#to be in a fantasy world where scott had absolutely no idea about that background. i think ge greenlits like the worst merch again idk if

[basslinegrave]

why do i keep finding out so many people working on fnaf or being involved are terrible people whats this...

[ego-driven-one-wing-angel]

All Ya’ll Suck - Be Nosey Q&A

THIS IS NOT WHAT I EXPECTED. But a promise is a promise lmao~ So here’s all 50

What’s your sexual orientation?

Demisexual 

What are you obsessed with right now?

Final Fantasy and my cats. 😭

Ever done any drugs?

I’ve been offered but no.

What piercings do you want?

I want my triple Helix done so bad. 

How many people have you kissed?

A BIG FAT 0

Describe your dream home.

I’ve always been in love with tiny homes. So I would LOVE to have something similar to an Eco pod in Scotland. With a hot tub, a giant forest background, small enough for me and my cats and maybe my S/O.  It’s almost like a studio apartment but just shoved in the forest and I would enjoy it 100%.

Who are you jealous of?

Probably anyone in a healthy, committed relationship? I’m not much to be envious of others, but when I see couples that are just perfect for another, it makes my heart sink a little because I want that.

What’s your favorite show to binge?

Supernatural, House MD or Criminal Minds. 

Do you watch porn?

I’ll admit, I’ve seen some hentai. BUT I SWEAR IT WAS FOR THE DAMN PLOT.  I also read this Yaoi NSFW manga a few years back, and honestly, I should have guessed it was NSFW because it was wrapped in plastic so you couldn’t look inside. I bought the first two novels, and honestly, they love story in it is probably one of my favorites. 😂

Do you have a secret sideblog?

I DO. It’s a House MD blog.

If you could teleport anywhere in the world right now, where would you go?

Hmm. I have no idea. Scotland for their eco pods? But also I want to go to New Zealand so bad.

What’s one of your fantasies?

Becoming a multi-millionaire writer with a PhD in Forensic Psychology. And having one of my books turned into a tv show or movie and flipping the bird to everyone in high school and middle school who thought I couldn’t make it. 

Do you have/would you get your nipples pierced?

Ouch. No. I don’t have them pierced but I don’t think I ever could. I give props to those that went through with it because anytime I think about a needle coming for my nipple I kind of want to pass out. 

How would you spend a million dollars?

Buy an ECO POD. That’s it. Maybe a couple of Louis Vuitton handbags to match my other ones, but that’s it. I’ll probably give the rest to my mom and she could buy herself the beach house she’s been wanting the past three years.

Are you in a relationship?

Nope.

Do you follow porn blogs?

No. Sorta. Well, kind of? This particular blog doesn’t post straight porn, but it does add a few aesthetic NSFW photos and gifs occasionally. Like more Witchcraft and Dark aesthetics.

Are you angry with anyone right now?

Myself. And maybe my math teacher. I just took a math test and it was timed so I only had an hour and a half to take it. I didn’t get to answer like 4 questions and it brought my math grade down 🙃

What tattoos do you want?

Oh man, I want a lot lmao:

I want a small, american traditional cat just below my ankle.

A watercolor fox on my thigh

A pair of angel wings across my back

A star wars lightsaber on my finger

A watercolor Captain America shield on my hip

I want Cloud’s buster sword and Sephiroth’s masamune down both sides of my thighs

And a little bee or paw prints behind my ear

If you could change your name, would you? What would you change it to?

Probably Katherine. That name has been my pseudonym for years. So it’s almost like a second name already.

What is something you’re obsessed with?

Pens. I’m one of those people that have a million pens and markers. I blame the art side of me, but I just like the idea of new office supplies.

Describe your best friend.

Rambunctious, ambitious, always knows how to make others smile. Halo-obsessed, classic Capricorn, and absolutely LOVES chicken nuggets.

Tag someone you think is hot.

@/SebastianStan

Who are five of your favorite bands/musical artists?

Gorrilaz

Queen

Billie Eilish 

Melanie Martinez

St. Vincent

What are three places you want to travel?

Scotland

New Zealand

Brazil

Describe your perfect Friday night.

Drinking my Dad’s Mexican hot chocolate, playing video games, and sitting with my cat all sounds pretty good to me.

