s a shame too, because she’s the only default kinshi knight and her bits of dialogue and few supports offer hints of an interesting backstory that would speak to gender roles in Hoshido. Alas, she’s merely a Corrinsexual.

This chapter itself is filler, but mechanically it’s good filler. Your new OP archer royal gets plenty of targets for his bow, there are some promoted generics to spice things up, and the Dragon Veins can either help or hinder you depending on how you use them. I don’t care for the antagonist fake-out between the opening and closing cutscenes and the chapter proper - where did possessed!Sumeragi the mysterious swordsman go while you were fighting the fliers? - but that’s a minor quibble. Corrin already beat that guy.

A larger problem is with Takumi’s development, or rather lack thereof. As I said last time the events of the opening chapters explain his initial hostility to Corrin (and Azura) quite well, and Mikoto’s death only reinforces that feeling. Why then does that hostility vanish so quickly in Birthright? Just one chapter after recruitment and he’s already turned his characteristic prickliness onto Zola instead, and I don’t recall it appearing much again except in the context of possession. It’s only the route the ends with Takumi as the final boss that allows him space for his feelings to develop organically (albeit in a negative direction), possibly because Conquest is the only one in which he’s not beholden to love Corrin like all playable characters in Avatar-centered games.

Next time: Birthright Chapter 12 - 18

[rpchive]

Ninety Third Encounter-- Our Lives as Equals

this log’s a lot shorter compared to the last few

Firefly sits in her room, at her desk by herself; the dishes from her breakfast remaining off to the side of her desk. Most of the food has gone entirely untouched, and her drink never emptied. Letting out a sigh, she leans back in her chair and stares up at the ceiling for a moment. Someone knocks on the other side of her door, although the pattern isn't one that she recognizes. Pushing away from her desk, Firefly goes over and opens her door slightly. "...Something happening?" Daedalus stands on the other side of her door, looking somewhat exhausted and very much unsure of himself. "Nothing's burning, if that's what you mean." Firefly: Well, that's a relief. Eye of the storm, I'm sure, but it's nice while it lasts. Daedalus: Yeah, well, seems to be the pattern at least. Anyway, I, uh... I'm not sure how you're supposed to say this, so I'm just gonna throw some words out here I guess. Thanks for saving me from being skewered like a marshmallow until the end of time by that Oz freak. Firefly: ...I mean, he wouldn't have stopped; he was distracted; I only had one shot...it was the right thing, and the only thing to do; otherwise everybody would've just kept suffering until Collin was dead, and then who knows what that idiot would've done to everything. Daedalus: I'd rather not think about it, frankly. I already dealt with a computer with a god complex, I don't want to start moving on to people with one. Still, I am curious about something. Also, I know I'm still on thin ice here, but is the "cracked door" move really necessary? Visibly embarrassed, Firefly pulls her door open. "...I wasn't thinking about it." Daedalus: It's fine, I get it. I'd just rather not feel like the world's worst girl scout or something. Anyway, how did you get to Oz and I anyway? That city was a complete disaster, and it sounded like everyone else was trapped in their own little bubble or whatever to boot. Firefly: I don't really understand it myself...through the seams of their broken reality; something was...something saw me; nobody else was looking back, but when I looked at that person, I could tell they could see me too, so I tried to reach out to them. The seams got less chaotic, less random; the reality around me stopped distorting as much; for a moment, I was almost sure they were going to just pull me through, but they didn't. They flung me out of the seams, past everybody else, and told me I was "the only one who could stop this," so I did. Daedalus gives Firefly a look that is much similar to one he would give to someone who just grew two extra heads, and slowly nods once. "... Uh-huh." Firefly: ...Look, you asked for an answer, and I was honest; if you don't believe me, you said what you needed to. Daedalus: No no, I believe you, I just... didn't expect /that/ as an answer. Some mystery figure throwing you through all of that nonsense right to where you needed to be... Who the hell could do something like that? Firefly: I have no idea. Everyone else I saw just looked like a different version of myself... Daedalus: Impressive. The more detail you give, the more confused I get.

in those infinite realities, Firefly met one of the versions of herself that became a full god, and that’s who helped her stop Oz

Firefly: Believe me, I've spent every waking moment since we got back trying to figure out why that could've happened... Daedalus: Well, I suppose I should leave you to it. You seem like the type that's used to figuring out weird stuff like this. Firefly: It's about the only thing I can really do right now besides going back to my plants and waiting for the next disaster. Daedalus: Yeesh, keep up the sunshine and rainbows.

He glances past her for a moment and seems to notice something before looking back at her. "And uh, I might not know much about bugs, but I think you might need to eat a little more than just that." Firefly: ...Listen, this is a little much for me to deal with out of nowhere, okay? I'll eat when I'm ready... Daedalus: If you say so. Just be careful or we'll have to start sending Fawkes to babysit you. Firefly: Ugh, don't even joke about that. Daedalus grins and starts walking back to his room, musing loudly to himself as he goes. "Might need to start a meal schedule, and- ooh, maybe even a baby monitor in case something goes wrong. I should get a notepad..." Rolling her eyes, Firefly closes the door behind him. In Collin and Jay's room, Jay's shards have barely begun to conjoin naturally, only a few of them have reformed into larger chunks that remain apart from the rest of their whole.  Zenith is still sleeping in a beanbag chair across the room. Collin has started a quiet game of shaping a small rock in his hands into various shapes and designs using his magic while he sits on the bed, lost in thought. Every once in a while he glances over at Jay's shards to see how they're doing before returning to his hands. Jays shards remain unchanging, retaining their semi-chunky state. Collin sighs and sets the rock, currently twisted in a spiral shape, down on the bedside table. He quietly gets up off the bed and makes his way out of the room before heading down the hall toward the kitchen. Silky and Karumet are there, though Silky currently has a stack of pancakes several feet tall in front of her. Karumet, on the other hand, only has a cup of coffee and an empty plate. Collin: Mornin'. Breakfast still open, I take it? Karumet: The ship makes whatever you want whenever; but Silky's made it her personal mission to eat as much of anything she can get her hands on suddenly.

Through a mouthful of pancakes, Silky sobs out a response: "'Ou would doo 'f 'ou shaw whad I did!"

Collin: Uh... do you need to talk about it? I don't want you to choke on something over it. Drinking syrup out of the bottle, Silky slams it on the table. "What's there to talk about?! All that stuff was out of our reach anyway; who even cares?!"

that sounds like it would just straight up feel bad

Karumet: Apparently you do.

Silky: What the hell would you even know about family?! You don't even have one!

Karumet: Maybe not, but at least I'm not eating my feelings.

Silky: Who cares about that?! I'm never gonna be on another stage; this figure is a waste! My career is in shambles; my family name was ruined; my life is over!!

Silky goes back to sobbing into her pancakes. Collin: Okay, okay, let's take a step back here you two.

Collin pulls up a chair to the table and sits between them. "I'll admit, I don't really know what was going on for the most part during all of that, but... are you sure everything you saw was a real thing? I mean, from what I've heard it sounds like Oz made a literal nightmare realm for everyone. Maybe he just played into everyone's fears to get the biggest reaction." Karumet: There were legitimately infinite branches of possibilities laid out around us; each one containing at least one difference from the last. We all saw things that could've been; things we couldn't have; things that can be; things that might still be possible...but it was almost impossible to distinguish the differences between those subtler realities. Absolutely none of them were within our reach; it was impossible for us to see more than the glimpses, and yet, even just those small windows seem to have made big impacts.

Silky: It wasn't even just one or two; there were hundreds of realities like that! Absolutely thousands of realities where Atlas never ruined anything; where my dad was alive; where everything was just fine; it's not fair!

Karumet: And? What good does it do being upset over what you could've had or done differently when those things aren't changed so practically now? Collin: I... I get it, I think. It sucks to have all of the "what-if" scenarios thrown out in front of you like that, but think about it for a second. Will giving up on what you have now bring about anything you saw? Is getting lost in a whirlwind of nightmares and daydreams the best way forward? Yes, you've lost a lot already, but will giving up on even more actually help you? Silky stares quietly at her pancakes for a minute and sighs as she sets her fork down.

"...Maybe not, but it's...hard not to get upset seeing stuff like that. It's something I don't want to talk about." Collin: I'm not saying it's wrong to be upset about it, I just... hate seeing you take it out on yourself like that. Silky: ...I guess I understand. I just...XL was having the same problem; her dad and sister were still alive like that, and even if she couldn't be with them, she didn't want to stop seeing them; she didn't want to stop falling. Now that it's all over, she's kind of left wondering why she's still...doing this. The war's over; and we won; but...

Karumet: ...But there's still more to fight; still people losing more than you have; still people that need help. That's why you're still doing this...

Silky: ...Yeah. Collin seems to stare through the table for a moment before he speaks, although his volume almost sounds as though he were trying to talk to himself. "I always get such a weird feeling when I hear you guys talk about your families, honestly." Karumet: ...It's probably because they're the only ones with families to talk about.

since s1 Jay was dressed in all black does that mean that everybody else on the IT is technically a Robin

Silky: ...That's kind of why we try not to bring it up in front of everybody... Collin: Well, no, it's not like jealousy or anything like that. In fact, I always feel bad about what you guys lost more than anything else. I guess it's more that I just... have trouble trying to relate, I think. I mean, I technically had parents, but one turned me into a science experiment and the other trapped me in a maze of tests for a couple of years, and I don't even really know them for anything other than that. In a way, I both did and didn't have a biological family, and I'm still not entirely sure how I feel about it. The only family I really know is here, with you guys. Silky: ...I...guess I understand. I don't think any of us ever really stop feeling mad about what happened to you, either. Or, well, not always mad as much as upset that they were just kinda...always like that for you? But that just means we'll have to be the better family, huh?

Karumet: Yeah, well, great job, you almost got him killed by a ghost yesterday.

Silky: Th-that wasn't my fault! Collin: Hey, at least Silky never put me on a narrow walkway with turrets on either side and tiny, spaced out walls to hide behind. Once she does /that/, I might get upset. Karumet: Your family was clearly a bunch of lunatics. Probably for the best you barely knew either of them. Collin: I don't know if she was always that way. Like I said, I don't really remember much before waking up in the testing track. Regardless, I'm just glad to be done with the place. Karumet: ...Speaking of morally curious women, where'd your demon girlfriend slink off to? I haven't seen her since yesterday... Collin: Okay, she's not my girlfriend. But to answer your question, I'm actually not sure. She was hiding in Zenith's shadow yesterday, but I haven't really heard from her since then. Karumet: Well, whatever she is, I'm sure she's doing something else ridiculous somewhere. You should probably try to find her; she looked like she actually listened to you. Collin: Sorta, I guess? I'm not sure why, honestly. Anyway, I'll go take a look around. Talk to you guys later.

With that, Collin pushes himself away from the table and leaves the kitchen. He starts making his way through the IT, checking the music rooms and the other shared spaces to try and find her. Azreldeh does not seem to be in any open areas that Collin goes through, however, Zenith does wind up running into Collin on his way back.

Zenith: I-!! When I woke up, Jay was...Jay's back! Collin: Wait, what?

Rather than waiting for a response, he quickly ducks past him and darts down the hall for their room. Azreldeh is idly floating in the room beside Jay, who's currently balled up on the bed holding where his injured arm should be.

Azreldeh: ...Yeah, no, that's definitely not normal; I should probably go get your bug friend... Collin: What's wrong? What's not normal? Azreldeh: Oh, when did you get here? Uhh, his arm's totally black and hard, apparently. That doesn't happen normally, does it? Collin: N-No, not at all. Should I go get Firefly, or...? Azreldeh: Uhh, I guess? Unless that really mean kleivenn chick knows about this. Collin: I don't know, I never know when this is kleivenn stuff or something else. Look, I'll... I'll be right back.

He hurries back out of the room and down to Firefly's door, which he hurriedly knocks on. Firefly answers her door yet again. "Look, if you're here to make more baby jokes or something-- oh, Collin."

Collin: Huh? Baby j- Uh, n-nevermind, look, Jay came back but his arm's all wrong. Can you see if you can help? Firefly: ...His arm? That's weird...uhh, sure; I'll be there in a sec; just let me look for something first. In the meantime, you should probably see if it's hurting him or something; I'd like to know if we're dealing with a curse or another ghost before I start dragging more weird artifacts out of drawers. Collin: Right, sorry...

