#there are some differences between their actual home / the gameplay as well

[kusin-tisdag]

Ideas for Legacy-players

So, I'm a game play legacy-player. Meaning that I play legacies and let the game decide what will happen. Therefor I don't have a set plan for my Sims or make them into certain people. However, I have learnt over the years to at least set up certain things. I'm going to make this post to give ideas and tricks to others who play in the same style.

For me, playing a legacy is also about the family, it's history and the context for each generation. It's totally fine to play in other ways, but these are my thoughts on legacies - as a way to tell a whole family's history.

More under the cut because this got long!

Setting up the world

MC Command Center is your friend (here's a good tutorial)! Yes, we have neighborhood stories now, but with MCCC I find that more things happen, but also - you get pop-ups! I have pop-ups for everything that happens, which is important since I also care about my Sims' friends and extended family. (And I love gossip.)

MCCC also let's you control the amount of children your NPC are allowed to have. Since I forgot to fix those settings, I have some Sims with way too many siblings (lesson learned)!

MCCC is also just awesome for the quick "edit household in cas" which is very handy if your Sim is talking to someone with no sense of style. Or wearing broken CC.

When setting up your world, give yourself a moment to think about if you want an empty world or have the premade families in it.

Also, reflect on whether the neighborhoods are close or if they are far apart. The classic "just a loading screen away" or actual travel. For traveling this might be a good mod (I haven't tried it).

I like to keep my NPC in their homeworlds. I use kuttoe's Home Region and Townie Democraphic-mod.

Your generation - and the generation before

I have let generations just be gameplay. Gen 0 of my current one is very much so (and the Vasas was very much that). That's fun to play, but eventually might get.. a bit same same. Now, I try to create more of a story for the Gen that I play. Usually this starts to happen when the heir becomes a teenager. I start to understand who they are and what they might want to do in their 20s. For Una, that was The Strangerville Mystery - which I actually find to be a very good thing to play for a legacy player. So I drop things about their dreams and personality already through their teen years that then lead to their generation.

Take photos! Use the game's cameras and have your Sims photograph each other. I often forget this and I always regret it. Give the heir photos for them to keep, so they can eventually put them up on their walls. This ties them to their heritage - and this is important for me.

Also, think about how to weave in their heritage into their story. Was their parent famous? Has that affected them? Will others talk about their parents or grandparents? No one exists in a vacuum, and neither does your Sims.

I have learned to always move the heir out. I have kept them with their parents before, but it does "muddy" the line between generations and very soon I have too many Sims to focus on - and the heir gets lost. However - if executed well the differences between generations can be highlighted by having them close and interacting. Just take a moment to at least reflect on it.

Inheritance. Sure, monetary. Reflect on how much you want your heir to get help starting out their own life. But also - we all inherit something from our parents. We all take something with us from the generation before. Did they have a happy marriage? Divorce? Single-parent? What fears does your heir's parents have and how do they try to keep your heir safe? This can mean love-advice ("don't date werewolves!") or careers, to lifestyle choices in general. Do they approve? Disapprove? Neutral? Let your heir reflect on these things, at least a little.

Create a community

Already when your Sims are young - give them friends! Sojus guide to clubs is a great tutorial for this. Have these friends follow them through life. I always have my kids get to know children in the neighborhood by having them visit and just ask them to join. Or I add them manually if that's easier.

Then use this mod to add at least some of those kids to your Sims High School-class. (read the instructions!)

Depending on your Sims' story as they become YA/start their gen they might still meet these old friends. Or if they go on their own adventure they might reconnect later in life.

As your Sim starts their own family, add their friends as adults their child will now get to know. Have them over at birthday parties! Make them a part of your Sim child's life too. I always grew up with my mum's friends over for dinner and at my birthday parties. If your Sim's children are at odds with your Sim, these are the adults they could turn to instead.

If you chose to have a Sim who doesn't have a "community" have them reflect on it. If it stands out from your other generations, it should be addressed.

Your Sim

Who are they? How much do you make them into what you want, and how much is their own? This will always be a balance, but usually you'll have an idea about them and who they are as a teen and then I'll try to follow their wants and fears. To follow their lead is usually the best for me - it becomes more fun to follow their whims. Some wants - like breaking up or similar I try to build a story around.

Connect with your Sim. For me, this is done by writing dialogue for them. Some are not comfortable at all with this, but for me it has helped. You do you, but do try different things if you find it hard to connect with them.

For this, I have often found that it's the best if I play a Sim week and then edit. When I edit post I often figure things out about my sims, and how I frame their story.

Age spans. I have changed my age settings so many times (MCCC again!). You can find the ones I have now over here (will be seen fully once Gen 2 starts). Look at other Simmers that you like and see if you can find their age settings. In my game 1 year = 4,2 days and then I just do math and round the numbers.

Falling in love (or not) and family life

Does your Sim already in their teens start dating? Or are they slower to start? This is also depending on how much you play your Sims as teens, or if you still focus more on their parents (probably your current gen). But try to give it a thought, make a conscious choice. A shy Sim might not even dare to make a move while an outgoing might dare more - so use their personalities to help you.

Some marry their childhood best friend. This means you won't have a million dates with different Sims, but you still might want to think on how they keep the spark going. Do they share interests? Can they do more of this?

Some go on multiple dates. Think about how much time and effort you want to put into documenting their trial and errors. Too many posts about different dates that don't lead to anything might not be the funniest to read (or for you to create) (more on this later).

Some get pregnant in their early 20s. Once again, think about how that affects them. Do they want children? (check out this mod!) And having a child while young might affect their other dreams. Have them reflect on this!

And vice versa.

Sometimes, your heir just doesn't seem to be... very legacy oriented. Or maybe this Gen's story is about the tragic death of your heir! Enter - the spare and it’s descendants! Or, if found family is completely fine for you and genetics don't matter, maybe the torch is handed over to a friend's child instead!

And who to choose? I have previously simply chosen my fav. Now I force myself to chose the firstborn. Some use polls to help them!

For legacy players, family is the center of it. But how much? I find this to be a bit difficult to balance. If I have family-oriented Sims they will have many posts about their children but also their parents and siblings. I try to think more when my Sims are not family-oriented and avoid that many posts about every family-member. Because that would change the "feel" or "setting" for my generation. At the same time, I want to get to know my future heir, so their childhood and teen years matter. But maybe let them reflect more on their childhood as they become YA and finish playing your current Generation while you still have them?

Becoming an elder

Very rarely do I play elders. This is a shame, because I do think it's an important life-stage. But since the heir moves out, the previous generation often gets to tend for themselves.

I think playing elders somehow can still be done. I'm planning on having the kind of parents who don't stop meddling in their kid's life, or the heir who just enjoys using their parents money/house/claim to fame for themselves.

I have this mod, and am looking forward to using it more.

If your heir is family oriented, they will most probably want to visit their parents now and then, or have them over for holidays.

Your simblr

So, I guess you're here because you want to post your story. Most of us won't get many followers, so my guide is mostly to make sure I enjoy my own simblr.

Reshade/gshade. It's not the easiest to understand initially, but yes - I strongly recommend it. This can also help distinguish between generations, if you wish for example to give a more "dreamy look" to one gen, a "darker and harsher" to another etc. Do look around and nerd away with this! (1, 2)

When editing: SHARPEN! Resize and sharpen. Look at others, figure out a good picture size and edit. This will help.

Photograph using tab-mode and reshade. And, think about angles! Close ups? Further away? What kind of emotions do different angles create?

Keep the originals, if possible. This has often helped me when I need to make obituaries or for some reason "go back in time". I can then edit the original screenshots, not my edits.

Tag your posts! The amount of time I have forgotten a kid's name but managed to find it because I remember one of their parent's are... plenty. It's also a fun way to see when your Sim met another Sim the last time (especially if it's childhood friends!) Once again - this helps create context and community.

Also tag generations.

Set up some kind of page for your legacy. Have short recaps of each gen, help your readers (and yourself!) to remember what has happened before.

What to post and what to skip: I mentioned it before but multiple dates can get a bit same same. Also homework or running the treadmill (my sims always end up fitness freaks 😅). I usually try to post more the highlights or bigger events, and then use those "everyday"-posts in between. They still add something, and everyday life is still everyday life and a part of your Sim's story.

Poses. Posing might feel very stiff and usually if you have a gameplay-legacy posing Sims will stand out. I mainly use poses for photos that the Sims themselves take. I take posed photos every Winterfest and also at weddings.

In conclusion

Play for you. Play the stories you want. My ideas are mainly a way to remind myself on how to make that happen.

I am a storyteller. When not playing sims or on my day-job, I write. Original fiction, fanfiction, you name it. I love stories and I love characters. I want my Sims to reflect that.

I also do other things to keep me in my current heirs "world". I create pinboards and I follow instagram-accounts that remind me of them. I listen to music that I find capture "their" vibe. This is something I also do when writing, so it makes sense to me.

Not all of your thoughts and ideas or backstory is going to make it into the posts. That's fine. You know, and that's what should matter to you.

And finally: re-read your legacies. You wrote them for you, enjoy them!

And I think that was it! I do use many more mods than I have posted here. I have a resource page, a cc-finds -blog and I also try to link in my posts to any mods that heavily influence something that happens in the story.

Hopefully this was helpful for someone, or at least fun to read!

[rockethorse]

Calcinidae Bay Lot Tour: the Public Schools

Let's take a closer look at a few of Calcinidae Bay's community lots - its public schooling! This screenshot is actually three lots, with two lots overlapped using the Lot Adjuster. On the left is the high school, on the right is the primary school, and between them is a shared gymnasium and a semi-public oval (sports field).

More pics & CC-free decorating ideas below!

As always, these lots are based on shell challenges. The high school and primary school are actually shells that were made for me by @hugelunatic as stocking stuffers back in 2022 (I didn't forget about them!) The shell from the gym/oval lot is actually the smaller canteen building, with the gymnasium being auxiliary (because it had to be such a specific size/shape), and that shell is a 4T2 adaptation of LilSimsie's "Yeehaw" Shell Challenge that I grabbed off the gallery.