What’s your favorite season?

WINTER 

What’s your pet peeve?

I have this thing where my ears like die when people scrape their fingernails on walls. OR Styrofoam rubbing against cardboard. GROSS. 

Who is the funniest person you know?

Me. Or my mom. We both have the same sense of humor. 

What’s the most overrated movie?

Fight Club. I watched it and was just flabbergasted on how much traction this movie has? It’s okay but not cult classic type of hype.

Tag someone you want to talk to but have been too shy to message.

@ALL OF MY FOLLOWERS

Do you like paper books or ebooks better?

Paper books. I own a kindle and it’s just not the same. I have over 1,200 paper backs and hardcover copies of books. I can open my own library at this point. And I have four boxes of books that sit in the corner because I ran out of bookshelf spaces.

If you could live in a fictional world, what world would you pick?

Probably Final Fantasy 7 or Ridley Scott’s Legend. 

If money was no object, what would your wardrobe be like?

Probably full of Calvin Klein sweaters. I already have about thirty but they’re the comfiest and softest sweaters I own.

What’s your coffee order?

I like a classic caramel frap with two shots of espresso. 

Do you have a crush on anyone?

Sephiroth. But in real life? No.

Do you still have feelings for any of your exes?

I’ve never had an ex lmao.

Have any tattoos?

NO BUT I WANT SO MANY

Do you drink?

I’m a social drinker, so I only have wine or mixed drinks when it’s a party. I don’t like drinking by myself.

Are you a virgin?

Yes.

Do you have a crush on any of your mutuals?

Not really. But I don’t know much about any of you 😭

How many followers do you have?

I just got a whopping 126. But this account is new so getting that much in about three-four weeks is pretty good to me!

Describe the hottest person you know.

Like someone I know personally? Because that’s what I’m going for:

Skin like olive, baby blue eyes, white teeth accompanied by a set of dimples. Dark, curly hair that fits past his ears. Perfect skin, perfect smile. He’s a good friend of mine and we all call him hottie because he makes the girl’s swoon. 

What’s your guilty pleasure?

Watching Nanny Shows on youtube. I don’t want children nor do I like children, but watching these shows is like crack. I can’t stop watching them once I start.

Do you read erotica?

I write it. So take a guess. 

(yes.)

What’s the worst date you’ve ever been on?

I’ve been on very little dates as is, but there was a story I never told anyone because it’s disgusting and embarrassing. But this guy whispered in my ear he wanted to wear my underwear and I deleted his number the moment I went home. I try not to kin-shame, but on a first date? Super weird.

How many people do you follow?

I’m not sure, like 78 I think now? 

If you could marry any celebrity, who would you pick?

Sebastian Stan. I love him so much.

Describe your ideal partner.

Probably just as much as a nerd as I am, sweet, compassionate, likes to stay in and play video games during the weekend. I’m not picky.

Who do you text the most?

My best friend.

What’s your favorite kind of weather?

Rainy or snowy!

Oh I DID IT! ALL 50.

[letshermeneutic]

Thoughts on Netflix’s Locke & Key

Overall Rating: 6/10

 I really wanted to like this show. I mostly do, honestly. But there's just some parts that... just missed the mark. Or left me feeling confused.

Normally, I can binge through a 8-10 episode netflix series like a champ - aka in one sitting, but it took me about 4 days to get through this show, (just finished it last night).

I understand this is adapted from a graphic novel, but I just feel like the show itself doesn't know what it wants to be and in turn it left me feeling confused.

 I understand that we live in a time when damn near everything is evolving faster than it ever has - technology, which in turn changes our behavior - changing the way we watch TV, et cetera.

Basically - and I’m sure you all have noticed it too, but this industry is changing quickly. The way we watch shows and movies today is totally different than how we watched them fifteen years ago. Even ten years ago.

So the thought that this show, Locke & Key needs to adhere to old TV norms isn’t exactly fair, but at the same time, it helps me - the viewer, know in some way what to expect from the show.

I don’t mind having my expectations subverted, if it’s in a good way. I don’t think anyone minds that if it’s done in a good way.