He hurries back to their room and stops next to Jay, hesitant to touch him. "You, uh... Your arm, is it hurting? alienrabitt: N-no, I just...I can't move it or anything while it's like this. I don't know what's wrong; this hasn't happened before...ugh, but...I really don't care about this. Collin: ... Huh? What do you mean "you don't care"? alienrabitt: ...Collin, do you remember what I told you the wish I made when I became a hermes was about? Collin: Oh, you remember- Uh, yeah, but... What does that have to do with this? I mean, I'm okay, so...? alienrabitt: ...I...guess it doesn't have anything to do with this, but...when Oz decided to pull whatever big stunt of his he messed up, when he tried to kill you...my wish hadn't changed. Even though I was technically part of Demo, what he was doing, it wasn't just pulling you apart...but...I couldn't do anything about it...I couldn't even get through to everybody else...I was just dying by myself in the middle of absolutely nothing. I...I don't care what the hell this is about; I just...

cannocal reminder in case anyone missed that Oz was so stupid he almost killed himself as soon as he became a god

Collin: Oh God Jay, I... I'm so sorry.

He kneels down next to the bed and puts a hand on his shoulder. alienrabitt: ...I'm glad you're okay. Is everyone else? I...don't really know what happened... Collin: Yeah, everyone's still recovering from all of that, but they're okay. Oz got charbroiled, so don't worry about him either. alienrabitt: ...And Demo? Collin: She's alive. I think she might still be recovering in XL's room. She was pretty upset about the whole thing, for obvious reasons. alienrabitt: ...But she's okay? That's such a relief; I figured since she took me in that maybe...but you're okay, so she's probably fine too...

Firefly finally shows up in the room, Zenith following worriedly behind her.

Firefly: So, what's the verdict? Collin: It's not hurting him, at least. Sounds like he can't move it or anything though. Crouching down beside Jay, Firefly pulls on a pair of metallic goggles with tinted lenses that seem to flicker slightly. "Hmm, you're right; more than anything, it just looks like a mess of conflicting sources of magic...Azreldeh, you helped him, didn't you?"

Azreldeh: Y-you could've just looked at my horns to figure that out!

Firefly: Yeah, well, even if you're trying to help, you're still a demon...but your magic isn't even what's causing this; more than anything, it looks like it's because of Zenith and Demo. They're both so unstable that the arm can't stay in any one state; but constantly shifting would leave Jay at a disadvantage; so it tried to compromise; but...this doesn't really help either. Collin: Wait, what? I thought Demo and Zenith weren't connected with him anymore, at least not when it comes to his power or whatever you want to call it. Firefly: They aren't right now; but since he just got done with sharing a body with both of them; and since Oz was straining it pretty hard; and since he was trying to force Demo to make Jay a part of them, Jay must've been trying not to do that, which means taking in all that chaotic mess that Oz was using to make everything so...wrong.

alright, key point for later, limbs/things like this come from taking in absurd amounts of unstable/chaotic magic

Collin: ... Yeah, I guess that'd do it, huh. What should we do about it though? Firefly: Taking this stuff in is really ill-advised; if this is what it's doing to Jay's arm, there's no telling what it'd do to a person like you. Fortunately it doesn't seem to be enough to make a serious impact on Jay; it wasn't even enough to give him a physical form; so for now, all we can really do is watch and make sure it doesn't get worse, which it shouldn't unless somebody feeds into it.

and Firefly even points out that the magic itself has a chance to do something much, much worse. but Jay only took in a small amount...

She glances over to Azreldeh. "...So you better keep your hands to yourself."

Azreldeh: Well, I won't touch him, but you can't tell me not to touch anybody...

Firefly: Y-you know what I mean!! Don't try to flirt with me! Collin: Good grief... I just wish I could do something. Not having an arm is going to suck... Firefly: I'm sure once whatever this is works its way out, Jay will be fine again. Collin: I sure hope so. We've had enough emergencies thanks to Oz already. Zenith: Uhh, Demo really sounded like she wanted to talk to you when you got up, but...if you don't want to-

alienrabitt: No, I do. We probably need to after...all that... Collin: Do you need help getting up? alienrabitt: Believe it or not, no; even before now, my arm couldn't really hold up my own weight, so I'm kind of used to...not using it for that.

Despite this statement, it does seem to take him a little more effort than usual to get upright and off the bed. Collin: Alright, just... let me know if you need help. Let's go see if Demo is still in XL's room. Upon arriving in XL's room, the group finds that Demo has actually left. Collin: Well, at least she can move again. I guess she'll be in her room then? XL: She didn't tell me she was gonna talk to anybody, so I'd call that a safe bet. Collin: Alright, thanks XL. I guess we'll try there then. The group tries Demo's room. Though it takes some time for her to answer the door, she manages to do so, even if she leans against the doorframe the entire time. Visibly tired, she won't meet anyone's eyes, not even Jay's. "...So you woke up."

alienrabitt: Demo, why're you hiding your room again? I already know what's in it...

Demo: It's not exactly a public gallery...but you didn't come here to judge my interior design skills, did you? alienrabitt: ...I-...when Oz made you-...Demo; I know how you really feel about me. I know about everything; I know you didn't mean to hurt everybody like that; I know you didn't want to kill Collin...but...

Demo: ...Yeah, you know about what everybody else does at this point, and I know you're late to the party.

alienrabitt: ...That's...why didn't you tell me about how you felt about me? Not...not Tori, me.

Demo looks past Jay for a minute. "...That. Isn't a conversation for an audience."

She looks back at him. "...Look, just...don't sweat it; especially when you blatantly have bigger problems going on. I'm just glad I didn't mess you up too." Collin: Uh, if you two need to talk some more, we can just leave. It's not a big deal, really. Demo: ...Nah, you can come talk to me when everybody's less...shaken and stirred. I'm pretty patient, trust me. Just...figure out what the hell's up with yourself first; we can get back to me. Collin: Me? I'm fine, it's Jay's arm that's paying the price for Oz's stunt right now. Demo: Believe me, I'm...well aware.

Firefly: Did something happen to you to?

Demo: I'm sorry; did I ask for paparazzi once Jay woke up? No? Just for him? Take a hike, Flick; this is an A B conversation. Collin: Jesus, right back at it aren't you? Demo: Look, there's only so many people I wanna talk to right now, and she's about the last one I wanna see. Collin: Alright, well try this instead: Zenith, Firefly, can you let us talk this out for a little while? Zenith: Uhh...yeah, I can do that...

Firefly: ...I...sure.

Firefly leaves, glancing back at Demo a few times. Zenith, on the other hand, just leaves without any hassle. Demo looks relieved to have both of them out of her presence.

Demo: ...To answer her question; yes, I didn't get out of that without repercussions either.

Stepping aside, Demo allows the pair into her proper room again. After stepping inside, Collin turns back to face Demo. "What happened to you? You look normal, at least." Demo is very careful all the way back to her chair, sitting down about as quickly and unceremoniously as possible. "Yeah, well, hell works in mysterious ways, pal."

Collin: Uh... Is something wrong with your legs, or...? Demo: You are absolutely correct; how observant of you. Can't really blame you for not noticing before; I do kinda wear clothes that actually cover most of me; hell, even Silky didn't notice when she carried me off because she was in her armor; but once she put me down and XL saw...

alienrabitt: Your whole body was like my arm?

Demo: For the most part. I told them not to tell anybody; didn't want to freak anyone out, especially when we didn't know what it was or even why it was happening. By this morning, most of it was totally gone, so I just left without a warning. I'm sure XL's about as steamed as she can get, but whatever.

...while Demo took enough to change 80% of her body

that’s something to keep in mind for later, but I’m saying this more for myself at this point

Collin: Well, at least it got better? Hopefully it'll be the same case for Jay too. Demo: Oh, I'm sure it will be. He'll be fine regardless; it doesn't hurt at all; it's just really annoying. Turns out kleivenn aren't supposed to take in magic so strong it can snap reality over its knee; go figure.

alienrabitt: ...So, you-

Demo: Me, me, me; you're sounding pretty obsessed finally, huh? I'll cut to the chase; I wasn't really sure back then. I couldn't tell you apart; and that ruined everything about my perception; even when I came back, I only ever thought of you as this one thing, when you were something totally different the whole time. I was so obsessed with the frame, I never even bothered to look at the damn painting. But you? You're the real big picture. 'Course, now that I'm seeing you like that, I've got no damn idea what that means for me, or even if I care about that. That whole other half thing...I don't want you to be a part of me. You are my other half, yeah, but we work better like this.

alienrabitt: That's...I'm uhh, not sure how to take all that? This is seriously what was eating you up while I was gone?

Demo: Wh-- of course not; I thought you were dead! I shattered you and took you in; all you and your boyfriend's stupid magic paralyzed me from the neck down for a day straight; do you think during that whole time all I was thinking about was "golly, I sure am one lucky gal to be besties with my brother?!"

alienrabitt: W-well, I'm not dead, so...! Don't worry about it!

Demo: God, you really are just one dense motherfucker sometimes... Collin: Jay, it's not just the fact that you almost died, it's the fact that it happened because Demo wasn't seeing you for who you really are. alienrabitt: ...Okay, I...think I get it. Sorry, getting shattered like that is giving me a little bit of a hard time. Azreldeh couldn't totally fix me; she just kinda gave me enough magic to be here.

Demo: ...Ugh, you're making me feel guilty just looking at you. Just...you get the point; please leave. Collin: Alright, we'll get out of your hair. You gonna be alright by yourself? Demo: I'm...getting by. Don't worry about it. Nydins'll probably be in here soon enough anyway... Collin: Fair enough. We'll leave you to it then.

alright, next time we...go back to the Starbound universe, but not really for War Reasons?

[seotipsandtricks-me]