Starting with the high school:

If you peeked at the original shell, you'll see there was a two-storey 1x1 "column "room" in the middle of the lot, which made me think of a bell/clock tower and inspired me to use these shells for schools. Normally when I adapt a TS4 shell challenge to TS2 I choose the placement & orientation on the lot, but because these lots were made natively in TS2 I decided to keep the lot size & distribution as they were. This gave me a lot of additional space around the main building that was perfect for adding extra amenities like a library.

The ground floor of the high school has an administration area, lockers, mixed bathroom, sick bay, staff room, and two general-use classrooms that can each fit six students.

The teacher's lounge/staff room, and a small display/awards case. I needed something to do with that little triangular pocket, and now it's one of my favourite features. :)

Upstairs is two specialised classrooms - a moderate science lab and an arts room. I would have liked at least a home ec classroom as well, but I guess that'll be reserved for the eventual private school.

The canteen (cafeteria) is a separate demountable building with outdoor seating, some of it under a shade cloth. The library is also a separate building with a small computer bay and a group study area.

Moving on to the primary school, a much older and smaller building with some minor remodeling so the two schools look cohesive:

The inspiration for my gameplay/lots is a mish-mash of different cultural influences, but I play my schools like the standard Australian system; kids start in reception (about age 5) and attend primary school all the way through to year 6 or 7, then go to high school from year 6/7 through to year 12. Separate middle schools are much less common, and this matches with how the game itself handles kid vs. teen education.

I design my lots kind of "representationally", to get the best balance between realism and playability. While I enjoy including some details that don't provide actual gameplay, I don't want to build enormous, cumbersome lots just to achieve a 1:1 scale when my Sims will never actually need that much space. Plus, most shell challenges tend to be smaller, which I like. Hence why this school has only two classrooms, one for junior primary and a more structured classroom for upper primary.

There is a small admin area downstairs. Upstairs is the sick bay and a modest teacher's lounge/staff room.

The primary school doesn't have its own library, but it does have a small separate building that we in Australia would call OSHC - Out of School Hours Care. It's a service parents can book to drop their children off before school starts, or arrange for them to attend after school finishes until they can pick them up. They provide snacks and some edu-tainment activities. Lots of kids also attend OSHC over school holidays.

The primary school canteen/cafeteria is also a separate building. Both school canteens use the University cafeteria stove, so with the right mod students will be able to grab food there. In addition to an outdoor eating area and a small playground, there is a little produce patch between the two buildings where students are taught about horticulture.

And finally, the lot that joins the two schools, the shared gymnasium and Calcinidae Oval.

The canteen/cafeteria itself would generally not be open during school hours. Instead, the school and/or local council would operate it for profit or hire it out to a third party when the oval was being used for local sports teams and other events on weekends, holidays, and after school hours. Right now it's set up for just such a soccer match.

The inside of the "tuckshop". There is a bathroom on the bottom floor accessible from the outside of the building, while the top floor has two changing rooms for students or local teams.

The gymnasium also serves as an assembly hall for students of both schools. I think the teachers would either have a collapsible stage at the far end of the court, or just stand up in the commentator's booth to give the announcements. Underneath the commentator's booth is the equipment storage shed where many a teen couple has probably sneaked off to make out.

The back view of the tuckshop and the carpark shows how this lot overlaps with the primary school. The existing primary school is blocked from Sims walking through it by a combination of real fences and this hidden CC-free invisible fence.

And that's it for this tour! I'm pretty happy with how these lots look, how I utilised the shells, and how they all fit together in the neighbourhood. I want to have more lots overlapping and slotting together like this to give Calcinidae Bay a more seamless, open feel, like the hood really is connected.

I'll finish this post with some floorplans - if you read all this you're a champ, I hope it gave you some ideas for your own game, and I'd love to know what you think!

[less-dev]

We're making a Starbound/Terraria inspired space sandbox game!

We're making a 2D sandbox game similar to Starbound! Or uh, terraria in space.

#nodev contains shitposting

#planetarium contains dev progress

Specifics under the cut

Who are you?

Aspen - Project Lead, Programmer, Pixel artist, Sound Designer.

Hey! I'm Aspen, I've been programming and making games for many many years in basically every engine there is... But never felt the drive to finish one, until now! I consider myself very experienced in the engine we're using (Gamemaker Studio 2.5) and have confidence we'll be able to make this game a reality. I also run the Tumblr account, so assume it's me behind the wheel as a default. Thank you for checking the game out!

Alec - Concept artist, Character Designer

H a l l o I'm Alec, I like writing and drawing and painting and designing shiiiiiiiit. I adore world building and have frequent bursts of creative possession in which I conceive and birth the greatest ideas and concepts in a mere moment. Otherwise, I can be a total dumbass and completely useless. I'm good at colours 👌 I have been a 85% a home-brew DM for about 2 years now and that is the greatest proof of my ADHD-given God powers of creativity. Slay.

What a cool guy!

Design pillars

Immersion. Above all else, I would like roleplay (casual or serious) to be natural and well supported. I would like players to find engaging with the world, and it's characters to be very personal.

Innovation. Tropes such as "You spawn in a green forest and can walk left or right" will be actively avoided. Biomes will have generation that presents more unique movement opportunities. Such as geysers in rock pools launching players high up, or giant twisting vines that hold up chunks of land to hop between.

More quality less quantity. Planets will be significantly more content-dense than Starbound, and perhaps controversially travel between them will be more difficult/expensive as well. This would encourage players to take advantage of all the resources presented on each planet, instead of hopping from one to the next. This would also encourage us throughout development to give each planet as much love as possible. Each planet should feel like a 'miniature terraria world'. Though actually achieving that is easier said than done.

Meaningful content. Procedurally generating creatures from 100 different pre-set monster parts could technically produce limitless alien creatures for players to encounter. But in both No Man's Sky and Starbound. I find this novelty to wear off quick, these creatures are not manually, meaningfully crafted and beyond an unusual appearance and some shallow gameplay changes... They do not create much of a memorable experience for the player. In my opinion, anyway. I would rather hand-craft every creature and make them all significantly unique and interesting. That's not to say procedurally generated creatures won't ever have a place in the game, but they certainly wont be as prevalent as others games.

Okay well... What's finished?

Fundamental lighting shaders akin to Starbound.

Some world generation brushes and basic commands.

A text mark-up language (heavily optimised), and game chat.

Extensive custom debugging tools

Hard and soft-loading of chunks to save on as much memory and CPU usage as possible.

Complete unloading, and compression of chunks on top of the previously mentioned system. As well as a live-saving system.

Setting, Story baseline, and conceptualization of the first 3 playable species. Each species will have a different starting planet, and immediately different playthrough.

Designs and cultures of several additional unplayable races.

Character proportion tests, sprites and sketches.

First-pass on collision functions.

Weighted Tile variance and tile connections.

CONCERNS

Multiplayer. While I have made an online multiplayer game before and it's definitely doable for this game, it would require some practice in a one-off test game to be fully confident. It would also take a LOT of time.

Modding. As far as I know gamemaker games are notoriously difficult for players to modify. Something like Unity is far easier even without mod support. Gamemaker on the other hand is difficult even if I want to design systems in favor of modders. This is kind of a problem for later, I have faith there'll be something we can do to make it work... But a cursory look says it won't be easy. I would be extremely disappointed if there was nothing we could do.

[skemford]

Decided to refresh my knowledge of bendy protagonists personalities/quirks and i can say that i forget how distant canon Audrey is from fanon one sometimes

Here's relatively short list with Audrey character analysis+random tibbits (environmental/gameplay/voice lines)

(I'll appreciate if someone will interact+most of it is under the cut!)

1. Her workplace is an unorganized mess

On the right side: a couple of empty teacups, empty paper sheets, unopened envelope, books/notebooks, a toy ball and keys in the middle of the desk, storyboards that are UNRELATED to what she was working on;

On the left side: donut that she kept close to her elbow & storyboards while she was drawing + to-do list for a day

There's no WAY she'll be able to keep anything tidy. If you hc her and Bendy to have a familiar bond post game, she'll be as messy if not messier. Her home might be a wreck.

2. She easily distracts

- Audrey is working overtime and claims that she has "only eight hundred more frames to go" until the next deadline

But was she actually *actively* working?

She has unrelated items on her desk (listed above) and jumps on the first opportunity to get a coffee.

If she really did wanted to have a drink, she literally has a soda machine close to her office doors.

Some brands of soda do have caffeine in them, right? Getting a coffee looks more like an excuse for a walk.

Bonus point: if you'll stay in her office without getting up (for 15 minutes), she'll acknowledge that she has no time to waste and will return to work instead.

- "Well, the coffee's good and all. But this work's gotta get done"

Worth to acknowledge: this girl has "employee of the month" award and some kind of animation award (boris statue) in her office .

Does she stays overtime everyday to finish something? Or other Archgate employees are even worse at their jobs, somehow?

3. She uses dry sarcasm or makes jokes a lot

Honestly, it happens really often and should be brought up in fan content more imo.

Due to the images limit i can't put a lot of examples with screnshoots but I'll quote some of them.

- "i think you and i have very different definitions of alright" (toward Allison)

- "Looks like he's having a bad day" (about dead lost one with the gent pipe)

- "Ok! Yeah! And that totally makes sense" (reaction to an easter egg)

- "That's one leap of faith i definitely won't make" (about the pit in animation alley)

4. Audrey gets defensive when someone starts to talk over her or when she feels overwhelmed

Audrey either will deny what was said or will acknowledge it by being sarcastic

Prominent example of this is her reaction to Memory!Joey at the hotel:

- "Oh,now you knew my father. Well, newsflash! I didn't even knew my father...or my mother. Or anyone else in my family" (after Joey says that she has "adventurous spirit of her father")

- "What? Are you crazy?... Who do you think you are?" (after the reveal of her being created by the ink machine)

+ Similar behaviour can be seen in her short interaction with Twisted Alice (Susie).

Audrey prefers to keep conversation equal between both sides and when it fails to work, she'll either stay silent or will express frustration (which can be seen with her replying "no" to Twisted Alice and not saying anything afterwards)

5. She seems to trust Allison enough to be vulnerable around her

After leaving the spider lair, she'll try to reach to Allison through the speakers

- "Alice? Are... you there?... Alice!"

She'll acknowledge that she feels scared and after Allison won't sound reassuring enough, Audrey's hand will be visibly shaking.