 As someone who went into this with no idea what to expect, I immediately thought that this was Netflix’s answer to HBO’s His Dark Materials - some sort of epic adventure that the whole family can watch.

But they never went on an adventure and I could kind of sense that they weren’t going to be by episode 3 or 5 so that idea was quashed.

I then tried to figure out who this show was aimed for - teens 14-18? Maybe.

 The acting was okay. I think that the script wasn’t doing any of them any favors. There were some pretty clunky lines at some strange times.

I personally think the weakest actor was Emilia Jones, the actress that plays Kinsey Locke. Now, obviously, I’m no acting expert - there have been plenty of times when I felt like the acting in a show or film was pretty good but then all the professional critics online stated otherwise - or the exact opposite has happened - regardless, my point is I don’t consider myself to be a great gauge on someone’s acting chops.

I did, however, find Emilia’s to be pretty flat. I felt like there were a lot of scenes were Emilia’s emotion wasn’t appropriate or enough.

Overall, if I had to use one word to describe it it would be flat.

 I thought Darby Stanchfield, who plays matriarch Nina Locke, did pretty good. I feel like she did the best with what she was given. I don’t feel like the character was written very well, and again like mentioned earlier a lot of lines in the script just didn’t seem to work. I spent a lot of the show just confused by Nina Locke. I just didn’t understand the point of her character. She didn’t really have an arch, or if she did I completely missed it.

She just seemed to be all over the place, and I completely get that she just lost her husband, tragically, recently, but there are ways deep grief can be shown that make more sense than what I saw.

 I will say, one good thing about the writing - I think they did a very good job at writing a child - being Bode Locke, without making him unbearably annoying. I feel that most writers have a pretty difficult time with writing teenagers and children, but they did a good job here. Granted, I know this is an adaptation, so it could be that Gabriel Rodriguez and Joe Hill know how to write children well.

I think the actor Jackson Robert Scott did pretty well as him.

 Laysla De Oliveira, the actress that plays Dodge - I thought she did remarkably well in the role, but was unfortunately crippled by her lines. I remember in particular there was one scene where she had finished knocking someone down, (can’t remember who), and she says something really out of left field - obviously meant to be an insult, but it was just so what the hell?

 To sum it up for acting and the cast - I think overall the performances were pretty good, (save for Emilia’s) but they were all undermined by bad dialogue.

 Moving on to the story itself - I haven’t read the graphic novels, so I don’t know any of the lore or background, but all I can say is when I first started watching, I was excited.

I was excited to be introduced into this magical fantasy world of keys.

But to me, nothing much really happens with it.

I don’t think I would mind that as much if this were the first part of a film series. You spend the first film, laying down the groundwork, introducing all your characters, the background, and slowly bring the more supernatural elements and key lore to the forefront - okay sure, I can get behind that. Absolutely.

But to spend an entire 10 hour season, I think that’s overkill.

 To me, only really having one main villain was a problem. A lot of their fight against her just didn’t seem believable. There were either parts were I’m like, “seriously someone could’ve done something there’s 6 of you” - or parts were she was so OP, I kept thinking to myself “wait, that’s right, this is a fantasy/scifi show with powerful villains and these are just regular kids, with no weapons, training, or anything whatsoever”.

I’ve seen plenty of shows and films were there was only one villain, but it’s done well. I think the issue is she just doesn’t seem like a huge threat. I don’t feel like we’ve really gotten to know her much at all this entire season - her motivations.

  Also, there’s no key society? You have a giant ass mansion that’s been in the Locke family at least since the 19th century, (since great great granddad mentioned something in 1892), for I’m guessing the purpose of being “keepers of the keys”, but you’d think that that would have spread somehow to other families.

It is of course possible to have it all kept to one family, but I find that disappointing to be honest.

Maybe just have like one or two families out there somewhere… The Doorbells and the Knob family, baha.

 Overall, it’s an interesting story, and it’s one that can be enjoyed by the whole family with a PG-13 rating, or TV-PG I think.. so most of the whole family or the whole family if you’re that way (hey, I remember 8 year olds watching R rated films in elementary school).

I guess I should say it’s an interesting concept, but I don’t think the story was executed well. They set up what they needed to in the last episode for season 2, but honestly I don’t think I will be watching it.