Since I started my journey in the world of SEO, the old Google Search Console (GSC) has been a mainstay of every campaign I’ve worked on. Together, we’ve dealt with some horrific JavaScript issues, tackled woeful hreflang implementation, and watched site performance reach its highest highs and lowest lows. Sadly, all good things must come to an end, and in Jan ’19 Google announced most of the old Search Console features would be shut down for good at the end of March. But it’s not all doom and gloom. As a successor, we now have an updated Google Search Console v2.0 to guide us into the modern web. This new console has a fresh coat of paint, is packed with new reports, gives us 16 months of data, and provides a live link straight into Google’s index — it’s all rather lovely stuff! Despite all this… I still can’t help looking longingly for a few of the old reports sitting neatly tiered on the left-hand side of the browser. While we can’t quite turn back time, using the trusty SEO Spider we can replicate a few of these reports to fill the void for tabs now deleted or yet to be transferred over. Before jumping in, I should note this post mostly covers reports deleted or not fully transferred or across. If you can’t find something here, chances are it’s already available on GSC 2.0. Structured Data The new GSC does indeed have some structured data auditing in the new ‘Enhancements’ tab. However, it only monitors a few select forms of structured data (like Products and Events markup etc…). While I’m sure Google intends to expand this to cover all supported features, it doesn’t quite meet the comprehensiveness of the old report. Well, hot on the heels of the v11.0 release for the SEO Spider, we now have bulk structured data auditing and validation built in. To activate, just head over to Configuration > Spider > Advanced > Enable the various structured data settings shown here: Once your crawl is complete, there are two areas to view structured data. The first of which is in the main Structured Data tab and various sub filters, here: Or, if you just want to examine one lone URL, click on it and open the Structured Data Details tab at the bottom of the tool: There are also two exportable reports found in the main report’s menu: the Validation Errors & Warnings Summary, and the Validation Errors and Warnings. For the full details, have a look at: https://www.screamingfrog.co.uk/seo-spider/user-guide/tabs/ HTML Improvements The HTML Improvements was a neat little tab Google used to show off errors with page titles, meta descriptions, and non-indexable content. Mainly it highlighted when they were missing, duplicated, short, long, or non-informative. Unlike many other reports, rather than transferring over to the new GSC it’s been completely removed. Despite this, it’s still an incredibly important aspect of page alignment, and in Google’s own words: “there are some really good tools that help you to crawl your website to extract titles & descriptions too.” Well — taking their hint, we can use the Spider and various tabs or filters for exactly that. Want page title improvements? Look no further than the filters on the Page Title tab: Or if you’re curious about your Meta Descriptions: Want to see if any pages reference non-indexable content? Just sort by the Indexability column on any tab/filter combo: International Targeting Ahh, hreflang… the stuff of nightmares for even the most skilled of SEO veterans. Despite this, correctly configuring a multi-region/language domain is crucial. It not only ensures each user is served the relevant version, but also helps avoid any larger site or content issues. Thankfully, we’ve had this handy Search Console tab to help report any issues or errors with implementation: Google hasn’t announced the removal of this report, and no doubt it will soon be viewable within the new GSC. However, if for any reason they don’t include it, or if it takes a while longer to migrate across, then look no further than the hreflang tab of the SEO Spider (once enabled in Configuration > Spider > hreflang). With detailed filters to explore every nook and cranny of hreflang implementation — no matter what issues your site faces, you’ll be able to make actionable recommendations to bridge the language gap. There’s also a handful of exportable hreflang reports from the top ‘Reports’ dropdown. While I won’t go through each tab here, I’d recommend you check out the following link which explains everything involving hreflang and the spider in much more detail: https://www.screamingfrog.co.uk/how-to-audit-hreflang/ Blocked Resources Another report that’s been axed — it was introduced as a way to keep track of any CSS or JavaScript files being blocked to search bots. Helping flag anything which might break the rendering, make the domain uncrawlable, or just straight up slow it down. While these issues have drastically decreased over the years, they’re still important to keep track of. Fortunately, after running a crawl as Googlebot (Configuration > User-Agent > Googlebot) we can find all blocked resources within the Response Codes tab of the Spider — or if you’re just looking for issues relating to rendering, have a look at the bottom Rendered Page details tab: Fetch as Google “But wait — you can just use the new URL inspect tool…”. Well, yes — you can indeed use the new URL inspect to get a live render straight from Googlebot. But I still have a few quarrels with this. For a start, you can only view your render from Googlebot mobile, while poor desktop is completely neglected. Secondly, the render is just a static above-the-fold screenshot, rather than the full-page scrollable view we used to get in Fetch As. While it’s not quite the same as a direct request from Google, we can still emulate this within the Spider’s JavaScript rendering feature. To enable JavaScript rendering head over to Configuration > Spider > Rendering and switch the drop down to JavaScript. Once your crawl is complete, highlight a URL and head over to the Rendered Page tab towards the bottom. Here you can view (or export) a screenshot of your rendered page, alongside a list showing all the resources needed: If you want to mimic Google as much as possible, try switching the User-Agent to Googlebot or Googlebot mobile (Configuration > User-Agent). This will make the Spider spoof a request as if it were Google making it. It’s also worth mentioning that Googlebot renders JavaScript based on v41 of Chrome, whereas the Spider uses the updated v64 of Chromium. While there aren’t many massive differences between the two, there may be some discrepancies. As a bonus, if you still want a desktop render direct from Google (or don’t have access to Search Console of a domain), the PageSpeed Insights tool still produces a static desktop image as a representation of how Googlebot is rendering a page. It’s not the most high-res or detailed image but will get the job done! Robots.txt tester Another tab I’m hopeful Google will eventually migrate over — testing your robots before submitting is crucial to avoid disallowing or blocking half your site to search engines. If for any reason they don’t happen to transfer this across to the new GSC, you can easily test any robot’s configuration directly within the SEO Spider (Configuration > Robots.txt > Custom). This window will allow you to either import a live robots.txt file or make your own custom one. You can test if an individual URL is blocked by entering it into the search at the bottom. Alternatively, run a crawl of your site and the spider will obey the custom crawl behaviour. For a much more in-depth guide on all the robots.txt capabilities of the SEO Spider, look here: https://www.screamingfrog.co.uk/robots-txt-tester/ URL Parameters An extremely useful tab — the URL Parameters helps to highlight all of the various parameter queries Google found on its journey through your site. This is particularly useful when examining the crawl efficiency or dealing with faceted navigations. Currently, there’s no way of replicating this report within the Spider, but we are able to get a similar sample from a crawl and some Excel tinkering. Just follow these steps or download the macro (linked below) – 1. Run a crawl of the domain, export the internal HTML tab 2. Cut & Paste the URL list into Column A of a fresh Excel sheet 3. Highlight Column A > Data > Text-to-Columns > Delimited > Other: ? > Finish 4. Highlight Column B > Data > Text-to-Columns > Delimited > Other: & > Finish 5. Highlight Column A > Right-click > Delete 6. Home > Editing > Find & Select > Go to Special > Blanks > OK 7. With these highlighted > Home > Cells > Delete 8. CTRL+A to highlight everything > Find & Replace > Replace: =* with nothing 9. Stack all columns into one & add a heading of ‘Parameter’ 10. Highlight this master column > Insert > Pivot Table > Recommended > Count of Parameter To save some time, I’ve made an Excel macro to do this all for you, which you can download here. Just download the spreadsheet > click Enable Content & Enable Editing then follow the instructions. If everything’s done correctly, you should end up with a new table similar to this: It’s worth noting there will be some discrepancies between this and Google’s own URL report. This boils down to the fundamental differences between the Spider & Googlebot, most of which is explained in much greater detail here: https://www.screamingfrog.co.uk/seo-spider/faq/ The King Is Dead, Long Live the King! Well, that’s all for now — hopefully you find some of these reports useful. If you want a full list of our other how-to guides, take a look through our user guide & FAQ pages. Alternatively, if you have any other suggestions and alternatives to the retired Google system, I’d love to hear about them in the comments below. As a side note: for many of these reports, you can also combine them with the Scheduling feature to keep them running on a regular basis. Or, if you’d like some automatic reporting, take a quick look at setting this up in the Crawl Reporting in Google Data Studio of my previous post. The post Reviving Retired Search Console Reports appeared first on Screaming Frog.

[danjaleyreblogs]

List-Enabling and Fixing Posepacks - Tips&Tricks

Some know-how I’ve accumulated as a storyteller who can’t work without the ingame poselist. This tutorial is intended to help users and creators alike to optimize posepacks.

! If you tweak another creator’s work, always respect their tou !

1. Making Thumbnails and Poses List-Compatible

See Phantomhive’s tutorial for a detailed explanation how to do this. The Posepack Creator can now be downloaded in the Poseplayer’s MTS thread.

For making thumbnails, I found it easiest to crop my screenshots to a square format and then resize them to 59x60 (60x60 works just as well btw, but don’t make them much larger, or they’ll look awful in poselist view.)

Always give your thumbnails unique names as described by Phantomhive. Otherwise they’ll overwrite each other, and other creators’ thumbnails, in poselist-view.

I use a photoshop action that automatically flattens and resizes an image to pose-thumbnail format. You can download it here, but I don’t know if it will work outside my somewhat eccentric photoshop setup. (It comes with a thumbnail to be installed as an effect in Adobe Photoshop Elements 4, if anyone is crazy enough to use that :)

Advanced Tipp: After you’ve saved your list-compatible posepack, open it in S3PE, and drag-and-drop (import) your CLIP-files from the working folder into it again. They’ll overwrite themselves, but now they display their codes in the ‘Name’ column. Doesn’t change any functionality, but may come in handy. BTW, as long as you don’t change the codes, you can always drag and drop updated CLIPs into a list-compatible posepack without having to make it list-compatible again.

2. Making Already Packaged Poses List-Compatible

Only do this for personal use, unless you know the creator is okay with it!

Open the package in S3PE. You should see the CLIP-resources with their posecodes. (If you don’t see posecodes, continue with Step 2a!) Select the CLIPs and export them “to file”. Save them to your working folder without renaming them. The posecode will appear towards the end of the filename.

Now you need preview pictures of the poses to make thumbnails from. Usually the creator provides some, but you can also view the pose ingame or in Blender (more on that later). From here continue as in Step 1.

2a. CLIPs without Codes

So the CLIPs are unnamed and you want to retrieve the original posecodes?

Go through the CLIPs one by one. Don’t click on the headlines (’Name’, ‘Tag’, Group’ etc.) during the process, so they won’t re-sort. Select the first CLIP. Then click the “Hex” button at the bottom of the S3PE window. A box with number-cereal will appear. Scroll through it slowly, until you see the posecode somewhere. Parts of it usually appear in the emptier column to the right, but may be badly chopped apart. Also note that it appears twice. (Can’t find the code, or aren’t sure it’s correct? See step 2b)

Write the reconstructed code down somewhere (leaving out the .blender file extension). Now close the Hex-window, right-click the CLIP you just selected and do “Export and rename”. Enter the posecode when you’re prompted to give the CLIP a ‘new’ name. You could actually just give any new codes to all the CLIPs, but then you’d have to check in Blender which is which.

Do this for all the CLIPs one by one, then continue as described in step 1.+2.

2b. Finding out Posecodes and Previewing in Blender

For this you’ll need Blender and Sims posing rigs set up according to instructions (or of course pets rigs if you’re viewing pet poses).

If you’re still struggling to find out that CLIP’s code: Do “Export and Rename” in S3PE and enter a temporary code. “a_1″ should be sufficient. You can also export it without renaming, but then you’ll have to remember which CLIP is which.

Open the Sim rig most likely to match your poses - normally an adult human one. Nothing bad will happen if you pick the wrong one, the rig will just look distorted.

In the sidebar (under “Scene” tab) scroll down to the S3PY Animation Tools. Click “Load CLIP” open the CLIP you want to examine.

Now the pose is displayed in 3D view, and the code appears in the sidebar (you may have to scroll down again to see it)

With the retrieved code, continue as described above. If the code still looks weird (I think this happens mostly with Milkshape-made poses), just go back to S3PE and export&rename with a new code. Now you know what the pose looks like, you might also be able to find the original code on the creator’s site.

3. Fixing Problems in Already Listed Posepacks

Some of the S3PE functions in this part may have come with extensions - I'm not quite sure which ones, if any, but I recommend checking out S3PE’s homepage .

For me, the paint-integration only works with the latest version of S3pe found here (other location than the one linked on the homepage). You can also get the functionality by setting Paint as an external text editor in S3pe. Under “Settings -> External Programs”, check “Use an external text editor” and browse for Paint’s .exe in your program files. Now when you right-click an IMAG resource, the option “Text Editor” should open it in Paint.

Reading and editing the XML: In the package right-click the XML, and select “Notepad”. You can edit descriptions there (very useful if you made a typo in a posepack you want to share) Don’t change anything of the technical stuff inside <brackets>. The XML also gives the creator’s name in most cases - don’t edit this unless you are the creator, but it can be useful for finding the download site again. In theory you could also add your own descriptions if the creator only put placeholders, but it’s quite an effort to tell which pose is which.

By the way: The XML can be viewed much more comfortably if you export it and open it with your web-browser, but in that mode it can’t be edited. Probably it’s also easier to edit with dedicated XML editors, but I’m not so much into programming.

Thumbnail too large or wrong format: This doesn’t affect functionality, but I find oversized thumbnails difficult to preview in S3PE and Poselist. Right-click the IMAG resource in the package. Select “Paint”. The thumbnail will open in Microsoft Paint.

Box-select as square an area as you can manage, then right-click and choose “crop”. Resize the images to something like thumbnail format (a few pixels don’t matter - I’m actually too lazy to uncheck “maintain proportions”). Take care though that no side becomes significantly smaller than 60px. Close Paint (Click “Save” and “Yes” on the two pop-ups”). Back in the package the thumbnail is now replaced with a resized version. Repeat with all other thumbnails and save the package.

Thumbnail not showing up at all: Sometimes IMAG resources get corrupted and S3PE shows an error message instead of the picture. In this case, prepare a substitute thumbnail in .png format (ideally using an image of the pose in question), and save it to your working-folder. Right-click the faulty IMAG, ‘Replace’ and select the new thumbnail. Alternatively, pretend to export the faulty IMAG ‘to file’, but in the last step, where Windows asks you to save, copy the suggested filename with Cntrl+C and cancel. Then paste the filename onto your substitute thumbnail and drag-and-drop it into the package. It should overwrite the faulty one.