Allison is the only character Audrey has opened to; you'll never see her being that vulnerable with anyone else

(She is honest with Henry but not on this level)

It makes me wish they had more interactions; Allison for sure was really important in early development of the game.

6. She's blunt

Through the game Audrey is a type of person who says whatever is on her mind without hiding her intentions too much.

She's emotional and rarely thinks twice (most of her decisions are impulsive or sometimes irrational) which reflects on the way she talks.

It's often slips out through sarcasm when she gets defensive/tries to cope but it's also happens in relatively safe environment (for example, when she talks with Betty):

- "Are you...very old?" (Wilson's mansion, bedroom)

This one liner is the most random question you can say to a stranger; I doubt it was very well thought out from her side

7. Audrey easily trusts people which makes her easy to manipulate

I couldn't skip this one.

When Wilson has created a story about his "poor lost father" as a bait and Audrey did believed in this, there are multiple reasons for "why"

This either could come from her being "goodhearted" or the circumstances being used against her

- She went through whole "father trauma" in one day without being able to process anything & get proper answers:

An idea of "saving" another father (Nathan Arch) who she could've knew more than her own father (Nathan says in one tape that he meet young animators at least once) could've hit her really close to home

- Audrey never actually got a real answer on how to leave the cycle, teaming up with Wilson (who was able to enter and leave) could've looked like the only one way back

(I do acknowledge that writing in DR could've been better at places but if you do think about it in this way,it makes sense)

7.1. She is empathetic

I think that this part says everything for itself and it doesn't need to be explained. Thought, she's the one who decide if someone deserves it.

- She felt bad for hurting Bendy on accident & apologized when she was able to

- When she met Allison for the last time, she "gave" her this name, remembering that she doesn't like to be called 'Alice'

- At the end of the game she wants to try to make the cycle better for everyone.

Twisted Alice (Susie) was included which means that Audrey doesn't hold grudges against her (even with the latest one wanting to kill her previously)

8. Audrey puts her arm through an ink container without hesitation or any side thoughts

IT IS a game mechanic and lore wise you can relate it to her being an ink creature

But honestly? It's in character for Audrey.

We're talking about someone who decided to go to great lengths to catch an aquarium fish (that's kept as a pet) and wanted to use it...for a recipe.

8.1. She doesn't mind eating out of trashcans

If you think that wanting to use someone's pet for a recipe is too weird, you're actually wrong. But eating out of trashcan (when you have other options) may be.

Thought, she drives a line on a food that has flies or other insects on it (like "chocolate cake")...i guess in other cases, it's fine to her.

~~~~~~~

Trivial things:

- Bendy seems to be her favourite cartoon character.

She calls him "little guy" in prologue and keeps close to her storyboards where he's the main character:

In the cycle, she acts joyful when she first stumbles upon the real deal.

- She loves chocolate donuts

- Audrey uses dark eyeshadows (can be seen only in prologue custscene. It's hard to notice at first)

- Her breakfast from to-do list are toasts

- She has abstract Bendy painting in her office

- It can be speculated that she's uncomfortable with being touched (or with someone being physically close), unless, she's the one who initiates it

~~~~~~~~~

[sp0o0kylights]

Being from PNW as I am, I really want to do a Polybius AU with Steddie (I just don’t want to write it lmao) 

We begin with Eddie being absolutely attached to this growing urban legend. An arcade cabinet shrouded in mysterious gameplay, awash with rumors of kids disappearing or even dying, and men in black “collecting” something from the cabinet every week? 

Throw in his own little weird encounter with an arcade game as a kid, one Eddie cannot for the life of him find again and yeah, he’s salivating over this shit. 

Hellfire’s tired of hearing about it. This has been Eddie’s white whale since they met him, they’re done listening to him chase down rumors and insist the game was checking for psychic powers in the population. (Or testing a “mind weapon” or six other things.) 

 He gets met with nothing but groans and complaints when he catches wind that something like Polybius popped up on the west coast, igniting the rumors all over again, but this is a new tale for Hellfire’s freshmen.

They sit, enraptured  and asking six million questions, by something everyone but Mike thinks is just some silly bullshit story--but it’s so out there that Lucas and Dustin placate him. 

(“Why on earth would Brenner use an arcade cabinet when he was just kidnapping kids at birth Mike, you just want an excuse to see El…”)

Obviously Polybius IRL takes place in Oregon, but let’s say things have grown a bit. Extended, like the growth of a disgusting, pulsing vine, into California. 

Will is walking home when his hand flies to the back of his neck, a buzzing overtaking his ears as this weird, black arcade cabinet from a nearby shop seems to slide into his focus.

Slowly, like a camera lens being focused, it pulls him in until El yanks him out of it and he realizes he hasn't been breathing.

 Later he tells Mike--because he has to tell someone that isn't Jonathan and isn't El and absolutely isn't his mom-- and Mike absolutely loses his shit. 

This, of course, accumulates into a blowup at lunch, in front of the rest of Hellfire. 

Who are rolling their eyes because oh God, not only has Eddie infected the freshman with this, they’re now doing that thing they do where they get all secretive and try to talk in code words. 

(As if all of Hellfire isn’t aware they think “Mike’s girlfriend” who is about as real to them as Suzie is, has superpowers. 

The party is good at a lot of things, but whispering isn’t one of them.)  

There's an argument about whether this means Brenner, or someone like him, is collecting kids again and if so, do they have a responsibility to stop it, and that this isn't the Upside Down this is human horror, but what if it is actually the Upside Down, they don’t know--and it goes round and round between the Party in Hawkins and El & Will up in California, via phone calls. 

The Hawkins crew decides they need to go to California, together. 

They just…have to figure out a way to get there, first. 

Will & El on the other hand, decide they can’t wait, because they can save kids.

They can make a difference--prevent this shit from happening in a new location all over again.

El doesn't want to be like Kali anymore, but she understands what Kali was trying to do and she feels that same sort of responsibility to stop what she can. 

They disappear. 

Jonathan calls everyone he can, frantic, because he thinks Will and El have decided to go back to Hawkins, and his mother just left with Murray to do something she was extremely vague about and Argyle does not have enough weed for this.

If you guessed this accumulates with a Eddie + the Extended Party (Nance/Steve/Robin) going on a road trip you’d be right. 

Also they collect Suzie on the way because no one ever uses her in stories and fuck it she’d be fun to bring in. 

With them being in California you have Max’s past coming into play, as well as Eddie’s own mystery with the arcade cabinet, everyone crashing together at the Byers house (one bed or no bed either is hilarious for Steddie) and as we left the rest of Hellfire back at Hawkins to try and dodge six million questions about where like, ten people vanished off to (“Uh….camp?”) we get to have some fun there too. 

Throw in Eddie’s massive ass crush, “out of Hawkins”  Robin + Steve (who is perhaps a lot more chill with things than Eddie realized) and a need to go “undercover” at a gay bar purely for selfish reasons on my end (I want to see Steve flirt shamelessly with men and watch Eddie blue screen bc of it) and you have a lot of fun with the entire groups dynamic. 

I don’t have an ending other than Eddie at some point needs to play Polybuis and Steve drapes himself over Eddie’s back, whispering encouragement in his ear as a way to keep him from getting pulled into it the way Will was while the kids work together to kill whatever it is the government's unleashed this time (not Brenner, but instead another branch or faction who took his research and ran) but I’d love to parallel Eddie more to Will, on both the gay and supernatural fronts.

[melsie-sims]

Melsie’s Sims 4 World Map

Many months ago (well before Growing Together came out) I teased a world map I was working on... but never actually ended up posting the finished product. I’ve FINALLY polished it, and even added where I thought San Sequoia might be located. 

I thought I’d share it with you guys and explain a bit how my map will end up influencing my gameplay.

Here we have a full map view with all of the different continents. Every grid square is 20 miles (32km).

Under the cut there will be a grid-less option too, as well as a written list of all the worlds in each continent. Feel free to use either map for your own gameplay or if you want to incorporate it in your challenge rules! Just make sure to give me credit and maybe link my Simblr! Thanks in advance and happy simming!

I use Kuttoe’s Home Regions mod and have configured the settings so that NPC sims can only show up in worlds that are located within their specific continent. Clearly some worlds will be a lot more populated than others, but I think it’ll still be a very interesting way to play!  

For my current legacy challenge (Vega Legacy) my active sims will have no specific rule as to where they can travel, but I will try to keep the traveling to a minimum: once a day if they stay on the same continent, and once a week for worlds that are on different continents. 

I previously intended for sims to pay 100 simoleons per grid square traveled (200 simoleons if it’s an ocean square) and will probably still do that eventually... once my legacy founder has funds to spare. 

I’m also providing a grid-less option for those of you that prefer a sleeker look and don’t care about the specific distance between places. 

Continent 1

Willow Creek

Newcrest

San Sequoia

Copperdale 

Granite Falls

Moonwood Mill

Magnolia Promenade

Brindleton Bay

Continent 2

Henford-on-Bagley

Britechester

Windenburg

Continent 3

Glimmerbrook

Forgotten Hollow

Continent 4

Selvadorada

Tartosa

Continent 5

Oasis Springs

Strangeville

Del Sol Valley

Continent 6

Sulani

Continent 7

Mt. Komorebi

San Myshuno

[channel-eclair]

rating every major nintendo series on how well i think they'd work as an open world game

Super Mario - Bowser's Fury is an EXCELLENT showing of how this would work, and honestly I want a 3D Mario thats open world! I think it could work well! The only major challenge is having unique enviroments, as many open world games tend to have very standard enviroments. If you can make the world as unique and whimsical as Galaxy or Odyssey, we are absolutely set! Also maybe have like, Yoshis you can customize and ride for transporation. Also remember that Minecraft Mario pack that lets you see the Mario world all big and open? So good. - 9/10!

The Legend of Zelda - ....yeah. Even if you don't like BOTW/TOTK, open world really feels like what Zelda has always been building up to with Ocarina of Time's Hyrule Field and Wind Waker's Great Sea. It's perfect. - 10/10

Animal Crossing - uh...???? uhhhh... I mean like,.. I can imagine maybe, you have a portable camper home and you travel a huge world with every villager somewhere in the world.. but like.. no, no this isn't good. - 3/10

Splatoon - Actually I think more big open enviroments in Splatoon would be REALLY nice! I'd love to have fully inkable huge 3D areas! BUT I would prefer it more in the style of Super Mario 64/Odyssey where its just simple big sandboxes and not a full open world. I'd honestly LOVE a 3D platformer Splatoon spin off - 7/10!