A good story should leave you coming back for more and Locke & Key just wasn’t it for me.

If I had kids 11+, I probably would watch Season 2 with them since there probably wouldn’t be a ton of passable shows we could watch together.

[embklitzke]

UNSETIC Files - Lost and Found (work in progress)

I write a lot.  I have a lot of things I’m working on.  One of them is the direct sequel to Bering Songs and Silence--this one.

The UNSETIC Files is an urban fantasy series set on early to mid twenty-first century Earth.  It features a cast of thousands of varying talents and problems--and a little bit of something for everyone.

One

           “I’m getting sick of this bloody dodging bullets bullshit.”

           I choked on a laugh, shaking my head as I met Kate Berkshire’s glower head-on.  “That’s because you’re not getting any better at it.”

           “No, I’m getting worse,” the Irish soldier snapped, then swore, glaring at the medic to her left.  “What was that for?”

           “Stop your bitching,” Joshua Talmadge growled, not looking up from his work on Kate’s left arm.  “You’re lucky it’s just a through and through.  If it was any worse we’d be at U of C Medical trying to explain how you happened to wander in front of a bullet and oh no, please don’t involve the police, there’s no need to report anything it’s just a silly mistake no real harm done as you’re bleeding on a freaking gurney.”

           “I’m sure you could pull it off, Josh,” I said, patting the doctor on the shoulder.  He snorted humorlessly and shook his head.

           “Don’t patronize me, McConaway. You’re ill-suited to it.”

           “I don’t know, I think she’s pretty good at it.” Kate smiled weakly.  “Just a scratch.”

           “You could be bleeding out with your intestines falling out of a hole in your gut and it’d be ‘just a scratch.’”  I grinned as I started to dig around for my cell, which had started vibrating in my back pocket.

           “Popular today, aren’t you?”  Kate waved me away with her good hand as she saw me digging around for my phone.  “Go take it. I’m not going anywhere until the good doctor’s done with me.”

           Don’t recognize that area code.  “It’s probably a wrong number anyway.  I’ll be right back.  Try not to piss off Josh while I’m gone, huh?”  I ducked out of the infirmary and into the hall.  We’d been back in the Portal Corps headquarters in downtown Chicago for maybe fifteen minutes, returned from yet another off-world foray that had probably resulted in more trouble than it was worth.  I glanced down at my phone’s screen again and shook my head as I tapped it and lifted the phone to my ear.  This had better be quick.  I don’t have time to break away from refereeing right now. “This is McConaway.”

           “Hello, Dr. McConaway?  My name is Brigid O’Connell, and I have some news about your brother.”

           My heart stopped.  Brigid O’Connell had been the name of the woman who’d led the search after Tim and Mat had disappeared over the deserts of Iraq.  They’d found Mat’s plane but no trace of him in it.

           That was because something from beyond the boundaries of Earth had kidnapped them both, whisked them off to somewhere far away. Only a few people knew that, though, and almost all of them worked here, worked for the Corps.

           What could she possibly know?  She’s not with the Corps.  I’d know if she was.

           “Doctor?  Are you there?”

           “Of course.  Of course.  I—I’m sorry.” I took a deep breath and exhaled it slowly, trying to will my heart to slow down, to force my guts to cooperate. “I’m here.  I—what do you have to tell me, Miss O’Connell?”

           “It’s Lieutenant O’Connell, actually, and...he’s here.”

           “It’s nice to—wait, what?”  This has to be a dream, some kind of hallucination.  I got shot instead of Kate.  That’s it. I’m hallucinating because I’ve lost way too much blood and I’m dreaming this.

           “Here, you talk to her.”

           “What?  Wait a second here—”

           It was his voice, unmistakably my brother.  My heart thudded against my breastbone and every breath was a battle.

           How did he get back?  How is he—where is he?  There was a tremor in my voice as I dared to speak his name.  “Tim?”

           He sighed into the phone.  “Hey AJ.  Are you okay?”

           “No.  No, not okay. Where are you?”

           “Virginia,” he said.  “Alexandria.  Where are you?”