Thumbnail incorrectly named: This usually comes up ingame, when thumbnails start overwriting each other. Fixing this requires some concentration, especially with large posepacks. It can be very helpful to first export the XML and have it open in a web-browser for reference.

First rename the IMAG’s instance: Double-click the IMAG resource. Tick “Use resource name”, type in a unique thumbnail name, click first FNV64 and then OK. The IMAG should now display its name in the “Name” column.

Now link to the new IMAG name. Open the XML in Notepad as described above. Find the place where this thumbnail’s previous name is displayed between <Icon Key> and </Icon Key>. Replace it with the new name. Save and exit Notepad, save the package and test it ingame. If you’ve linked the thumbnails incorrectly, they won’t show up. Note down which ones are missing and repeat the renaming process on those.

[geeksperhour]

via Screaming Frog

Since I started my journey in the world of SEO, the old Google Search Console (GSC) has been a mainstay of every campaign I’ve worked on. Together, we’ve dealt with some horrific JavaScript issues, tackled woeful hreflang implementation, and watched site performance reach its highest highs and lowest lows.

Sadly, all good things must come to an end, and in Jan ’19 Google announced most of the old Search Console features would be shut down for good at the end of March.

But it’s not all doom and gloom. As a successor, we now have an updated Google Search Console v2.0 to guide us into the modern web. This new console has a fresh coat of paint, is packed with new reports, gives us 16 months of data, and provides a live link straight into Google’s index — it’s all rather lovely stuff!

Despite all this… I still can’t help looking longingly for a few of the old reports sitting neatly tiered on the left-hand side of the browser.

While we can’t quite turn back time, using the trusty SEO Spider we can replicate a few of these reports to fill the void for tabs now deleted or yet to be transferred over. Before jumping in, I should note this post mostly covers reports deleted or not fully transferred or across. If you can’t find something here, chances are it’s already available on GSC 2.0.

Structured Data

The new GSC does indeed have some structured data auditing in the new ‘Enhancements’ tab. However, it only monitors a few select forms of structured data (like Products and Events markup etc…). While I’m sure Google intends to expand this to cover all supported features, it doesn’t quite meet the comprehensiveness of the old report.

Well, hot on the heels of the v11.0 release for the SEO Spider, we now have bulk structured data auditing and validation built in. To activate, just head over to Configuration > Spider > Advanced > Enable the various structured data settings shown here:

Once your crawl is complete, there are two areas to view structured data. The first of which is in the main Structured Data tab and various sub filters, here:

Or, if you just want to examine one lone URL, click on it and open the Structured Data Details tab at the bottom of the tool:

There are also two exportable reports found in the main report’s menu: the Validation Errors & Warnings Summary, and the Validation Errors and Warnings.

For the full details, have a look at: https://www.screamingfrog.co.uk/seo-spider/user-guide/tabs/#structured-data

HTML Improvements

The HTML Improvements was a neat little tab Google used to show off errors with page titles, meta descriptions, and non-indexable content. Mainly it highlighted when they were missing, duplicated, short, long, or non-informative.

Unlike many other reports, rather than transferring over to the new GSC it’s been completely removed. Despite this, it’s still an incredibly important aspect of page alignment, and in Google’s own words: “there are some really good tools that help you to crawl your website to extract titles & descriptions too.” Well — taking their hint, we can use the Spider and various tabs or filters for exactly that.

Want page title improvements? Look no further than the filters on the Page Title tab:

Or if you’re curious about your Meta Descriptions:

Want to see if any pages reference non-indexable content? Just sort by the Indexability column on any tab/filter combo:

International Targeting

Ahh, hreflang… the stuff of nightmares for even the most skilled of SEO veterans. Despite this, correctly configuring a multi-region/language domain is crucial. It not only ensures each user is served the relevant version, but also helps avoid any larger site or content issues. Thankfully, we’ve had this handy Search Console tab to help report any issues or errors with implementation:

Google hasn’t announced the removal of this report, and no doubt it will soon be viewable within the new GSC. However, if for any reason they don’t include it, or if it takes a while longer to migrate across, then look no further than the hreflang tab of the SEO Spider (once enabled in Configuration > Spider > hreflang).

With detailed filters to explore every nook and cranny of hreflang implementation — no matter what issues your site faces, you’ll be able to make actionable recommendations to bridge the language gap.

There’s also a handful of exportable hreflang reports from the top ‘Reports’ dropdown. While I won’t go through each tab here, I’d recommend you check out the following link which explains everything involving hreflang and the spider in much more detail: https://www.screamingfrog.co.uk/how-to-audit-hreflang/

Blocked Resources

Another report that’s been axed — it was introduced as a way to keep track of any CSS or JavaScript files being blocked to search bots. Helping flag anything which might break the rendering, make the domain uncrawlable, or just straight up slow it down.

While these issues have drastically decreased over the years, they’re still important to keep track of. Fortunately, after running a crawl as Googlebot (Configuration > User-Agent > Googlebot) we can find all blocked resources within the Response Codes tab of the Spider — or if you’re just looking for issues relating to rendering, have a look at the bottom Rendered Page details tab:

Fetch as Google

“But wait — you can just use the new URL inspect tool…”. Well, yes — you can indeed use the new URL inspect to get a live render straight from Googlebot. But I still have a few quarrels with this.

For a start, you can only view your render from Googlebot mobile, while poor desktop is completely neglected. Secondly, the render is just a static above-the-fold screenshot, rather than the full-page scrollable view we used to get in Fetch As.

While it’s not quite the same as a direct request from Google, we can still emulate this within the Spider’s JavaScript rendering feature. To enable JavaScript rendering head over to Configuration > Spider > Rendering and switch the drop down to JavaScript.

Once your crawl is complete, highlight a URL and head over to the Rendered Page tab towards the bottom. Here you can view (or export) a screenshot of your rendered page, alongside a list showing all the resources needed:

If you want to mimic Google as much as possible, try switching the User-Agent to Googlebot or Googlebot mobile (Configuration > User-Agent). This will make the Spider spoof a request as if it were Google making it.

It’s also worth mentioning that Googlebot renders JavaScript based on v41 of Chrome, whereas the Spider uses the updated v64 of Chromium. While there aren’t many massive differences between the two, there may be some discrepancies.

As a bonus, if you still want a desktop render direct from Google (or don’t have access to Search Console of a domain), the PageSpeed Insights tool still produces a static desktop image as a representation of how Googlebot is rendering a page. It’s not the most high-res or detailed image but will get the job done!

Robots.txt tester

Another tab I’m hopeful Google will eventually migrate over — testing your robots before submitting is crucial to avoid disallowing or blocking half your site to search engines.

If for any reason they don’t happen to transfer this across to the new GSC, you can easily test any robot’s configuration directly within the SEO Spider (Configuration > Robots.txt > Custom).

This window will allow you to either import a live robots.txt file or make your own custom one. You can test if an individual URL is blocked by entering it into the search at the bottom. Alternatively, run a crawl of your site and the spider will obey the custom crawl behaviour.

For a much more in-depth guide on all the robots.txt capabilities of the SEO Spider, look here: https://www.screamingfrog.co.uk/robots-txt-tester/

URL Parameters

An extremely useful tab — the URL Parameters helps to highlight all of the various parameter queries Google found on its journey through your site. This is particularly useful when examining the crawl efficiency or dealing with faceted navigations.

Currently, there’s no way of replicating this report within the Spider, but we are able to get a similar sample from a crawl and some Excel tinkering.

Just follow these steps or download the macro (linked below) –

1. Run a crawl of the domain, export the internal HTML tab 2. Cut & Paste the URL list into Column A of a fresh Excel sheet 3. Highlight Column A > Data > Text-to-Columns > Delimited > Other: ? > Finish 4. Highlight Column B > Data > Text-to-Columns > Delimited > Other: & > Finish 5. Highlight Column A > Right-click > Delete 6. Home > Editing > Find & Select > Go to Special > Blanks > OK 7. With these highlighted > Home > Cells > Delete 8. CTRL+A to highlight everything > Find & Replace > Replace: =* with nothing 9. Stack all columns into one & add a heading of ‘Parameter’ 10. Highlight this master column > Insert > Pivot Table > Recommended > Count of Parameter

To save some time, I’ve made an Excel macro to do this all for you, which you can download here. Just download the spreadsheet > click Enable Content & Enable Editing then follow the instructions.

If everything’s done correctly, you should end up with a new table similar to this:

It’s worth noting there will be some discrepancies between this and Google’s own URL report. This boils down to the fundamental differences between the Spider & Googlebot, most of which is explained in much greater detail here: https://www.screamingfrog.co.uk/seo-spider/faq/#why-does-the-number-of-urls-crawled-not-match-the-number-of-results-indexed-in-google-or-errors-reported-within-google-webmaster-tools

The King Is Dead, Long Live the King!

Well, that’s all for now — hopefully you find some of these reports useful. If you want a full list of our other how-to guides, take a look through our user guide & FAQ pages. Alternatively, if you have any other suggestions and alternatives to the retired Google system, I’d love to hear about them in the comments below.

As a side note: for many of these reports, you can also combine them with the Scheduling feature to keep them running on a regular basis. Or, if you’d like some automatic reporting, take a quick look at setting this up in the Crawl Reporting in Google Data Studio of my previous post.

The post Reviving Retired Search Console Reports appeared first on Screaming Frog.

[samanthasroberts]

Review: Meater

If it was up to me, my ideal grill would be one that could capably cook low and slow and and also be able to turn on the jets for a hard, fast sear. There'd be a nice-sized table next to it and space for my tools. The icing on the cake would be temperature control. For that, I'd want a little base station connected to a two-probe thermometer so I could monitor both the air temperature just above the grill grates and the internal temperature of the meat, with the data from both plotted out on a graph so I could understand what was cooking.

That whole thermometer thing seem a bit too much for you? Consider reconsidering. Thermometers, particularly modern digital thermometers, are the most important grill accessory you can own. Don't you love fish at the point just past translucence, your pork chop slightly pink in the center, your lamb rosy, and your brisket luscious? The only way to do it all consistently is with a thermometer. Some people say they can poke a steak with a finger and know if it's done, but I'm not one of them and those people are not always correct. It might sound silly, but I've been known to use thermometers on sausages because they taste better when they're cooked just right. Not only do thermometers save pricey food from an overcooked fate, but you also get compliments when your food is cooked perfectly.

Amazingly, that dream temperature setup I wished for exists, and, in fact, I own it. It's not quite as slick and isolated as I'd like, but it's close enough. My $99 ThermoWorks Smoke has two probes at the end of long cables, a large base station with temperature readouts, and a radio frequency remote so you can monitor the temperature of a long cook while you mow the lawn. With the addition of the company's $89 Smoke Gateway accessory, you can see everything on your phone and get a time-temperature readout for each probe. Weber's $100 iGrill 2 has similar (though less robust) capabilities, but they are both powerful ways to understand what's going on inside of your grill or oven, and are essential tools that can help you become a better cook.

Meater

Fresh on the scene is the Meater, a $69 temperature probe that arrives in a tiny bamboo box which is also the charger. While the Smoke and iGrill base stations are attached to the probe with cables, the Meater's distinguishing innovation is that it's wireless. It looks like a bespoke, five-inch, stainless-steel blow dart.

It's pretty easy to guess how it works: the pointy end goes in the meat and it connects via Bluetooth with an app on your phone. What's pleasantly surprising is that there's a second temperature sensor at the exposed end that tells you the air temperature just outside of whatever you're cooking. Tell Meater's app that you're grilling a chicken breast, and it can tell you the internal temperature of the chicken and the air temperature inside the grill, then crunch some numbers and predict when the food will be done.

On paper, it's pretty slick, but I had some reservations. Most notably, there are no physical controls or a base station with temperature readouts à la the Smoke or iGrill 2. While some people don't mind that connected kitchen devices pass things like controls and readouts entirely to the app, I can't stand it. App connectivity and embellishments should be a perk, not a requirement for a thermometer's basic functions; If I'm out back grilling, I want to concentrate on what I'm cooking and/or have a beer with friends, not fiddle around with, or be distracted by, my phone.