Pokemon - This may be a hot take; but I think open world Pokemon is AMAZING. SV is the first time the games have ever felt like the anime to me honestly, a big open adventure with my dear Pokemon. Seeing a Pokemon Center in the horizon after a lot of battles, finally making it to the nearest town, camping anywhere... its AMAZING and I want more of it! (also while not open world Legends Arceus is a literal masterpiece) - 10/10!

Kirby - Forgotten Land is a masterpiece but lets stick to level by level! I just don't think this would compliment the series well at all tbh. - 5/10

Fire Emblem - Trying to picture this in my head... like... I could imagine Genealogy of the Holy War where the maps are HUGE. Maybe have proper walking around like 3H and SoV and you travel a huge map, and make camps, get into skirmishes, and one battle is literal several in game weeks. It would really capture a good war like feeling. Like some sorta mix between SoV's dungeon roaming and Genealogy's huge maps? I think it'd work great for a FE4 remake but really need specific circumstances elsewhere - 7/10

Pikmin - I actually remember people theorizing Pikmin 4 would be open world! Yknow, I think it could work well! Have spots to move your ship and various bases, and lots of different enviroments you gradually go to.. also, make it so you can get Pikmin types in any order depending on where you can go! I think it could be great, but I don't think I want it over what we have now. - 8/10

Metroid - Nope this would not work this game is supposed to be enclosed and mysterious - 1/10

Kid Icarus - Okay this isn't a major Nintendo series but I'm including it anyways because I think this could translate fun to open world! Like you have the on ground battle gameplay, but you can take flight whenever to explore the world... but if you fly around for 5 minutes, Pit proceeds to PLUMMET to the ground at full speed, leaving you stuck wherever you landed. I actually think it'd work a lot like say, a concept for open world Star Fox or any space game where you can fly around and get out of your ship, but without the stress of having to make tons of planets and instead making towns. I'd still prefer Uprising's style but I wanted to throw out ideas - 7/10!

[lyinginbedmon]

I know full well that I've got an uphill struggle when it comes to marketing Various Types, because it's 2024 and everyone already uses Origins and thinks it's the bee's knees (and to their credit, Origins is a good mod), so you'll forgive me for harking on about VT but I do earnestly believe that it is more than viable as a competitor of the aging popular mod.

All this was true as well back when what is now Various Types was part of Various Oddities (which itself enjoyed some considerable popularity whilst Origins didn't share space in the same modloader), but I'll try and break it down a bit to drive home why I think it's worth giving a look:

First, it doesn't work like Origins. In Origins, you choose (or are randomly selected) a "origin", of varying levels of "impact" usually between 0 and 3. Depending on server config, you might get another one after dying, but that's it. This means the range of gameplay is only as diverse as the datapack in use, because each player is locked into just one component.

Various Types, in stark contrast, actually presents the player with a full-blown character creation system. You choose a species, which is similar to an origin, and are then able to choose templates that modify it. Moreover, those templates can be stacked on top of each-other, in different orders and with different results. So whilst the range of gameplay is still limited by datapack, it is roughly combinatorially massive. The default species and templates that presently ship in the alpha, by itself, theoretically offer up to 286 builds (template conditions permitting). The server has a "power" setting that helps to constrain how drastically overpowered characters can be, but the variations possible without even breaking 5 power are staggering against the dozen or so origins that Origins ships with even today.

This ultimately means that players are always able to be at least a little different to one-another. Even if they share the same species as the foundation of their character, an Insectile player is quite distinct to an Aquatic one.

Even among the less-impactful templates, a Gravekin Orkin (essentially a still-intelligent zombified piglin) has some stark distinction from a Reptilian Orkin (roughly a lizardman). Though personally, I'd rather not get on the bad side of either one of them, especially if they just heard me call them piglins...

Secondly, and by absolutely no means least, the core component of the mod (the character sheet) has intentionally been constructed such that it is incredibly easy for others to expand beyond its current and original confines.

Want to build a magic mod and need to track what spells people have and how much mana? All you need to do is register a couple things to the right registries, and it'll work just fine. Want to build a class system on top of it and player an Othall Ranger or Muckie Druid? Same thing, same ease.

In essence, and with no shred of hyperbole, Various Types has the capacity to be the foundational element of any conceivable per-player customisation mod. Just as long as people give it a chance.

Thirdly, the laborious devotion to clean visual aesthetics. I'm not gonna give Origins much sheet for this one, it's very much a product of its age from when Minecraft didn't really support anything that wasn't a texture rendered on a repeating dirt background.

But Various Types really fits in with the more recent era of Minecraft UI. The character creator screen alone really deserves a look. Each species can be given a distinct background to complement its lore or function, such as the Crioch species being from the End and therefore having an End City as their background, versus the sunny green forest background used by the Overworld-native Linn species.

Every species, template, type, or ability can even be given custom lore text. All of them. The sheer volume of options for RP alone are staggering.

Oh, and did I mention that your avatar is visible in the creator screen? As well as the character sheet display screen?

Which doesn't sound like much on its face, you can see your skin in your inventory screen all the time after all. Except that's not actually a player being rendered in either screen.

It's a custom entity. With a custom model. That can play animations.

Every time you open that screen, your avatar will wave at you to say hi. Stick around on it long enough, and you'll even see them strike a pose right out of a fighting game or casually sit down for a moment.

You can even see what your build will look like in full on the character sheet screen before you finalise it.

And that screen is itself no slouch. It prioritises clean minimalism whilst still giving access to every detail of a given build.

Which is great, but especially so because Various Types has four favourite ability keys (which you can assign activated abilities to quickly and easily from the ability menu, from which you can also just click on any ability to activate it) and absolutely no limit on how many abilities you can have. Passive OR activated.

It's really more comparable to the UI screens of Minecraft Dungeons or Legends than anything on offer by any other mod in the same niche.

Seriously, go check this mod out. It's in alpha right now, but more or less the only thing missing from it is just more abilities, and I've got a list as long as my arm of those to implement.

[unia102]

Me when I’m big brain.

So inspiration to @crumb-crumblet-s-crumbington for their Ethan work and @granola-slut-quet for bouncing this idea with me!!

So an Ethan and Rebecca team up fan game. Hear me out: Rebecca is sent out to study and collect samples of this new virus going around the markets and in true RE fashion, it goes horribly wrong as the sample she gets, mutates and takes over her only form of transportation, forcing her to flee into the woods of Europe. Basically all of her supplies are lost and all she has is a knife, and a radio that can’t pick up shit. Eventually through the will of god she finds an old hideout black market traders were using, giving light exposition on the new virus and running into a a ‘survivor’. It’s Ethan. He’s of course presumed dead after RE8, only surviving through sheer stubbornness and my word. He’s trying to get back home making up a story of being kidnapped and ‘infected’ after hearing Rebecca researches this.

There’s two big sections: the Rebecca section where she’s hunting down ingredients and tools to try to make a serum for Ethan

And Ethan sections where he’s trying to carve a path home, while trying to single handedly take down every single cell this corner of the world in order to help Rebecca.

Rebecca sections are your classic RE fare, item management, guns, puzzles, and crafting. She has the ability to heal herself more and do puzzles that involve more biomedical processes. Don’t quote me on this. She’d have more of your classic tank controls, while Ethan is his typical 1st person POV gameplay.

Ethan on the other hand deals with more Shadow of Rose DLC where he can use his mold powers to get through obstacles and enemies. The downside is if you use this too much the mold takes over you and it’s a game over. So you have to take it slow and steady still and balance between using a gun that’s weaker but won’t KO you, or a much more powerful mold attack but constant use without any items to reduce how molded you are, will result in a KO. The more you use Ethan’s mold powers the more visibly moldy you get: mold on the edge of the screen, your pants and grunts are replaced with growls and hisses, occasionally you’ll run on all fours. You’ll also look visibly different in cutscenes and Rebecca will react accordingly to this. Such as concern for him being more animalistic than human, and removal of certain scenes

The syringes used to curtail the mold is something that’s used by the black market traders to hinder the molds progress during transport but it never was a solution and that’s why Ethan was in the area, he was looking for some as his mold is almost constantly growing and threatening to take over.

As quoted by granola slut, there are boxes where you can drop supplies, so when you go over the area again as the other character, or in a different area, you can retrieve these supplies and balance out the items you have. This also gives more of a mechanical interaction with the dynamic duo to endear the player to their dynamic. ((I’m very bitter about RE7’s way of handling Mia))

During cutscenes there is their banter and just generally call backs to older games. For example a scene talking about their ‘hard head friend of gold’ is really just them talking about Chris and neither of them knowing. As well as chances to trade collectibles and get your achievement hunter on.

So when the big reveal that Ethan has actually been molded for a while and is lying to Rebecca about everything? Well fuck that break up!! Rebecca doubles down and holds Ethan because that man has been through a lot and he just wants to live a normal life and she respects that. They’re in this together and they care for each other. They are brother and sister and you can’t stop me.

Either way

At the end the big but predictable reveal that Ethan can’t be cured comes up, and they take down the headquarters of the local ring that’s been causing them problems. Rebecca manages to get a rescue but Ethan despite wanting nothing more than to see Rose, also really doesn’t want to be studied like a bug. Rebecca pulls out her girl boss powers and manages to get Chris to stand down and let Ethan live his life. His condition is manageable and he’s no less of an intelligent and lovely being than any other person. So Chris is strong armed into letting Ethan live his life and it’s our first happily ever after with and RE series in a bit because holy hell they need this

:)

[lesbiansforboromir]

Just saw your posts abt the return to Moria songs - was about to ask if you'd got your hands on the game yet! After the trainwreck of the gollum game I'm rlly interested in your opinions/thoughts on return to Moria, lore wise and mechanically as a game, the trailers always looked great & development sounded like it was going well but since it came out I've mostly been seeing poor reviews. What's the lesbiansforboromir verdict so far?