           “Chicago.  Where else would I be?”  I squeezed my eyes shut.  How had he gotten to Virginia without us knowing? Was there another Portal somewhere near there that we didn’t know about?

           Goddammit, there’s too much we don’t know.

           There were a thousand questions I wanted to ask him—chief among them was how the hell he’d ended up in Virginia without our knowing that he was back on Earth.  I couldn’t ask that question over the phone, though, especially not with O’Connell there with him, not without knowing what she might know about him, about what he’d been through.  I squeezed my eyes shut, sagging against the wall.

           “Sis?  You there?”

           “I’m here,” I said, voice coming choked from a throat so tight I could barely breathe.  “Are you safe?”

           “Why wouldn’t I be?”

           I caught a hitch in his voice and shivered.  We both know why—but do you remember that I know, that Kate knows?

           He said that he wouldn’t.  He was going to make himself forget so he could protect us.  Damn it all.

           “Just making sure,” I whispered.  “I...I need to see you.  I need an address.”  Kate would want to come with me.  Scott and Sierra would be expecting a report from us on the last run.  There wouldn’t be time to write one before I—before we—left.

           A thought struck me.  Had they known he was back?  Had he somehow shown up while Kate and I were on a run and they just hadn’t told us?

           No. No, they wouldn’t keep a secret like that from us.  If they tried, it would be a cover up of epic proportions.  Bryn would say something.  There’d be no hesitation.  If she knew, we’d know.  End of story.

           Scott and Sierra couldn’t have known—no one connected to the Corps knew.  That was for certain.

           Tim rattled off an address.  I wrote it on my hand, struggling not to drop my phone as I did. My heart was going three times its normal speed.

           “You’ll be there?”  I asked, my voice still shaking.

           “I don’t know where else I’d go,” he said quietly. “If I’m not there, I’ll be here. Call this number if you need to.”

           “Absolutely,” O’Connell’s voice said in the background. “I’ll help her find you if you’re not already here.”

           “Not like I’ve got anywhere to go,” he said, his voice a little muffled.

           My eyes stung.  You could come here.  You could come home.  I glanced toward the door to the infirmary, biting down hard on my lower lip.  Why hadn’t he come here?  Why hadn’t he come home?

           There must be a good reason.  I’ll find out what it is.

           “I’m coming there,” I said.  “Don’t say I didn’t warn you.  I’ll be there tomorrow, as early as I can.  I promise.  Don’t go anywhere.”

           “I won’t,” he said quietly.  “I’ll see you.”

           “Tim?”

           “Yeah?”

           “I missed you,” I said in a bare whisper.  “We all missed you.  I...I’m glad you’re back.”

           There was a long silence on the other end of the line before he said, “Yeah.  So am I, AJ. I’ll see you tomorrow.”

           “Love you.”

           “I love you, too.  Be careful.”

           He hung up and I stood there in the hall, staring at the wall without actually seeing it in front of me.  My brother was back on Earth.  He was home.

           Why hadn’t anyone told us before now?

           I knuckled my eyes and exhaled a shaky breath, counting to ten before I straightened.  Shoving my phone into my pocket, I headed back into the infirmary, hoping I didn’t look half as shaken as I felt.

           “That was a long wrong number,” Kate said before her gaze met mine.  Then she saw the look on my face and all good-humored teasing evaporated.  Her expression grew serious.  “What’s the matter?”

           I closed the door behind me.  “I just talked to Tim.”

           “Tim?  My Tim?”

           “He’s my Tim, too,” I reminded her.  “He was my Tim first.”

           “Whatever.  You talked to him?  How is that even possible?”

           “Should I be here for this?”  Josh asked, glancing up from Kate’s stitches.  “Because I can go if this is classified six feet above my ass.”

           “It’s not,” I said, even though I wasn’t actually sure of that.  “It’s fine. Just finish up.”

           “He wants me to go get some x-rays,” Kate said with a slight glower.  “Something about getting lucky if I didn’t nick the bone.”

           “I just said it was a good idea,” Josh said. “You told me it hurt more than the last time you got shot and it hurt deep. That means bone or deep tissue damage. Do you want to be safe about this or not?”

           “You’re the one who was moaning about U of C Medical.”