That said, I started testing the Meater and it worked pretty well! I made thick pork chops and they came off the grill with that perfect pinkness in the center. The estimated time remaining displayed on the app was pretty helpful, and the app can guide you to pull the meat off just a bit earlier than you might otherwise, allowing the built-up heat in the cut to bring the internal temperature to the finish line, aka "carryover cooking." My brother-in-law Ben was impressed by those features and as someone who's used to temperature probes at the end of cables, I liked how maneuverable the meat was without them. Like the iGrill 2 and the Smoke Gateway, the time-temperature charts Meater's app created were helpful in understanding what was happening as I cooked.

While my ThermoWorks probe can withstand temperatures from -58 to 572 degrees Fahrenheit, the Meater is much more fragile.

Things went a little sideways, though, when I tried to make brisket. I didn't have all day—a time commitment many briskets require—but I found a lovely-sounding recipe that called for a wet roast in the style of Michael Ruhlman's fantastic Thanksgiving turkey. Here, the Meater was of limited use. It was able to monitor only the internal temperature as this brisket cooks under a foil wrap, meaning the temperature under the foil wasn't representative of the oven temperature. I just ignored the ambient sensor reading.

Cooking this recipe brought up two issues. First, I got a warning message at 209 degrees Fahrenheit saying that the internal temperature of the brisket was "above safe level" and that I should "remove from heat immediately to avoid damaging the product."

Wait…"safe level" for the meat or for the Meater? Which "product?" Brisket in this style is a long, slow cook that can get hotter than 200 degrees Fahrenheit, perhaps not ideally, but it's not out of the question, particularly if you're waiting for the tougher sections of the brisket to become fork tender.

While my ThermoWorks probe can withstand temperatures from -58 to 572 degrees Fahrenheit, the Meater is much more fragile.

I double-checked with a company rep, asking if the internal probe might break if exposed to temperatures over 212 degrees for more than 10 minutes.

"Correct," came the response.

Yikes. That's horribly restricting over the life of a thermometer. At some point, you're going to mess up, and 212 degrees is an awfully low bar.

Making this meal also showed how restrictive it is to have the ambient probe attached to (and right next to) the internal probe. At first glance, it seemed exceedingly clever—two probes in one!—but in practice the arrangement requires a lot of workarounds.

The Meater team has apparently run into a version of this problem too, referring in its FAQs to the "cool air bubble" around larger pieces of meat in an oven or on the grill. In short, the meat you're cooking is cooler than the oven it's cooking in, creating a "bubble" of cool air around it. With a separate probe, this isn't a problem, but for the Meater—especially for larger cuts with more thermal mass—you've gotta figure out probe placement that gets to the core of the meat, but keeps the ambient temperature sensor the recommended two inches from the food.

Plus, if I'm going to use a probe of some sort to tell me the temperature inside my oven or grill, I want to know that information before I put my meat in it; Meater doesn't offer that possibility.

Fuss! Fuss! Fuss! Undaunted, I cooked a boneless leg of lamb on my grill. I used the low-and-slow method, cooking it over indirect heat until the internal temperature came up to a little past rare, then pulled it off the heat, cranked the grill, let the grates get screaming hot, then seared the meat's exterior. The process worked pretty well as long as I didn't stray too far—12 feet and a wall were too far for Meater's Bluetooth, but the ThermoWorks Smoke's radio remote had no trouble with this. The lamb was fantastic.

Since we're here, let's keep talking about the connection. To connect the app to the probe, you use Bluetooth—which is pretty slick considering how tiny the setup is. If you want a little more range and bought a single probe model (its only product currently on the market), Meater suggests connecting through the cloud by using a second smart device, which you would then leave near your grill or oven. Good grief! Or you could wait for the release of the $269 Meater Block with its four probes and both Wi-Fi and Bluetooth options. (Considering the Meater's delay-laden production history, though, you may wish to hold off until the Block is officially on the market.)

Did you keep up with all that connection stuff? It's a lot to hold in your head. Still sure wireless-ness is that important?

The more I used it, the more the Meater felt like an outlier. It could do some basic functions well and I liked the predictive doneness timer. I also appreciated the time/temperature chart that the app created, but other issues required contortive workarounds. The "two-probes-in-one" idea was fine until it wasn't, and its value really plummeted when I compared it to what I already had.

Were I to peer into a crystal ball and divine the future of the Meater, I imagine the company will untangle that connectivity thicket or bring the Meater Block's Wi-Fi functionality to the individual probe. Perhaps the company will be bought by a grill manufacturer looking to expand its capabilities, or one looking to incorporate a thermostat to help keep grill temps steady. That would be lovely.

Until then, though, the occasional tangle of ThermoWorks or iGrill cables isn't a problem big enough to need a solution. Really, it might not be a problem at all.

Food writer Joe Ray (@joe_diner) is a Lowell Thomas Travel Journalist of The Year, a restaurant critic, and author of "Sea and Smoke" with chef Blaine Wetzel.

Source: http://allofbeer.com/review-meater/

from All of Beer https://allofbeer.wordpress.com/2018/06/20/review-meater/

[allofbeercom]

Review: Meater

If it was up to me, my ideal grill would be one that could capably cook low and slow and and also be able to turn on the jets for a hard, fast sear. There'd be a nice-sized table next to it and space for my tools. The icing on the cake would be temperature control. For that, I'd want a little base station connected to a two-probe thermometer so I could monitor both the air temperature just above the grill grates and the internal temperature of the meat, with the data from both plotted out on a graph so I could understand what was cooking.

That whole thermometer thing seem a bit too much for you? Consider reconsidering. Thermometers, particularly modern digital thermometers, are the most important grill accessory you can own. Don't you love fish at the point just past translucence, your pork chop slightly pink in the center, your lamb rosy, and your brisket luscious? The only way to do it all consistently is with a thermometer. Some people say they can poke a steak with a finger and know if it's done, but I'm not one of them and those people are not always correct. It might sound silly, but I've been known to use thermometers on sausages because they taste better when they're cooked just right. Not only do thermometers save pricey food from an overcooked fate, but you also get compliments when your food is cooked perfectly.

Amazingly, that dream temperature setup I wished for exists, and, in fact, I own it. It's not quite as slick and isolated as I'd like, but it's close enough. My $99 ThermoWorks Smoke has two probes at the end of long cables, a large base station with temperature readouts, and a radio frequency remote so you can monitor the temperature of a long cook while you mow the lawn. With the addition of the company's $89 Smoke Gateway accessory, you can see everything on your phone and get a time-temperature readout for each probe. Weber's $100 iGrill 2 has similar (though less robust) capabilities, but they are both powerful ways to understand what's going on inside of your grill or oven, and are essential tools that can help you become a better cook.

Meater

Fresh on the scene is the Meater, a $69 temperature probe that arrives in a tiny bamboo box which is also the charger. While the Smoke and iGrill base stations are attached to the probe with cables, the Meater's distinguishing innovation is that it's wireless. It looks like a bespoke, five-inch, stainless-steel blow dart.

It's pretty easy to guess how it works: the pointy end goes in the meat and it connects via Bluetooth with an app on your phone. What's pleasantly surprising is that there's a second temperature sensor at the exposed end that tells you the air temperature just outside of whatever you're cooking. Tell Meater's app that you're grilling a chicken breast, and it can tell you the internal temperature of the chicken and the air temperature inside the grill, then crunch some numbers and predict when the food will be done.

On paper, it's pretty slick, but I had some reservations. Most notably, there are no physical controls or a base station with temperature readouts à la the Smoke or iGrill 2. While some people don't mind that connected kitchen devices pass things like controls and readouts entirely to the app, I can't stand it. App connectivity and embellishments should be a perk, not a requirement for a thermometer's basic functions; If I'm out back grilling, I want to concentrate on what I'm cooking and/or have a beer with friends, not fiddle around with, or be distracted by, my phone.

That said, I started testing the Meater and it worked pretty well! I made thick pork chops and they came off the grill with that perfect pinkness in the center. The estimated time remaining displayed on the app was pretty helpful, and the app can guide you to pull the meat off just a bit earlier than you might otherwise, allowing the built-up heat in the cut to bring the internal temperature to the finish line, aka "carryover cooking." My brother-in-law Ben was impressed by those features and as someone who's used to temperature probes at the end of cables, I liked how maneuverable the meat was without them. Like the iGrill 2 and the Smoke Gateway, the time-temperature charts Meater's app created were helpful in understanding what was happening as I cooked.

While my ThermoWorks probe can withstand temperatures from -58 to 572 degrees Fahrenheit, the Meater is much more fragile.

Things went a little sideways, though, when I tried to make brisket. I didn't have all day—a time commitment many briskets require—but I found a lovely-sounding recipe that called for a wet roast in the style of Michael Ruhlman's fantastic Thanksgiving turkey. Here, the Meater was of limited use. It was able to monitor only the internal temperature as this brisket cooks under a foil wrap, meaning the temperature under the foil wasn't representative of the oven temperature. I just ignored the ambient sensor reading.

Cooking this recipe brought up two issues. First, I got a warning message at 209 degrees Fahrenheit saying that the internal temperature of the brisket was "above safe level" and that I should "remove from heat immediately to avoid damaging the product."

Wait…"safe level" for the meat or for the Meater? Which "product?" Brisket in this style is a long, slow cook that can get hotter than 200 degrees Fahrenheit, perhaps not ideally, but it's not out of the question, particularly if you're waiting for the tougher sections of the brisket to become fork tender.

While my ThermoWorks probe can withstand temperatures from -58 to 572 degrees Fahrenheit, the Meater is much more fragile.

I double-checked with a company rep, asking if the internal probe might break if exposed to temperatures over 212 degrees for more than 10 minutes.

"Correct," came the response.

Yikes. That's horribly restricting over the life of a thermometer. At some point, you're going to mess up, and 212 degrees is an awfully low bar.

Making this meal also showed how restrictive it is to have the ambient probe attached to (and right next to) the internal probe. At first glance, it seemed exceedingly clever—two probes in one!—but in practice the arrangement requires a lot of workarounds.

The Meater team has apparently run into a version of this problem too, referring in its FAQs to the "cool air bubble" around larger pieces of meat in an oven or on the grill. In short, the meat you're cooking is cooler than the oven it's cooking in, creating a "bubble" of cool air around it. With a separate probe, this isn't a problem, but for the Meater—especially for larger cuts with more thermal mass—you've gotta figure out probe placement that gets to the core of the meat, but keeps the ambient temperature sensor the recommended two inches from the food.

Plus, if I'm going to use a probe of some sort to tell me the temperature inside my oven or grill, I want to know that information before I put my meat in it; Meater doesn't offer that possibility.

Fuss! Fuss! Fuss! Undaunted, I cooked a boneless leg of lamb on my grill. I used the low-and-slow method, cooking it over indirect heat until the internal temperature came up to a little past rare, then pulled it off the heat, cranked the grill, let the grates get screaming hot, then seared the meat's exterior. The process worked pretty well as long as I didn't stray too far—12 feet and a wall were too far for Meater's Bluetooth, but the ThermoWorks Smoke's radio remote had no trouble with this. The lamb was fantastic.

Since we're here, let's keep talking about the connection. To connect the app to the probe, you use Bluetooth��which is pretty slick considering how tiny the setup is. If you want a little more range and bought a single probe model (its only product currently on the market), Meater suggests connecting through the cloud by using a second smart device, which you would then leave near your grill or oven. Good grief! Or you could wait for the release of the $269 Meater Block with its four probes and both Wi-Fi and Bluetooth options. (Considering the Meater's delay-laden production history, though, you may wish to hold off until the Block is officially on the market.)

Did you keep up with all that connection stuff? It's a lot to hold in your head. Still sure wireless-ness is that important?

The more I used it, the more the Meater felt like an outlier. It could do some basic functions well and I liked the predictive doneness timer. I also appreciated the time/temperature chart that the app created, but other issues required contortive workarounds. The "two-probes-in-one" idea was fine until it wasn't, and its value really plummeted when I compared it to what I already had.

Were I to peer into a crystal ball and divine the future of the Meater, I imagine the company will untangle that connectivity thicket or bring the Meater Block's Wi-Fi functionality to the individual probe. Perhaps the company will be bought by a grill manufacturer looking to expand its capabilities, or one looking to incorporate a thermostat to help keep grill temps steady. That would be lovely.