RTM?? HAS?? POOR REVIEWS?? I'll- m. I suppose. People are entitled to be wrong. Anyway well I fucking love this game.

Honestly I dont want to talk about it as a game like the gameplay is fun, I like exploring and mining and making my little bases with all my friends okay, do you want to be a dwarf and do dwarf things in The Dwarf Place with 7 of your little dwarf friends?? Yes?? Good! The game is literally only 31£ which in comparison to most titles that come out these days is so emminently affordable I was honestly shocked I could get it.

I suppose to be clear I was a beta tester for this game like I've been rooting for it for ages so I guess I was primed to enjoy it but!! Like!! What I actually want to talk about is Return to Moria as a piece of art earnestly engaging in dwarven spirituality and narrative as something moving and poignant in and of itself. The mood and narrative of the game is built more on the experience of playing the game than any story or dialogue.

You have come from any corner of dwarvendom, at Gimli's calling, to reclaim Khazad-dum after Sauron's destruction. For some reason though, the doors both east and west are blocked, the pass code no longer works. In attempting to mine through there is an accident and you fall through the floor into Moria, alone.

Now, I would posit that there are two very different games within this game. On the one hand, you can play with friends. You fell through with a few other dwarves and after finding each other you begin to figure out what to do. You deligate tasks of resource collecting and exploration and base building, someone will cook breakfast for the group in the morning for you to all have together, when you mine together your voices join up into lovely shanty-like melodies and at the end of a hard day or some victory you have a mug of ale together and sing around a fire. If you fall, there is someone to pick you up and the burden of the shadow is born by all, it feels right. You can also distribute different 'masterworks' between all of you, so you are never in the dark, you can always mine swiftly through obstacles and someone can offer you a restorative if you need one. The feeling is so right, like this is simply how dwarves always should be, and as you more rapidly clear rubble and repair the world around you the sense of togetherness and reclaiming a home are very powerful. You still long for Durin's return, you sing his song together each time you mend his statues (all my group instinctively waited for everyone to be gathered before mending any of Durin's statues) but you also feel a part of the great dwarven whole and it makes the game a kind of hopeful determined experience. Like yes the damage of the past is great, and the future is uncertain, you have no guiding light. But you do, you have each other, the dwarves will endure and bring their own light to dark places once again. Together.

But if you are playing alone? It is an entirely different experience. And the singing is really the clearest expression of that difference. Whereas with friends your voice will be raised with your fellows and produce really pleasant melodies, alone there is only you. It seems obvious, but there is something about being on your own, mining an iron vein because you need weapons and armour to defend yourself against the orcs that you can see and hear watching you from the darkness, waiting to strike, and you begin to sing, just to yourself, in a voice that is often not particularly beautiful, but you have to do something just to make yourself feel less alone, to calm your own nerves when you feel like a wolf could silently creep up behind you and attack at any moment (a real threat that happens a great deal during solo-play). It is not joyful anymore, it is desperate, you always start off by humming as though you need to psych yourself up to actually raising your voice in the hollow halls. You are always running out of space in your inventory, one dwarf alone cannot carry everything needed to set up safe havens everywhere you want, and as for masterworks? You have to choose between easy light and a raft of other far more useful things like a cask of miruvor, an unbreakable shield, a pickaxe that cuts your mining time in half! You will still choose the light in the end. Where all the leftover dilapidated bases you find felt cosy with friends, now they feel empty, too much space for just one dwarf. You drink and dance alone now, at the end of a weary day, trying to buoy yourself into enduring another one tomorrow, there is no one to celebrate successes or commiserate failures with. And it FEELS wrong, a dwarf alone in here feels wrong, that community you want to turn too for guidance isn't there, and neither is Durin. The sensation that King Thorin Stonehelm III was right, that you should have waited for Durin's return before trying to restory Khazad-dum, is most powerful in soloplay.

The only time you feel that togetherness, that you dont feel alone, is when you mend one of Durin's statues. Whilst you start off singing the song of durin alone, as you continue other voices join you in an uplifting veneration that every dwarf knows. It's the only time in solo-play that you will hear more voices than just your own. It's like a way to connect to the great whole that is the dwarven people, that you are so cut off from right now but that is never wholly gone, as Durin is also never wholly gone. He is the conduit that connects every dwarf in the world and the longing for him is far more potent in playthroughs where he is the only dwarf you can turn too. Despair is a literal mechanic in the game that will slowly sap your life away if you spend too much time alone in the dark.

So a solo experience of the game more emphasises this fear of the future, fear of the unknown, of walking alone into a world that is dark and dangerous and full of pain and loss. You still have victories, but it is gruelling and each one feels more miraculous.

So that's my take, also obligatory mention of the coolest fucking multiplayer gaming moment of my life where me and three friends walked the pilgrim's road of Durin, found the source of the Kibil-nala where a great monument is built as shrine to Durin's passage, restored it and sang to it together (all of us deathly silent in voice chat just to listen) and the song ending just before we were attacked by a horde of orcs rushing into the chamber whereupon us FFFUCKING NERD ASS BITCHES turned around yelling (in our real human voices, not discussed beforehand) 'Baruk Khazad' and 'Khazad ai-menu' with our weapons raised and defeated the orcs at the threshold LIKE... Theoden screaming 'death' levels of adhrenaline and emotional investment I tell you.

Anyway I have to go now, LOTRO's Umbar update finally downloaded ciao

[thessalian]

Thess vs the Proving Lab

Welp. That happened.

And here we are - what's left of HADES. I mean, I'm surprised there's anything left of HADES at all, honestly. But I guess Sylens doesn't have so much a concept of mercy.

HADES, you are a shitheel. I mean, the Derangement and the Mysterious Signal probably contributed to that, but I don't think getting mucked with by Travis Tate et al helped all that much.

So ... wait ... Sylens, are you seriously telling me you left HADES alive (insomuch as an AI is alive) specifically so you could keep your word way back when you said you'd give me the means to destroy it? ...Well, if I'm running around settlements that look like Dreamer's Terrace, I guess it's fitting that I've got Fae-wording bargains coming from this dipshit.

And now you give me a schematic to let me ignite firegleam. Only when it suits you. Ugh, fine, I'll go hunt Leaplashers. (I hate Leaplashers.)

Best way to deal with Leaplashers - from the next post code over.

"Story and Easy Mode: you do not have to shoot off the power cores--" Can I ... do it anyway?

Right. Firegleam ignited. In we go!

So ... there was no mechanic for just ... letting me swim there? Really?

We're really hammering home the parallels between Sobek and Aloy, aren't we. Also ... why can I not punch Travis Tate in the face? I mean, really, I want to punch him in his face.

.........Well, this wasn't what I was expecting the "We still have dozens of hours of gameplay to give you so we'll contrive a problem" to be, but I'll take it. This game really enjoys kicking one in the metaphorical balls.

Sylens ... these are unknown quantities trying to come through the door, and you're not tellng me nearly enough, but I've done enough reading to know that the little you say you know? Is complete bullshit.

Yeah, see? Though now I'm almost regretting having crunched that particular Focus because I want a very good, very solid, "I TOLD YOU SO" right now.

(Also, if she was carrying around a spare Focus - or several, given what she told Varl at the beginning - why did she not do that six months ago? Or even when she discovered what he did to HADES? She knew Sylens had spyware! If she wanted to keep getting answers from him, she shouldn't have destroyed the spyware-filled Focus; she should have shoved it in a belt pouch and used a different one - at least until she wanted to pry answers out of Sylens again.)

...What the fuck are you people wearing? Did you get all your ideas on future fashion from Star Trek: TOS? That's tacky as fuck, guys.

Except you, Mini-Me. ...I have a Mini-Me. Great. And someone really needs to give you some actual shoes. Your feet must be cold.

(Yes, I notice this shit.)

Okay, these are not the machines I know, and ... yeah, I read a review at some point that talked about the "new machines" and how disappointing their designs were, and ... I get what they mean now. Robots should not ooze.

"One is trouble enough". Oooooh, Sylens, I wish I'd left you eavesdropping. Just because of how much you fucking hate being wrong.

Oh, so your horrible blingy jumpsuit has a forcefield on it. So this is going to be the most annoying fight ever.

...I get Aloy wanted information, but why was there no option to just jump in the damn water and swim?!? Why did she have to play some demented version of Tag to crash an entire ... whatever that fucking thing was when it wasn't even going to hurt him?!?

So jumping puzzle plus oxygen management plus stealth out the ass. This has been the most annoying fucking thing ever and I hate it. Good thing I'm way better at stealth.

...Crippling by Cutscene. THANKS FOR THAT.

Ah. Hi, Varl. Guess you're feeling better. I personally feel like shit. But I'm going to Do The Thing anyway--

Okay, that's fucking clever. The Utaru name their settlements for music because they remembered the old "do-re-mi" scale-singing from their ancestors' Cradle teachings, and let it live on in the name of their "land-gods". And this is the first civilisation that actually acknowledges what the machines were supposed to do. Everyone else treats them as a hazard at best; the Utaru worked in concert with them. So ... basically it's the Utaru that have it right. Neat.

Yeah, go be with your girlfriend, Varl. I will stay put, I promise. If only because a) the cutscene wants me to and b) I don't want to be that much of a hypocrite given everything I've said to you and Erend over the last little while. Also, c) someone ought to have a romance option that isn't one throwaway bit in the DLC.

(YES I KIND OF WANT TO ROMANCE EREND SHUT UP.)

Aaaaaaaand my ribs are better. And little green exclamation mark. Hi, Xenophobe Lady.

...Aloy? Why could you not just explain to the Xenophobe Lady what a 'thrush' is?!? Maybe she'd stop being such a bitch!

Right. I know there's all this saving-the-world stuff (though I have to admit I'm a lot less jazzed about that when I'm fighting Futuristic Techno-Gods or whatever), but I'm going to take a break and then I am going to go and ignite every bit of Firegleam I have passed so far. It has been taunting me.

(No, seriously, Futuristic Techno-Gods who bring all of the mindsets of the Old World with them? I don't want this. I am in this game for seeing how civilisations might shape themselves outside of the influence of the Old Gods - this is speculative fiction at its finest! And now you're giving me Futuristic Techno-Gods who are, in point of fact, generations old? And where were they all this time?)