Until then, though, the occasional tangle of ThermoWorks or iGrill cables isn't a problem big enough to need a solution. Really, it might not be a problem at all.

Food writer Joe Ray (@joe_diner) is a Lowell Thomas Travel Journalist of The Year, a restaurant critic, and author of "Sea and Smoke" with chef Blaine Wetzel.

from All Of Beer http://allofbeer.com/review-meater/

[buytabletsonline]

(adsbygoogle = window.adsbygoogle || []).push({});

After writing up Nintendo’s Wednesday reveal of its new Labo playsets (coming April 20 to the US and Japan and April 27 to Europe), I realized I’d forgotten to add an important word to the article’s introduction: “what.”

More specifically, the drawn-out, question-marked version I should have shouted when the product’s reveal video played out. (“Whaaaaat?!”) I’m a big fan of Nintendo’s physical-toy era in the ’60s and ’70s, back when company legend and Game Boy creator Gunpei Yokoi came up with engineering wonders like the Ultra Hand and the Ten-Barrel Puzzle. As a result, I was immediately charmed by the physicality and toy-controller possibilities of the reveal video, which included everything from a motorcycle steering chassis to a 13-key piano to a string-loaded fishing rod—all built by players with a mix of pre-cut, pre-marked cardboard, sensing stickers, plastic, string, and more.

But then I began wondering: exactly how does everything work with Nintendo Labo? In particular, what the heck is going on with Labo’s most insane offering: a full-body robot suit?

Player, piano

Understanding how Labo-constructed Toy-Cons will work starts by analyzing this image, which we break down in the text below. The rest of this gallery shows how the Nintendo Labo piano is put together.

Nintendo Labo will combine the Switch console, its Joy-Con controllers, and buildable cardboard sets.

The debut video shows how to put the piano set together. Start with individual, foldable cardboard pieces.

Getting closer.

It’s missing something.

Oh, right. The Switch.

There’s also a slot for a Joy-Con to be inserted, visible here on the left.

Nintendo has not answered precisely how the Labo Robot Kit will work, either in its reveal videos, Labo’s official sites, or hands-on impressions posted by other outlets. With the limited info I’ve gathered, I’m taking it upon myself to offer educated guesses while commenting on why I have a serious case of Labo love.

We do know quite a bit about Labo based on hands-on reports that went live at the same time as Nintendo’s Wednesday video. The Labo Variety Kit was demonstrated at length to various outlets, and the “how” of the Variety Kit’s cardboard piano—which recognizes 13 distinct keys and a number of modulating knobs—was explained as follows by The Verge:

The Joy-Con that slots into the back [of the Labo piano] has a camera, which can see the back of the keys so that it knows which ones you’re pressing and then relays that information to the Switch. The sound-modifying knobs, meanwhile, each have distinctive stripes that are associated with their respective sounds, so that the camera can tell them apart.

To be clearer: the right-side Joy-Con, which ships with every Nintendo Switch, comes with an infrared camera and four additional infrared sensors. These are apparently enough to create Labo’s distinct combination of positional and visual data. When fed by patterns on the cardboard parts and “reflective” stickers, they can individually recognize no less than 14 simultaneous points of interactivity.

We have to wait for more direct access to all of the Labo creations (which Nintendo calls Toy-Cons) to break down exactly how every single one of them works. When we get our hands on Labo later this year, we will do just that. For now, let’s focus on the Labo Robot Kit, which was not shown off during any hands-on press previews—but appeared for long enough in Labo’s debut video to reveal juicy information.

We can start by looking at the Labo video’s footage of the cardboard piano’s assembly. Labo walks its players step-by-step through the process of building a Toy-Con, and it includes see-through 3D models of the construction every step of the way to teach users (assumedly, our world’s future engineers) exactly how this stuff works. By the end, builders have gotten the piano pretty much fully built, at which point they must insert the right-side Joy-Con into the back of the piano, so that its IR camera rig can see the piano’s full innards.

The reveal video shows Labo instructing players to test the piano’s buttons and dials, in order to test the IR sensor. This screen, which includes a touchscreen option for kids to move the camera around and see how the piano is working, actually shows 19 distinct sensing positions, including 13 purple “keys,” a pair of dials (one red, one green) directly above the keys, and four larger boxes. (We still don’t have full information about exactly which of these keys, knobs, and other elements must have sensor-boosting stickers attached.)

This wealth of data, above and beyond a mere 13-key rig, is important as we transition to the Labo Robot Kit.

Go-go Labo rangers

The Labo Robot Pack comes with everything seen here. (We break it down in the text below, along with more thoughts in this gallery.)

Nintendo

Another look at the pack in its construction phase.

As arms and legs move, so do the white strips.

We’re still wondering how exactly the strips’ position relates to real-life movement.

Be a robot.

“Moooom, the back fell off my robot suit again!”

Oh, and of course, this game’s robot TURNS INTO A CAR. The video shows the player bending his knees to transform.

Nintendo’s official Labo Robot Kit site includes images of the full kit’s basic, exterior design. In the first image of the above gallery, the left-side image shows two handheld wands made entirely of cardboard, while two foot clips made of plastic are shown as connected directly to the backpack, not fully extended to the floor. That’s made clearer on the model’s feet on the right-side image. Also in that right-side image, both the handheld and foot-clipped parts are connected to string that runs through the backpack itself.

If we go back to the reveal video, we see a brief shot of the backpack’s exposed innards, before a final piece of cardboard is slapped onto the back. Four apparent levers can be seen, each with a white strip at different levels. We can tell based on the official product image that each limb’s string runs through the top of the cardboard backpack, aligned with each of these levers. As you move an arm or a leg, each white strip moves up and down.

The backpack’s back-side flap of cardboard includes a holder for the right-side Joy-Con, and again, its IR sensor points at the innards, including these white strips. Should there be any doubt that these are the backpack’s primary trackable points of data, notice the video’s footage of the Robot Kit’s accompanying game. Its robot hero has four visible levers on its back, mirroring the same design that players wear.

Additionally, the non-camera Joy-Con is mounted to a small cardboard-and-plastic headset, which a player wears for some sort of control in the game itself. This could be meant for head-tracked camera movement in the game, or for directing a player’s motion or attacks. But it’s definitely not up there just to make a kid look silly.

One question remains: what other, finer points of data might Labo’s Robot Kit be equipped to handle, a la the cardboard piano’s wealth of sensing data? The fact that Nintendo didn’t demonstrate a working version to the press could mean that there’s more to the kit; the best evidence to support this guess is the backpack’s use of three large holes on both its left and right sides. These may accommodate additional connections, either by string or some other doo-dad. There’s also the possibility, of course, that this four-lever system is not yet optimized enough for public testing.

Coming soon: a “more-power” glove?

Some of Labo’s concepts were teased in Wednesday’s video without an accompanying product announcement, like this steering wheel and pedal combo.

What’s really exciting about the steering wheel is this sticker-sensor array, which has no less than ten points of data for the Switch’s Joy-Con IR sensor to translate into a control system.

The rest of this gallery includes other teased Labo Toy-Cons that don’t appear to have an announced release yet. First: a huge joystick with a wedged cardboard base, for the sake of 360-degree flexing.

A bird with flappable wings.

A camera with rotatable lens. (Pokemon Snap 2, maybe?)

And a big pistol that resembles a flare gun.

Either way, the beauty of the IR-tracked backpack is its sheer design flexibility. If you were asked to build a fully tracked four-limb robot suit from scratch, meant to interact with a video game system, you might imagine no less than four hardware-connected sensing rigs to track basic movement—or more if you want to account for, say, ball-and-socket joints. But Nintendo will only employ one IR sensor to record four distinct limbs’ movement. There’s work to be done to engineer the rest of the physical rig, of course, but this “single-sensor” system saves users the trouble of, say, ordering laser- and wire-connected parts from Alibaba.

That’s a lot of design modularity for Labo’s future. Labo essentially declares that the Nintendo Switch already includes enough sensors and electronics. From there, Nintendo, or its fans, can engineer entirely different build-it-yourself kits based on this base with nothing but cardboard and stickers. The possibilities are wild. I’ve already imagined one idea, based on my own VR experiences. With an angled, wrist-strapped glove, Labo 2.0 could aim an IR sensor at a single human hand and, at the very least, track the basic movement of individual digits, if not the fingers’ bending at knuckles. (A second Joy-Con could join the party to determine angle and rotation, which might deliver convincing spatial hand tracking.)

Our last image gallery, directly above, includes five Toy-Cons that do not appear to have announced releases yet. Since it’s advertising these preview concepts early, Nintendo clearly sees a future in the Labo line. Its control possibilities really could go in as many wacky directions as I’ve just guessed with my own Toy-Con Glove idea.

Already before launch, Nintendo’s Labo approach feels like a much better path forward in the gimmick-filled control world than what’s come before. The era of locked-down, $90-and-up control peripherals has long passed. Players generally do not want to be saddled with a pricey, space-filling control mechanism that only works for a few games—a fact that spelled doom for everything from Kinect to Guitar Hero. The Switch has succeeded, in part, by giving players a familiar suite of controls to play as they see fit, either at home or on the go. The system also just so happens to have just enough sensing tech built in to accommodate crazy control styles… for those who want to buy add-on kits and construct their own Toy-Cons. Everyone wins. It’s brilliant, even before it exists.

Listing image by Nintendo

(adsbygoogle = window.adsbygoogle || []).push({}); http://ift.tt/2mUfSGs January 19, 2018 at 03:51AM

[kuuderekun]

Mithrandir’s Halloween Anime Recommendations.

Mithrandir’s Halloween Anime Recommendations. 

I’m by no means the first Otaku to provide some Halloween season Anime recommendations in October.  So why care about mine?

October 31st happens to be my Birthday.  So even though I’ve defined myself as not a Horror fan in the strictest sense (in that I’m not looking to be scared by any fiction I watch) I have other reasons for enjoying a lot of stuff in the Horror and Gothic genres.  And I have a lot of memories of enjoying such fiction during the Halloween season.  

I love the classic Universal Monster movies, I’ve also enjoyed many Hammer films.  And other more obscure horror movies, like those Public Domain ones you sometimes find in DVD box sets selling 50 for only $10.  Slasher films I’ve tended to not be fond of, but I do enjoy Halloween 1, 2, 4, 5 and 6.  And some of my favorite episodes of Western live Action television have been Halloween specials, from NCIS episodes like Witch Hunt to Pretty Little Liars‘ epic trilogy of Halloween specials.  Plus I love the first two Ghostbusters movies, and I don’t hate the reboot.

Since I’ve become mainly a Anime watcher over the last couple of years.  It’s overdue that I make some Anime Halloween recommendations.  Though I feel kinda like I haven’t watched enough Horror centric Anime.

I listened to about like an hour of the Podcast that Mother’s Basement did with Digibro, Gigguk and BestGuyEver about their Halloween recommendations.  And really none sound like they fit what I look for this time of year, but they might for others.

One thing Gigguk said that rubbed me the wrong way, was that he doesn’t like how Anime Horror is too “aesthetically pleasing”.  I don’t like how western horror in recent years is so obsessed with being Aesthetically ugly.  I like the first two Saw movies as Mysteries, and that’s about it from the Torture Porn genre.  And I like none of those movies that revolve chicks crawling out of caves all slimy and muddy and dirty.  Classic Horror, like Universal and Hammer gave us, was very Aesthetically pleasing, it was simply a Gothic Aesthetic.

These recommendations are largely for people relatively new to Anime in general, if you have a respectable MAL already you’ve probably at least tasted all or most of these.  If however you consider yourself a hardcore Otaku and you’ve missed any one of these, you need to reconcile that immediately.

Why give Halloween themed recommendations to Newbies?  Maybe Horror or Gothic romance simply is your favorite genre and so Halloween fitting Anime would be the best entry point possible.  Or maybe now simply is the time you decided to finally give Japanimation a shot.  Or maybe you’re already at phase 2 or 3 of burrowing down the Otaku rabbit hole and are looking for new routes to dig into.  Perhaps specifically saving the Horror Route for October.

One more note before I start.  I haven’t watched the Castlevania series on Netflix yet.  I’ve decided to wait till during this Halloween season (and thus after I’ve already posted this) to watch it.  Then I might talk about it somewhere if I feel compelled to.  (Turns out it’s not actually Anime.)  I don’t want to include in this list something that hasn’t already stood the test of time somewhat anyway.  And it gives me something new for the season to enjoy myself.  It annoys me that the Godzilla Anime doesn’t drop till November.

I’ve already declared When They Cry/Higurashi the ideal Horror Anime.  If you haven’t seen it yet, don't read that post past the Spoiler Warning.  In summary what I’ll say here is it has very much the Japanese equivalent of a Gothic Aesthetic.  And it makes an engaging mystery, with well done shocking moments.  And never abuses the Jump Scare.  

But one thing I forgot to mention in that post was the Score, the Music in this show is perfect at setting an eerie mood.  If you can find the music on it’s own, it’d be excellent for a Haunted House.  

Another note before moving on, for the numbered entries here I’m not recommending entire franchises but single series that might be part of larger franchises but still have a distinct entry on MAL or most Streaming sites.  For Higurashi it’s really only season 1 I’m recommending for October viewing.  Season 2 is perhaps better for early November, when you’re kinda still in a Halloween mood, but want to phase yourself out of it before Christmas.  (Don’t expect Christmas recommendations BTW.)

Vampire Princess Miyu, the 4 episode 80s OVA.  This would be best if you want something shorter to get your feet wet.  It’s probably the only pre-2000 Anime I’ll recommend here.  It similarly has the Japanese equivalent to a Gothic Aesthetic.  And I really like it’s use of sound effects.  I also like the 90s TV series, but that’s better watched in the context of how to make a darker Magical Girl show.

School Live I now consider the best Zombie Anime.  Highschool of The Dead still has value, but if you’re gonna watch only one watch School Live.  Don’t let the cuteness fool you, it gets pretty scary.  And isn’t filled with tasteless fanservice.

Witch Hunter Robin.  I can’t believe I haven’t talked about this on this blog more yet, since it’s about as ancient as the BeeTrain trilogy in my development as an Anime Fan.  It’s use of its horror elements is pretty interesting.  It's also got intrigue.  And is one of the best examples of why I love the 26 episode structure.

Hellsing, (the original Anime not Ultimate).  Is a satisfying Anime spin off to the legacy of Bram Stoker’s novel.  While all of the above 4 have Dubs, and the Dub is what I watched, this is the only one I feel confident in calling a top tier Dub, after all Alucard is Crispin Freeman.  Though I will say for Miyu not to write off the OVA’s dub on how the 90s show’s gets called one of the worst of all time, it’s a very different kind of Dub.

The only honorable mention I shall provide is the Fate/ franchise as a whole, it has Horror elements but that is not quite it’s main appeal.   But since the mythology/folklore is a large part of why I’m into Horror in the first place, it does overlap well with part of why I like Fate/ so much.  From the quasi Lovecraftian quality of Fate/Zero’s Caster, to the Fate/Stay Night:Unlimited Blade Works Caster’s berserk button being when she’s called a Witch.   Those are as I’ve explained before the best entry points to Fate/.  

Heck, Rin Tosaka is pretty much always dressed like it’s Halloween.

Fate/kaleid liner Prisma Illya, is the worst entry point only appealing at all if you're really into the niche it’s made for.  I am, so I enjoy even it’s much maligned Dub.  But as the ultimately least dark version of the Fate/ universe, it still has some solid Halloween season material.

The Grand Order OVA’s Dub becomes available this October, so I’ll also be watching that before the month is over, I can’t comment on it before then.  But on the subject of single episode OVAs, Fate/Prototype can be a spooky quick Halloween viewing experience.

But another reason I couldn’t leave Fate/ out of this post is that Fate/Apocrypha is a currently airing show that includes the characters of Vlad The Impaler and Frankenstein’s Monster, and also Jack The Ripper.  So if any currently airing TV Anime this October needs to be mentioned it’s that one.  The tone however doesn’t fit Halloween as well as the other shows from what I’ve seen so far, unfortunately.  Maybe they’re saving the scarier bits for the Fall, either way it is again not a good entry point for Fate/.

As of episodes 8 and 9, Vlad and Frank’s characters are finally getting some good exploration.  And as of episode 11 I’m very into it.

Normally a list like this doesn’t end on the honorable mention.  But I organized this from the top down anyway.

It turns out this year’s October 31st will be the last day the legal streaming site www.Daisuki.Net operates, it’s being shut down.  So this month is your last chance to watch any Anime there.  But it has none of what I’ve recommended so that’s not actually helpful here.

Vampire Princess Miyu and Witch Hunter Robin had past legal western releases, but I can’t find them currently legally streaming anywhere.

School Live, Hellsing and Fate/ should be easy enough to find legally, between Crunchyroll, Funimation’s Website and Netflix.

Higurashi I was having trouble finding on any legal site, but then I found HIDIVE.  You can watch stuff free with ads, but need a paying subscription to view the Dubs it has.  For Higurashi the Dub isn’t that well received anyway, I was okay with it mostly but I can see why others wouldn’t be.  School Live is also on that site.  And it has some Fate/ stuff as well.

[sending-the-message]

In The City Of Meatbot-Powered Killers (part 4) by molotok_c_518

Table of Contents.

Part 3.

I hit the dark web for a few minutes, burned a couple of Bitcoin for a block of stolen credit card numbers, and searched for what the hell just happened downtown.

While I took a couple of the platinum card accounts to activate some of my burner phones (their fraud support will save them some charges, and I'll still have some prepaid phones to work with), I digested what the Army and Air National Guard just did.

(*26 hours ago, in RQZ HQ...)

Col. {Jones}, HQ "Six" (HQ6): This is Six, go ahead, sir.

Adjutant General, New York National Guard (AGNY): This operation is strictly need-to-know now, Six. It has been designated "Top Secret: Compartmentalized" at the highest levels, and the code name attached is "Glass Chipmunk."

HQ6: What the... who comes up with this shit... uh, sir?

AGNY: Some spook at the NSA. More time on their hands than sense.

HQ6: Yes, sir.

(Side note: The reason top secret stuff gets odd code-names is because they are words you would not accidentally say in a normal conversation. Try to work "Glass Chipmunk" into a sentence without sounding like you're crazy. It *might** work with someone with a curio collection... sort of like Alpine Shepherd Boy... but otherwise, you will stand out.*)

AGNY: How is the perimeter?

HQ6: Solid, sir. Nothing is getting out of there. We've had a few... anomalies, but no breaches.

AGNY: "Anomalies?"

HQ6: Well... it appears that the mad scientists' little toys don't hole up well in non-humans. We've had some animals come to the wire and just melt. The larger ones, we need to put down... have you ever tried shooting a cat and her kittens? They melted, too.

AGNY: I'll arrange to get some more men rotated in. Things like that obliterate morale.

HQ6: Thank you, sir... but we need a longer-term solution to this. We've gotten lucky, so far, in that only a few infected have tried to hit us. Tracers work well, so we've taken to loading all of our SAWs with nothing else. If they hit us in anything larger than 3 or 4 at a time, we're gonna get overrun in a heartbeat and a half, and you'll have a lot more than a city's worth of these things to worry about.

AGNY: Roger that, Six. I gotta tell ya, Tom... I've never thought, not even once, that we'd be talking about bombing American citizens.

HQ6: Roger that, Six. Voting demographic will definitely shift.

AGNY: Are you suggesting...

HQ6: No, sir. Just a bit of gallows' humor. Whistling in the graveyard, as it were.

AGNY: How about our reluctant big-brain?

HQ6: Still no sign of him. We lost him during his move towards the campus. We think he's in the Advanced Research Labs facility on campus, but we're not sure enough to risk an extraction team in a hostile-heavy area of the city.

AGNY: We have a good set-up on the plaza. Give the green light for the Reaper to launch. You are covered.

HQ6: That's an order?

AGNY: Direct order, Tom. Take solace in the fact that it's an act of mercy for the poor bastards.

HQ6: Yes, sir.

(23 hours ago.)

Reaper drone pilot, designated RD-3: On station, awaiting instructions.

HQ6: What's your load, RD-3:

RD-3: I have 4 Hellfires, sir. I see the target, awaiting order.

HQ6: You've been briefed as to the situation?

RD-3: Yes, sir. Glass Chipmunk. (almost inaudible chuckle)

HQ6: Right. When you have the target locked, you are cleared to engage.

RD-3: Order received. Lightin' em up.

Video footage from RD-3

It's daytime, timestamp on the video is 1106. Wide shot of a square plaza surrounded by concrete and glass buildings, in a Brutalist architectural style.

In the plaza is a large, pulsating mass of bodies, covered in dirt, rags, dried "blood" (in reality, it's mostly meatbots at this point), sweat, and strips of dried flesh.

A fountain in the center has kept these people hydrated since the outbreak. It has allowed this... gathering... to continue unabated.

"Gathering" is too weak a word. It's like a Roman orgy crossed with Cannibal Holocaust or Green Inferno.

The weakest have either stayed at the fringes and devoured what scraps they can, knowing that they have no chance at survival in the main body, or threw themselves in early, were torn to shreds and eaten whole, in order to kill the all-consuming hunger driving them.

The strongest have formed a horrific symbiosis, tearing chunks off of each other, letting chunks get torn from them, then healing enough to repeat the process. The looks of pain when injured are almost indistinguishable from the looks of rapture when they devour a neighbor.

There is no "sex," per se. Hunger has replaced sexual desire. If anything, the erogenous zones seem to be the most targeted areas for consumption... and since they grow back, they get targeted a lot.

I don't want to look. I want to make a bad joke about oral sex and fix myself a bottle of rum. Better still, a keg.

I look anyway.

At 1113, a missile tears into a fuel truck abandoned at the east end of the plaza. The angle is perfect: flaming kerosene or diesel splashes over the crowd, and thick clouds of boiling black smoke quickly fill the space.

Some of the (un)lucky few who escaped the initial blast run away.

Most, either sensing a well-cooked meal or realizing this will end the agonizing hunger, dive into the center of the holocaust.

In one strike, the National Guard have eliminated about 3/4 of the population of [REDACTED].

I've been working frantically for the past day, trying to find a way to protect myself from possible infection. I can't think "if" anymore: those idiots out there will see me at some point and launch an extraction. I've seen enough horror movies to know how catastrophically it will fail, and how likely I will be to have highly-trained, inhibition-impaired, hungry, rapid-healing killers at my door.

Yes, I'm a pessimist.

I know now how we got to this point, and I have the entire sequence ciphered out. My meatbots were part of a power struggle within the group, and were weaponized purely by circumstance.

First, Dr. A. He got in to the GATACA compiler and dropped his little brain bomb in the code. Hidden in the "comments" in the DNA (we had plenty of space to put messages in the DNA, and did so frequently to explain why Sequence 8c, for example, was written to repair a long muscle in a certain manner, rather than another) was his excuse:

Dr. A: By the time you read this, you will no longer head this project. If I can strike quickly and "prove" that you bungled the neuro programming, I can capitalize and run this program as I see fit. Some people aren't worth saving. Others should be reprogrammed for the greater good.

Dr. B followed this up by checking out the endocrine codes and cranking hunger to 1000. His excuse:

Dr. B: Need more. We can fund this by selling the old versions on the black market, and keep the excess for ourselves.

Profiteering, meet societal re-engineering.

It might have gone almost unnoticed, except for player 3.

Late in the project, I had an assistant basically forced on me. Dr. C was also a computer scientist, come to us from government service. He said the right things, asked the right questions, and made himself indispensable.

What I didn't know until last night was, he was a military contractor on the side, and was looking for combat applications for the 'bots.

He knew what the other fuckwits had done, and instead of fixing it...

It was he who showed Bobby the "Jesus room" (he used a different name for each guard, knowing they would be impressed with what was within). He managed to get a copy of Steve's key card to the most pliable guards, then waited for the inevitable.

He got very lucky (or unlucky) that we had just begun to prep for primate trials when Bobby's wife died. He had the "perfect" weaponized version of my project, and its spread was the perfect test.

I know this because the dumb fucker emailed his superiors on a civilian email account.

The NSA grabbed him up rapidly after that. He's sitting in Guantanamo Bay, if there's any justice.

What I've learned in the past 48 hours is sickening.