(...They were in space, weren't they. IF THIS GAME SENDS ME TO SPACE I AM GOING TO THROW IT OUT THE WINDOW. METAPHORICALLY.)

Right. Yes. Break. Then, Firegleam and hunting. I ... am weirdly less jazzed about this game now that we're bringing the Old World this far into it. There's still enough for me to love, but none of it's the main plot. It's getting space-opera convoluted here - more clones, advanced technology, people treating the civilisations that formed without APOLLO as lesser--

...Wait. If we have APOLLO and DEMETER and HADES and HEPHAESTUS ... why do we have MINERVA? Every single one of the subordinate functions, and even the rogue AI Nemesis, were named for Greek gods, so why didn't they go with ATHENA?

Anyway, we're going into a vaguely colonialist direction far beyond shit like the Carja being stuck-up about everything and I am not sure I like it. Also I want to punch Sylens in the face for effectively arming the rebel Tenakth. What does he gain from destabilising the region? More to the point, what do these Techno-God dipshits gain from it? They have to be helping with that shit somehow.

[bluegekk0]

1 does holly remember any of the spells from the pale vessel fight 2 does holly remember godhome and what happened there 3 was godhome like a dream for hornet or the nailmasters? 4 how are the nailmasters and sly doing? 5 how are cornifer and iselda 6 did the knight finish seer's quest

Oh that's a lot of questions, let me think.

1 - They remember some of them, yes. Particularly focusing to heal, this wasn't a thing in the fight but I assume it's something anyone who learns soul magic can do. They can only heal themselves, though, and to a limited degree (like I mentioned in a previous post, they can't grow back the arm or heal any of their disabilities, only surface wounds). The biggest reasons why they don't generally use soul magic in the AU are: 1. they don't really feel the need to, the domestic life doesn't require combat abilities and they rarely have to heal and 2. they don't have a constant source of soul to use, there are some soul totems scattered around Hallownest but they rarely travel outside of Dirtmouth, and the hot springs in the AU are just water that contains minerals which help you relax and focus, they aren't a source of soul. So while they would in theory be able to use some of the spells, they choose not to.

2 and 3 - Godhome in the AU works a bit differently, I decided to interpret it that way to fit my vision for the AU. It's, as the name suggests, the home of the gods, those which do not have physical forms such as The Radiance and other gods that I want to design some day. Another name I tend to use for this place is The Gods' Plane. The hall of gods doesn't exist in the same form it does in the game (I choose to interpret that part as simply just a gameplay thing with no lore implications). Godhome/The Gods' Plane can be accessed with a Dream Nail through the Godseekers, who I imagine have a similar role to the Moth Tribe and thus similar abilities. Through the hall of the gods, you can enter individual realms of the gods (for example, The Radiance's dream realm, as well as the realms of Unn and The White Lady; the nightmare realm was once part of it but was separated following Grimm's banishment).

So none of these characters were actually there in the AU, physically or through dreaming. The way I imagine it, The Radiance was "summoned" to Godhome from her dream realm and challenged by Ghost. The void then followed, seeping through Godseeker's mind into Godhome. Perhaps Holly witnessed the fight in their consciousness, but they weren't part of it - to them it's more like a memory. So they're the only one who remembers what happened, even if the Pure Vessel fight didn't actually happen there. I hope that makes sense.

4 - Sly moved to the City of Tears after the infection ended, in hopes of becoming rich, to put it short. He has his little shop in the city and finds many more customers than he ever did in Dirtmouth. I imagine he and Lemm are direct competitors since they ended up selling very similar items, so there is some beef between them.

The Nailmasters are where you'd expect them to be. Sheo and the Nailsmith are together, and the other two still live in their huts. Though I like to think Mato visits Dirtmouth from time to time, so he's the most involved of the three brothers. Perhaps there's something going on between him and Brumm, wink wink.

5 - They still live in Dirtmouth and run their shop, though Iselda began joining Cornifer on his trips. They are good friends with the Vyrm family, especially Vyrm himself since Iselda played a big part in helping him recover after the Grimmkin incident (she ran after Brumm as he carried bleeding Vyrm home and then helped with treating the wound). Cornifer is also buddies with him, and Hornet often accompanies him during his trips if they overlap with her morning patrols.

6 - They did, yes. They were collecting dream essence anyway and decided to help her. Which means that the Moth Tribe (that is moths associated with The Radiance, I imagine there are still moth-like species out there) is officially extinct in the AU.

[ohthehypocrisy]

Marvel VS Capcom 4EVER - The Perfect Dream Game

(This is going to be something different from my blog's usual content. I don't just love pokemon, I'm also a really big fan of crossover fighters. My very first fandom was Super Smash Bros. and it was where I started writing fanfics. I may not be all that good at 2D traditional fighting games, but I enjoy the time I spend on them. As such, I will be talking about Marvel vs Capcom and what I would want the 4th game to look like)

-

The Marvel VS Capcom series is a franchise founded on hopes and dreams. When an unlikely collaboration spawns one of the most fantastical crossover events in history, well before Super Smash Bros. Ultimate was conceived, you can imagine that it is fondly remembered and well regarded in its popularity and gameplay.

And yet, with such powerful Intellectual Properties populating the series, the games are rife with copyright power struggles and negotiations. So much so, that the game had been in limbo for as many years as it had been played competitively. The demand is there, the problem is that no one can decide how much money both sides should be making to allow for a character to be put into the game and to get punched in the face.

To put it into perspective, Marvel VS Capcom 2 came out in 2000, and it pulled a Masahiro Sakurai and included every character from the past games plus a little extra. The game was entirely 2D with mostly reused sprites, which is how it got away with a whopping 56 characters on the roster right out the gate. This also created some balancing issues as the top tier characters from previous games were also top tier here as well, though that topic of discussion is beyond my area of expertise. All you need to know is, there's a reason all the top level matches have the same 5 or so characters.

Now, as for Marvel VS Capcom 3, that title came out in 2011, a whole 10 years after the arcade experience was brought home. The hype was still there, but the series would run into some licensing issues in the background. It's how we got Ultimate Marvel VS Capcom 3 less than a year later, and how Marvel VS Capcom Infinite came out the way it did. Though perhaps it would be best if you, the reader, looked into that yourself, as I'd rather talk about Marvel VS Capcom 4, or rather, what it could potentially be.

Since the Marvel VS Capcom Fighting Collection was announced, I have been ecstatic about finally owning these games that I would rarely see. I didn't go to arcades all that often, but I always liked going to look at all the cabinets and all the games I've never seen before. Remember, arcades were a big deal back in the day, and the internet wasn't, so this is where you would discover games you haven't heard about. This is how I learned about Marvel VS Capcom, and how I fell in love with crossover fighters in general. I was a 90's kid growing up, so these quarter consuming cabinets were like a vivid dream to experience. And being on the autism spectrum meant that a strong first impression would consume my waking thoughts for years on end. It's my hope that a rail shooter collection comes out soon so that I can reexperience 'The Ocean Hunter' in all its glory.

Back to the topic at hand, the rerelease of these games would imply that relations between Marvel and Capcom have mellowed enough that all the licensing headaches for this collection passed like a mild flu. It's a bit of wishful thinking, but the door might be open for a potential new iteration of Marvel VS Capcom. I mean, everyone has been talking about it lately, so I figured I'd put in my own two cents.

Before we begin, we do have to go over why MVC Infinite isn't being given the honorary title of number 4, and there are a few reasons. One of them being the confusing order of titles of the franchise. Marvel VS Capcom 2 is actually the 4th in the series, starting with X-Men VS Street Fighter, though it could also be the 6th of you started with X-Men: Children Of The Atom. So what would that make UMVC3? It was an updated rerelease sold less than a year after MVC3, so does it count or should it be a separate thing? MVC Infinite didn't use a number in their title, though if you tilted the ∞ sign you would get the number 8, which is the exact number of games in the series if you count UMVC3 as a hefty DLC bundle.

The other reason is because of all the executive meddling that poisoned the roster. What is a Marvel VS Capcom game without Wolverine or any of the X-Men? Well, you get MVC Infinite, that's what. On top of the squandered roster, there were loads of criticisms over the models looking the way they do. I'm not gonna dwell on this bit for too long, but don't be surprised when you hear people boldly claim that Infinite isn't a true MVC game.

So, what would a Marvel VS Capcom 4 look like? Everyone has their own ideas, but it seems that no one can decide on a concrete roster for Launch Day. I specify 'Launch Day' as it's to be expected that a big game like MVC4 will have DLC, it's how you keep a game like this alive for as long as there is work to be done. I mean, I've yet to hear anyone complain about DLC for this series, except for when UMVC3 was announced, but that is the exception that proves the rule. As long as it doesn't happen again, you can do no wrong.

Well, what do I think? After all, this is my post, my idea. As such, I'm proposing a base roster of the best of both worlds, the absolute pinnacle of popularity for the birth of the best beat 'em up game ever made. I'm talking the top picks like Cyclops, Ryu, Wolverine, Chun-Li, Captain America, Mega Man, Deadpool, Dante, all the fan favorites that would guarantee a Day 1 buy for everyone.

But I'm also proposing a massive DLC roadmap for the game's foreseeable future. With a plan of releasing new characters for the game as time wears on, the starting roster and number of characters don't really matter that much. Granted, there are some characters who are nonnegotiable for the starting roster, like Spider-Man and Morrigan, but as long as everyone understands that there will be loads of DLC characters coming down the line, you can guarantee that Launch Day sales will go through the roof.

Think of this potential game to function like Fortnite, or more specifically, like a live service. Now, I know that live service games have performed very poorly, but that's usually because of bone-headed executives making the decisions for the developers. There are live service games that do very well, like Splatoon for instance, or the aforementioned Fortnite. Since the plan is to gradually release new content, it'll pay to make everything accessible to the players by turning it into a live service.

Of course there's the issue of what the base price for the game will be or if new characters will be paywalled. You have to charge SOMETHING to make a profit, especially if you want to pay your team to make new characters. In a perfect world, the game and characters would be free and all the monetization would be made through cosmetics. But the fairest asking price would be between $60 and $70, with the promise that all characters released through DLC will be free. Of course, the developers and the company won't leave the money on the table, they'll probably whip up a battlepass or something to engage daily play. Again, as long as the characters are free and everything else is cosmetic, we can't complain too much...