When I was a kid, I read Frankenstein several times. Mary Shelley shares my birthday, so it's like we're soul mates separated by 200 years.

I always told myself, "Don't let hubris be your downfall. You're doing this for mankind. You're not playing God... you're doing God's work, if we really are created in His/Her image."

This has never been about doing it because we could. It's doing it because we need this... to save lives cut too short by disease or accident.

Do this now, decide later how it should be used. That was always the mission.

Now... now, I'm using my knowledge of chemistry to destroy my life's work. I know what to mix for the best explosives I can make given what I have on hand. The labs we've been working will be utterly annihilated.

There's no way this project gets out. They aren't ready.

They aren't worthy.

Before I do that, though, I am going to call several people and let them know what happened. I am going to tell the press why my malignant miracle is being denied to the world.

NOW I'm playing God.

I've already made several vials of my counter-bots and hid them on my person. They're untested, but better than the alternative.

I may have a way to sneak off-campus, and from there I have a possible way to get out of town. It's going to involve laying low after the powers-that-be order a full sweep and cleanup of the bot-ridden, which I fully expect in a week or so.

I did some very rough calculations. Fatty tissues have probably all been digested by now. Protein can be burned for energy, and some of it will be consumed by each repair and replication cycle. I figure that, in 3 or 4 more days, there won't be enough metabolic energy to drive a flea left in anyone with meatbots in their blood.

Before I do anything else, though... time for a smoke.

I head up to the roof, and take a deep breath... then step to the wall and puke as the foul reek of thousands of roasting bodies pours into my sinuses.

I won't be eating barbecue any time soon.

By some dark miracle, I puke right on a bot-ridden at the base of the building. He looks up, then begins licking the vomit off of himself.

Didn't need to see that.

I move away from the wall. I fumble a smoke from the pack, and light up with very shaky hands.

I also crack the seal on the cheap водка I found in a lab assistant's office and take a deep swig. I dislike the cheap stuff... it has this nasty chemical aftertaste.

All of this is distracting me from the little fucker I puked on, who is free-climbing the wall.

I catch the barest hint of movement out of the corner of my eye as he crests the retaining wall and leaps 20 feet across the roof to tackle me.

I drop the водка and spin quickly to meet him. I'm unarmed, because "Of course they can't get to me. I'm behind two locked doors!" and this is going to kill me...

...and it gets close enough for me to see that "he" is a "she," and she's emaciated and nothing but bone, skin and wiry muscle and hunger and fuck I'm going to have to punch a girl to save my life as I loop a right cross straight into her oncoming jaw, and she drops to the roof...

...and I grab my водка and run for the door as she scrambles to her feet and makes the sprint after me with frightening speed, and I stop and duck as she comes at my back and misses her grab and I stand up straight into her jaw and she staggers backwards...

...and I spin around and plant a solid left into her gut and she doubles over but she has a grip on my back and can't bite through my shirt but I stand up straight and she flips over my back to the ground at my heels...

...and I spin again and kick her in the head and she grabs her head and it gives me just enough time to get to the door and open it...

...but she's on her feet and after me and through the door just as I pull it shut and now I'm in the stairwell to the second floor with a crazed bot-ridden woman who lunges for me...

...so I throw her over the railing and she hangs on barely and I'm running down the stairs and to the second floor entryway and through the door...

...and she drops from the railing and down all the way to the first floor and I hear the CRACK-CRACK of both of her legs snapping on impact and she screams in agony but she's up on both broken legs and trying to limp up the stairs...

...and the door to the second floor closes on the stairwell.

I'm now trapped in the building with a for-now injured bot-ridden.

Oh... and my knuckles are bleeding.

I may be infested as well.

[pcinvasion-blog]

New Post has been published on PC Invasion

New Post has been published on https://www.pcinvasion.com/battlestar-galactica-deadlock-review

Battlestar Galactica: Deadlock Review

Battlestar Galactica’s 2004 revival and its various spin-offs disappeared from our screens a few years ago, but it’s a series that retains a strong following. Despite this level of name-recognition and a setting almost tailor-made for the medium it hasn’t had much success in the world of videogames. Until now that is, when the license has been astutely dusted off by Slitherine and Black Lab Games for Battlestar Galactica: Deadlock; a title dominated by tactical fleet combat.

Based around the 2004 version of the series, Deadlock is set during the events of the First Cylon War. As prequels go, that puts it a long time before any of the events involving Adama and company. However, a couple of familiar surnames do crop up throughout, and the campaign story-line takes a brief pass at some of the more overt themes: uneasy Colonial alliances, authoritarian military decisions in times of crisis, and the ontological status of the Cylons in relation to humanity.

The narrative is pretty sparse (and while I did watch the show I’m not a die-hard, so I don’t know if this plot retcons anything), but it does a reasonable, if slightly confusing, job sketching out a version of events for the war. It’s with aesthetics, though, that Battlestar Galactica: Deadlock does the series much more justice.

Space bureaucracy, someone named Agathon … yep, this checks out.

The ship roster on both Colonial and Cylon sides has been expanded in order to depict earlier designs and provide a decent line-up for each. Alongside Jupiter-Class Battlestars and Cylon Base Stars you’ll find vessels like the pragmatic Adamant Frigate and the Raider-filled Cerberus Carrier. These creations fill their respective tactical roles, but also look and (mostly) sound the part.

Audio in Battlestar Galactica: Deadlock is handled very well. DRADIS pings sound straight from the show, and, while the studio didn’t get Bear McCreary, Ash Gibson Greig’s score does a fine job channelling a similar tone of space-mysticism. Combat effects are a bit more mixed (engines and missiles are generally good, Viper attack runs sound rather weak), and the voice acting ranges from decent to somewhat flat. You can’t skip any of the dialogue sequences, sadly.

The fact that it treats the license with care should automatically win the game a certain amount of affection. Those looking for a squadron-based fleet tactics game with a lighter dynamic campaign overview will find things to like too. After a few linear tutorial missions, Deadlock opens its galactic star-lanes up with a few elements reminiscent of XCOM. Cylon threats will harass the Colonies, resources run thin as planets consider defection, and named fleet commanders can be upgraded with straightforward skill trees.

Two fleets, and two Cylon threats. But I’ve also got missions to deal with.

The strategic campaign mechanics have a bit of an ‘old school’ feel to them, which I don’t mean as a pejorative, but which I do mean to imply are initially unforgiving. Aspects like how dedicated you should be to putting out the fires of Cylon raiding fleets, and what amount of ship losses can be deemed ‘acceptable’ without tanking your long-term prospects are left rather obtuse. A few display choices, like the method to check on Cylon fleet strength (not by clicking on them, or hovering over, but in a dedicated tab in the bottom-left) are poor decisions.

Only the semi-random Cylon fleets have their strength displayed at all, so whenever you approach a side or main mission you’re going in blind. Main missions escalate in a pretty identifiable pattern, but the side stuff (a useful way to acquire more resources) remains haphazard. You won’t know until you’re there whether you’re facing a handful of corvettes or the brute force of a Cylon vanguard (except for the missions that explicitly state it’s a Cylon strike team in their text). Retaining some suspense about enemy forces is fine, but the more egregious moments are likely to just get players re-loading a save.

But even though it’s somewhat flawed, the campaign layer of Battlestar Galactica: Deadlock does succeed in getting you to think carefully about allocating sparse resources to ship construction, research, and even to travel (spooling up your drives every single turn gets costly). That said, I think most will resort to creating powerful second or third fleets and auto-resolving the steady stream of Cylon raid encounters, as the alternative is awfully repetitive. I’m also unsure if you can ever truly ‘lose’ from too many Colony departures, as that never happened during my campaign.

Definitely blundered out of my depth here.

The tactical heart of the game is in the more crafted fleet encounters. In-game logistical limits mean that battles are restricted to seven (on your side) versus seven-but-sometimes-more on the part of the Cylons, but that often turns out to be plenty to consider when ordnance and fighters are included. I’m also not sure the present UI could handle the density of more ships.

Battlestar Galactica: Deadlock uses a turn-based system dubbed ‘WEGO’, in which orders are input for both forces and then the turn plays out in real time. That means you need to keep in mind where the enemy ship will be when you bring your firing arc (hopefully) to bear upon it. Same goes for the movement trajectory of all nearby vessels, because you don’t want to end up with a collision. Unless, of course, it’s a last-ditch suicide maneuver. Space in Deadlock is 3D, so there is a Z Axis in play with any movement decisions as well.

The AI doesn’t have any particularly incredible tactics, relying instead on numbers and (in missions) scripted surprises, but it does stick well to its roles. Smaller Nemesis ships will use their hacking abilities to cripple your fleet’s systems, Gunboat-type vessels will close in for broadsides, missile barges will generally stay back and launch salvos, and so on. It’s up to you to figure out the best counters to these combined-arms assaults. Often, that’s the ever-reliable Adamant Frigate, which can equip both ordnance (armour-piercing, anti-missile, even a nuke once they’re researched) and fighters.

The latter are incredibly useful. A few Viper squadrons can obliterate a much larger ship with a hole or two already punched through its armour. They’re quite handy in defense too, able to shoot down approaching missiles.

Things can get a little crowded when you’ve got a full fleet of seven and fighters galore.

A further layer is added by the ‘ship posture’ mechanic, allowing you to tweak how much of an attacking or defensive stance the vessel will have that turn. You can ramp up the defense to stave off a hacking attempt a little longer, or go for maximum levels of firepower just as you lure a ship into several firing arcs at once. The UI for applying all of these things is adequate, but also fairly basic in presentation and large enough to obscure parts of what can become quite cluttered space battlefields.

Satisfaction in the 14 mission (12-15 hour, on Normal difficulty) single player campaign comes from overcoming the odds in combat and leading your stretched forces to victory. Lack of resources (and the fleet cap) means you’ll always be up against it in the story missions, but deft use of the tools available will always give you the advantage over a capable, but somewhat predictable AI.

It’s then possible to revel in these victories even further with the post-mission replay function. I don’t normally make great use of these systems (a one-off spectacular goal in FIFA or something unique like SUPERHOT, perhaps), but the one in Battlestar Galactica: Deadlock is rather brilliant. It replicates the in-fight camera style from the show (a lot of pan-and-zoom, and Viper nose-cam) to retell the story of the battle. Several missions in, I was still dipping in to these to watch a bit of glorious tactical acumen played out in cinematic style.

Dramatic nose-cam action.

But while the post-battle replays are great, a major incentive to replay the actual campaign is presently a bit lacking. Upping the difficulty to its hardest setting (and struggling with even fewer resources) is really the one and only option, because once you’ve played the main missions you can’t ‘unlearn’ the times when additional Cylons show up. That initial mad scramble to adjust to new threats won’t really happen a second time.

To find new challenges in Battlestar Galactica: Deadlock you need to turn to Skirmishes (which can be both single and multiplayer). Offline, you can test yourself against Cylon forces as either Colonial or Cylon forces in mid-sized or large matches between pre-created or customised fleets. I can only presume you can’t fight against Colonial AI because it doesn’t yet exist.

Multiplayer offers both one vs one combat and two player co-op against the AI, the latter of which is an unexpected but welcome inclusion. All the tactical options from the single player campaign are available here, as are the same point-based and numerical fleet caps.

Playing around as the Cylons provides a neat change of pace.

Battlestar Galactica: Deadlock earns itself a lot of goodwill for the attention it pays to an unloved (in the world of games, at least) license. That care extends furthest to the tactical combat, which in many ways is a logical extension of Black Lab’s previous Starhammer title. Fleet limitations mean the conflicts are more squad-sized, but this does result in each ship being more of an individual unit than an expendable war resource; plus it avoids the awkwardness of even more UI clutter. The combined-arms approach of firing arcs, missile types, and fighter roles works well, and means each mission can present a compelling set of challenges with various solutions.

The strategic campaign layer is the weaker of the two distinct parts. Having the threat of Colonial defections affecting your resources is a solid retread from XCOM, but the Cylon raids are too haphazard and end up more like irritations than a genuine, constant danger. But it does possess a certain old school, obtuse challenge that I appreciate, and commits to making you allocate slender supplies. While Battlestar Galactica: Deadlock has its share of minor problems, they don’t significantly detract from some engaging tactical encounters within a universe of familiar sights, sounds, and Cylons.