In order to keep the game fresh, however, new character releases should be released in bundles. Even with the starting roster of about 30 or so characters, fans will always want something more out of the game. But the developers are only human, and crunch time is one of the worst things you can do your workers. As such, the DLC shall be 'seasonal' with each release period being named after a Marvel VS Capcom title. For instance, 3 months after the release of Marvel VS Capcom 4, the first seasonal DLC will be called 'X-Men VS Street Fighter' with 6 new characters from these Intellectual Properties, and more coming later down the line. The seasonal DLC will last until a sufficient number of X-Men and Street Fighter characters have been added to the roster. That might get stale quickly, though, so maybe the rest will come out later in between seasons.

Following this trend, after 'X-Men VS Street Fighter' we'll get the 'Marvel Super Heroes VS Darkstalkers' DLC pack. And then following that, we can get the 'Clash of Super Heroes' pack, which is the subtitle for Marvel VS Capcom (which is the fifth game). Then comes 'New Age of Heroes', followed by the 'Fate of Two Worlds' pack, then the 'Ultimate' Pack, and finally the 'Infinite' pack. The idea here is to cram this $70 game full of characters so that everyone who bought it will have their money's worth, and all the fans get all the characters they could ever want. Masahiro Sakurai, the Lead Developer of Super Smash Bros. Ultimate, left the industry with one of the most ambitious crossover games of history. A dreamed up version of Marvel VS Capcom 4 has to meet and exceed this insurmountable expectation of crossover greatness. Even if I'm not all that familiar with either Marvel or Capcom properties, I would want nothing less than to make as many people happy as possible.

So that's the plan, but what about the gameplay? I mean, you can't just release Ultimate Marvel VS Capcom 3 again with more characters and expect everyone to be happy, right? I mean, no, but the ironic thing is that a lot of people would love to have that. In fact, there's a massive mod scene behind UMVC3 right now and they're adding in loads of characters. If you're comfortable with tinkering around a bit in computer files, I highly recommend giving it a look. (It's also extra apparent at how apathetic people are about MVC: I, though that game is also getting its own mod update).

Anyway, as for gameplay, if we HAD to add something, I had the idea of throwing in something called the 4EVER Assist. It's why I titled the post the way I did, as this is how you add even more characters to the game. See, back in Marvel VS Capcom: Clash of Super Heroes, there was a random assist feature that you could pick along with your two main characters. This is where a majority of the games new sprite work came from, aside from newcomers like Venom and Captain Commando. Basically, you technically had a team of three characters, though the assist varied in strength and usage. The weaker and less effective assists could be called more often, but the stronger and better assists had very limited calls.

This assist system had very little risk to the player, which is why each one was ratioed with different number of uses. In other installments, each chosen fighter could be called for an assist, but summoning them recklessly could leave them vulnerable to combos from the enemy. But if you got clipped along with the assist you called, well, expect the crowd to start singing 'Happy Birthday', if you know what I mean.

Anyway, for my idea of Marvel VS Capcom 4EVER, both assist systems are combined, turning what was traditionally a 3v3 fighting game into a 4v4. The 4th character cannot be controlled, but they offer some benefits over regular fighters. For one, the player will never be out of assists if they are brought down to their last character, making comebacks a lot more feasible. Secondly, all characters on the roster can be delegated as the 4EVER assist and allows them to use exclusive moves when called as an assist. And thirdly, since it is only one move, you can have new characters exclusive to the 4EVER assist list that otherwise wouldn't make the cut, like Nick Fury or Cut Man. Not to say that these characters can't be promoted to fully fledged fighters down the line, but it'd be nice to have them around otherwise.

I've also got the idea of adding something called the 4EVER Ability, a passive effect unique to each fighter. This is closer in execution to Pokemon Abilities but tailored to the team fighter combat system. Basically, each fighter offers a different boon that affects the whole team, and since you can choose three fighters and a 4EVER assist, you can have four passive abilities active at once. However, if a fighter gets KO'd, their 4EVER Ability is negated for the rest of the match, leading to a structural degradation of team synergy. Of course, the 4EVER assist cannot be KO'd, so a player can make a last stand with at least two active 4EVER Abilities in play.

Here's a short list of 4EVER Abilities that would be in the game and their function:

Cyclops - "Dreams don't die!" Super Meter Generation is increased by 1.5x (Hitting and getting hit generates Super Meter, which can be used for Super Attacks, so an ability to hasten that generation is useful.)

Ryu - "I walk the path of a true warrior!" All 🡳🡶🡺P attacks deal 2x more damage. (This boon is restricted to Punch attacks, but all attacks, Supers, and Assists that use this motion get the power boost.)

Wolverine - "I'm the best at what I do." Your combo is more resistant to Damage Decay. (The later installments of MVC have a Damage Decay system where the longer the combo drags on for, the less damage you'll deal overall. Other fighting games have this. Wolverine's ability caps the damage drop-off much earlier.)

Ken - "Here's to a good fight!" All 🡺🡳🡶P attacks deal 2x more damage. (Same as Ryu's ability, but for 'dragon punch' motion attacks.)

Spider-Man - "With great power, comes great responsibility." Damage increases by 2x for each bar of Super Meter you have. (With you being able to control 3 characters, the Super Meter maxes out to 5, meaning a potential 10x damage increase for your combo. The damage is instantly reduced when you spend some for a Super, however.)

Mega Man - "Mega Buster, Power UP!" Super Attacks deal 2.5x more damage. (Super Attacks cost Super Meter, but they hit very hard, can fill the screen with damage, or even be used to counter other attacks. However, Mega Man's ability is still susceptible to Damage Decay, which Super Attacks tend to generate quickly.)

Hulk - "Hulk is strongest there is!" Damage is increased the more HP you have. (This ability grants a massive power boost in the first minute of the fight, but it wavers later on. Tagging in other characters is also risky if they are brought in recklessly and lose some HP during their assist calls.)

Captain Commando - "Let's go, Commandos!" Assists deal more damage the more HP they have. (Because of how integral Assists are to making combos, dealing more damage through assists is a powerful asset. But it can only scale up with how healthy you keep your teammates.)

Captain America - "Freedom prevails!" Reduces damage taken while blocking. (This one is self-explanatory, given how strong Cap's adamantium shield is. It's also crucial in avoiding chip damage during critical moments, as most attacks will still whittle down your HP bar, even while blocking.)

Mike Haggar - "The Mayor of America!" Throws deal more damage and it is easier to Tech Throws. (In contrast, working around blocking means knowing how to throw your enemies. This boon also increases the damage dealt through command throws. When you get grabbed, you have a very short window of time to input a grab to negate the attack, this is called a Tech Throw. This ability widens the window by a few frames, but keep in mind that command throws cannot be Teched.)

Doctor Doom - "Defeat is beneath Doom!" Damage increases gradually the lower your team's HP is. (MVC3 and UMVC3 had a comeback mechanic called X Factor, where activating it increased your speed and power drastically. But the less teammates you had, the greater the boost, functioning as a divisive comeback mechanic. I'm not sure if MVC4 will have a similar mechanic, so I'm a little hesitant to put something similar as an ability.)

M. Bison - "This place will become your grave!" Damage dealt to the enemy increases the more Ichor they have. (In nearly all versions of MVC, there is an HP mechanic called red HP or something to that effect, I don't think it was ever officially named. Anyway, when you get hit, a portion of your HP lost turns into red HP, which you can recover later through healing specials or by tagging out and waiting. In MVC4, this will be called Ichor, meaning this ability deals gradually increasing damage to the enemy as the combo continues.)

Ghost Rider - "Feel the weight of your sins brand your soul." Counter Specials and Super Attacks deal 3.5x more damage. (In MVC, Counters in general are rare and rarely used due to how team supers function. As such, this ability grants a massive boost in damage to those specials if they land.)

Dante - "Now it's a party!" Attack and Speed increase a little bit during Installs. Also extends the duration of Installs by a little bit. (An 'Install' is traditionally a temporary transformation into a slightly different character, but they typically add in buffed stats and extra moves. You can call it a temporary self buff that may or may not cost Super Meter. It should be noted that Installs do not run out when the character is tagged out and is retained when the character is called back in for an assist, which this ability will continue to boost the damage of.)

I have more examples but I think that'll do for now. The idea of a 'passive ability' system in a tag team fighting game is a bit foreign but since this game will have loads of characters, it helps to give each one a bit of personality.

I'll leave it at this for now. The irony here is that, if a Marvel VS Capcom 4 were to be in the works right now, I wouldn't be able to play it, owning only a Nintendo Switch right now. Maybe if the Switch 2 is real and can run more graphically intensive games, and that MVC4 gets a Switch 2 port. But this is all a dream for me, so it's time to wake up.

Thank you for reading this far. And remember, only two things last forever, diamonds, and MAHVEL.

[meteormanvisions]

- Chain - Masterpost

(Disclaimer: all this is still prototype material; things, major or minor, are bound to change over time during development.)

The endless sea of stars known as Stellaspace is home to the vast series of floating islands known as Dracoterra, which in turn is home to the diverse anthropomorphic dragon people known as Dragonkin.

Dragonkin are the would-be humans of this world: sapient dragons that come in many shapes, sizes, colors, and cultures. Dracoraces are the specific species of dragon defined by their biology, and each race is named along the lines of (Standout detail)-draco. There are many, many Dracoraces, each more different than the last, and here are only some of the standout ones:

Some dragons are commoners who just live basic lives, while some are royals who make and enforce rules that dictate how life should be lived in particular areas. Others are soldiers who fight in armies for their people. These soldiers are classified by their Combat Class, defined by unique weapons and fighting styles. All the major Combat Classes are seen here:

Some dragon soldiers become dragon warriors after enough time and experience. Dragon warriors can fight hundreds of ordinary soldiers with little to no alliance. Because of their long, arduous, yet rewarding journeys, they are typically cemented in dragon legend and mythology.

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

Chain follows the dragon soldier Marco, who wields the titular Chain of Wonders, a ball-and-chain made entirely of starlight (except for the handle) that he uses to traverse the environments, collect stars, and defeat his foes via pacifist means.

Wait, "pacifist means"? Well, using the weapon's starlight properties, battles can be done not by bloody beatings and killing, but by progressively tiring targets with each landed hit until the opportunity for a finishing blow that teleports them to safety shows and is acted upon.

Marco can do many awesome and acrobatic things with the Chain in gameplay, like swing on ceilings, hover in the air, spin in a tornado as a parry move, and more. However, this would all be for naught if Marco himself wasn't the acrobat he is. Marco himself can do many things on his own, like run on/up walls, run on water for a short time, divekick, slide, and more!

What exactly is starlight, though? Starlight is the magical essence of the stars in the sky and the fallen stars on Dracoterra; it is the energy of this world. Starlight, on its own, forms Dracoterra: the earth, the skies, the natural life, etc. When dragons come across starlight, they use it as energy and enhancement for their machinery and other inventions, like weapons, vehicles, portal gates, and phones.

What is Marco's goal, though? Well...

Chain is a non-linear level-based 2D platformer set in Sodoria, a country as diverse as its people.

The story goes as follows: one day, King Astelleus, the ruler of Springsodor, has suspicions about King Desmond, the ruler of Skysodor, being some kind of traitor scheming to conquer and rule the rest of Sodoria.

Thus, Astelleus sends his soldiers, Marco included, to investigate. Marco's goal is to gather enough fallen stars to reach Skysodor and confront Desmond.

If the time comes, Marco might become a dragon warrior himself if he puts himself up with and conquers all the obstacles and conflicts heading his way. He may even go the extra mile to prove his true strength... Question is: how will he do so? Will he uncover the conflict between Astelleus and Desmond? If so, what will he find? All will be answered and more when Chain undergoes actual development.

[20kmemesunderthesea]

🦑 Nemo's Fury 2: Octo War 🦑

There's a sequel, my lovelies!

When I saw "Nemo's Fury 2: Octo War" would involve a race of advanced, intelligent cephalopods called "Octopoids," my thought was, "My, that's...creative."

Perhaps a bit corny. Perhaps a bit cheesy. That being said, you know what else is corny and cheesy? Elote. Having grown up on a steady diet of Doctor Who and TOS Star Trek, I'm not one to judge. So just as at every local fair I make a beeline for the nearest elote stall, I enthusiastically made a beeline for Amazon to download "Nemo's Fury 2" onto my Kindle, metaphorical bottle of Tajin in hand.

Premise:

While "Nemo's Fury 2" takes place after the events of the first book, it's formatted as a standalone adventure so that the player doesn't need to have played the first book to follow along and enjoy it.

After having left the Nautilus, you (Irish-American journalist T.K. O'Connor), are picked up by another submarine, this one belonging to the navy of the Indian kingdom of Maharashtra. Maharashtra possesses submarines even more advanced than "The Nautilus," throwing onto question Captain Nemo's personal innovation. (Has he taken more credit for naval technology than is actually due him?!)

Because of your experience onboard the Nautilus, you're drafted into Maharashtra Navy and are sent to salvage a derelict submarine to get it operational once more. Along the way, you reconnect with some familiar characters, pilot a submarine and uncover a genocidal conspiracy which you set out to stop before it's too late!

As for the “Octopoids,” I didn’t think they were terribly corny. (Let me reiterate that "Alfa 177 canine" was seared into my memory at a young age.) In fact, the Octopoids are rather mysterious and I’m left wanting to know more about them. Space aliens are overrated anyway: it’s about time we had some ocean aliens. I, for one, am here for sentient sea life á la “Star Trek: The Voyage Home.”

Gameplay:

Like the first book, the gameplay of "Nemo's Fury 2" is a sort of hybrid between a "choose your own adventure" book and a DnD-type solo rpg. All that’s needed to play is pencil, paper and two six-sided dice.

There are added stats and rules in this book relating to navigating the submarine, repairing it, piloting it, etc, as well as additional hazards such as radiation poisoning and encountering a colorful menagerie of sea monsters. These new rules and game mechanics add more complexity to the gameplay, making it interesting and fun.

Other notes:

-> I personally preferred the storyline of the first book to the second; It felt a bit more composite. On the other hand, I enjoyed the gameplay of "Nemo’s Fury 2" and thought it was cleverly set up and more complex than the first. You might just have to purchase both to see if you prefer one over the other.

-> In the “Nemo’s Fury” game app, more of Captain Nemo’s backstory was explained than in the book version. Only having played the book version, I was left a little confused by how different he was from the the severely depressed middle-aged widower we've come to know and love.

A little more insight into Nemo's past was revealed in “Nemo’s Fury 2,” divulging a story very different from cannon. Avoiding spoilers, this Captain Nemo is in his late 20’s, never married and has serious mommy issues as well as deeply concerning personality disorders which, incidentally, was also the backstory of most of my college classmates.

I don’t necessarily mind a writer changing up a character, but I wish I’d understood right away in the first book that this was a different Captain Nemo than the one I’d expected. The exposition in "Nemo’s Fury 2" actually explained a lot about the first book retrospectively.

This different depiction of Captain Nemo, while angstier, is still objectively interesting and makes for an intriguing antagonistic character on the game's storyline.

In conclusion, "Nemo's Fury 2: Octo War" was an enjoyable sequel and left me eagerly awaiting part three!

[alchemicaldesignquery]

Overwatch: The Tank Dilemma

So...Tanking is weird, right?

It's like....Tanking is a Plain of relatively flat, consistency-- a foundation for what the Role represents at the floor, no matter what Video Game you're playing:

Big hitboxes

'Loud' effects

CC value

Damage Mitigation

But every so often, there are mountains and canyons breaking up the plain, where different genre of video games makes a home, refining the concept of Tanking into something that fits that genre:

MOBAs have their own type of Tank

RPGs have their own type of Tank (TTRPGs or Video Games)

MMOs have their own type of Tank

Even some FPS' have their type of Tank

And whereas, each of these has a lot in common (The Plain of Tanking) there are also considerable differences defined more by the genre they are played in (Mountains and Canyons on the Plain), rather than the actual Tanking itself.

An RPGs tanking might cleave a lot more closely to the story/aesthetics/lore, to better represent the players interests, matching mechanics and structures as close to that immersive experience and story as possible.

Which could be very similar to an MMO Tank in the story/lore aspect, but not necessarily in the mechanical immersion. MMO tanks tend to operate around puddles, large assortments of critters, and big fuck-off Raid Bosses who hammer them with numbers that roll up on the screen, adding to the visual chaos. The Tank might barely animate/visualize whatever the effect they are giving off and that could easily get lost in the puddles.

Meanwhile a MOBA Tank is limited in a lot of ways by map design (little to no verticality) while dealing heavily in CC effects (and item selection).

FPS' Tanks could have softer combinations of all of the above, but add in the freedom of movement and varied arsenals that FPS' are known for.

And none of these are exclusive? It's that each type of Genre Tanking comes with it's own level of importance and where that importance is placed, according to the genre.

And, it's crucial to understand this next point clearly:

Every single one of those genres puts distinct responsibilities on their Tank Role.

Every Genre of Tank could have anywhere from 1-5 (approximation) distinct responsibilities they have to account for in their gameplay, depending on what sort of game/genre it is.

And those responsibilities can have overlap from genre to genre, but also, well, massive differences between.

So how does this relate to Overwatch?

Because Overwatch Tank as a Role, has elements of many different genres (and their resultant responsibilities) embedded in the Role(s), all while still existing on the 'Plain of Tanking'.

If you are Tanking in Overwatch, it means that at any given point of time or environment, you might have to shift or change the way or method in which you're Tanking. These changes could come at you from any/a combination of the following:

Enemy Composition/Kits

Mission

Map (Area or Whole)

Balance (Current patch or overall)

MMR/Rank (Knowledge or Execution)

It isn't as consistent as "Do Damage, get Kills" like DPS (though there's obviously more to the Role than that) or "Heal allies and provide Utility" (though there's definitely more to the Role than that), which are both much more secure and expected for their Role.

The reason a Tank like Dva in Overwatch 1 had so many responsibilities is because her kit allowed her to rapidly shift between 2-4 different genres of Tanking vs. Winston's relatively limited 1 - 2 genres of Tanking.

Winston on the Plain of Tanking would avoid a lot of the mountains of a MOBA Tank responsibilities, while seeking glory in the Canyons of his RPG immersion or FPS mobility and how well it's executed.

Combine them into a Tank Duo though? And you've got a pair of Tanks that can suddenly cover a variety of different Tanking Genres, totaling somewhere between 10 - 14 different responsibilities throughout a Map/Mission/Comp.

And the areas they couldn't cover? Were exactly where an enemy composition might try to leverage strategies and tactics with varied results.

An Orisa with her Fortify and Spear Spin, could easily make a home inside of an MMO, flattening Raid Boss attacks and critter mobs, ensuring her own immunity while demanding all the attention-

-and Mauga's alternating guns + unstoppable Rush/Lifesteal could terrorize a lot of FPS' lobbies if given the chance, giving his team all the space and access they need.

And these aren't 1-1 comparisons, Overwatch isn't a pure any genre (arguably; but that's another theory entirely), which means the Tanks in it aren't a pure 1-1 comparison either-

-but each Tank does have stronger/weaker elements of Genre Tanking (some Tanks climb mountains better than delve canyons, and vice versa) that will nudge them toward certain responsibilities and make them rather weak and ineffectual at others.

The Big Question to ask is:

How many responsibilities is a reasonable amount to ask a single Tank to keep track of?

And just as importantly:

How many responsibilities does a single Tank need to upkeep before it burns the Player out?

Because being a Hyper-Flex who is constantly tracking 10-18 responsibilities per match is exhausting, no matter how good or bad at the game you are and I firmly believe, this is one of the major issues with 5v5 right now and it's attrition of Tank Players, at all levels.

Duo Tanks can share that (cognitive) load, which will reduce burnout and extend player interest, maybe enough to get them deeper into the game and stave off the worst of Tank Player attrition.

Maybe...

(Note: this doesn't fix the issue with poor match-ups, but it isn't supposed to. Bad match ups fall under the hero design and tutorial failures in Overwatch. Addressing those would drastically improve the mis-match of duos in all of the Roles, not just Tank.)