           “It’s better to be safe than sorry.”

           “Would you two stop bickering for twenty seconds?” I snapped.  “Kate, I’m driving to Virginia.  I’m driving tonight. Are you coming?”

           “Why—oh.  Is that where he is?”

           “That’s where he said he is.”  My lips thinned.  “How the hell did he get back to Earth without our knowing?”

           Josh frowned.  “Is he one of those ones the Cabal nabbed a few years ago?”

           “Yeah,” Kate said.  “He’s practically the only one we’ve ever had a chance of bringing back, too.”

           I could still hear the pain and regret in her voice when she talked about that missed opportunity, even though it had been the better part of two years ago—two years this coming June.  It wasn’t that it frustrated me any less, but she’d been clinging even tighter to the hope of bringing him home in those few days than I had.

           He’d asked her to keep a promise and I’d never quite been able to bring myself to ask her what that promise was.

           There’s no way that she’s just going to stay here if he’s back, if he’s within reach. There’s no way.  I just stared at her, waiting for the answer I knew was coming.

           She didn’t meet my gaze as she said, “I’ll cover for you. Call your uncle and get going.”

           “You’d bet—what?”              Wait, she’s not coming with me?  “Kate—”

           “Scott and Sierra are going to need a report and I can make it for both of us,” Kate said quietly, finally lifting her eyes to meet mine. There was a familiar pain there, the deep one that I’d seen in snatches and glimpses since the day we’d left my brother on Mydiar.  “I had days with him back then.  You had five minutes.  Go.  Go see him and make sure it’s real.  Make sure we’re not going to lose him again.”

           My throat tightened.

           She doesn’t want to come with me because she’s afraid that it’s not going to last—that we’re going to lose him all over again.

           Truth be told, I was afraid of the same thing, but I had to believe that this time he was back for good.  I didn’t know how he’d managed it, but I was sure as hell going to find out.

           “Are you sure?” I asked.

           “I’m positive.”  Kate glanced down at her knees, shaking her head.  “I’ll fly out tomorrow or the next day.  Call me when you get there and I’ll call you about the flight or...or whatever.  Go call Chris and tell him you’re going out of town and then get going before Scott or Sierra show up and stop you.”

           “It’s going to be a lonely drive,” I whispered.  I was sure she’d come with me.  I didn’t plan on doing this alone.

           “You’ll be fine,” Kate said.  “Go.”

           I shivered, nodding.  This felt far too familiar.  “All right.  I’ll call when I get there.”

           “Drive safe.”

           I gave her and Josh each a tight smile and slipped out into the hall, heart thudding leadenly against my breast.  Kate was right.  I needed to get out of headquarters before Scott Andrews or Sierra O’Rourke caught up with me—otherwise, I wouldn’t be getting out of the city anytime soon.

           I booked for the stairs that would take me up to the rehabbed print shop’s foyer and Printer’s Row beyond.  If I was quick, I’d be able to make it to the L in time to be home before the sun went down.  I needed my car and a couple of changes of clothes from the house.

           It was out of the way, but I didn’t have a choice. I needed the clothes and the least I could do before driving east was let my uncle know that I’d be doing it. He’d come to terms with what I did every day—he knew about half of it, anyhow—but I knew it went hard on him when I was away.

           I was all he had left.  His brother—my father—was dead and the two boys Christopher McConaway had raised alongside me were missing and had been for three years.

           Do I tell him, or do I play the waiting game and spare his heart like Kate’s asking me to spare hers?  My lips thinned as I stepped out into the gloom of a February afternoon in Chicago, grimacing as I realized I’d left my coat downstairs before we’d left on our jaunt beyond the Portal.  It was still hanging on the back of my chair in my office, the one I shared with Carson Matthews, a cultural anthropologist whose father had been one of the ones kidnapped three years ago the same way Tim and Mat had been.  Carson was newer to the Corps, had only been with us six months, but he was catching on fast.

           I shivered in the wind and shook my head as I felt around in my pocket for my keys and found them.  Not going back down there.  If I go back down there, I’m going to get waylaid. There’s no doubt about that.  I’ll just make a run for the station.  I won’t freeze to death if I hurry.

           Sucking in a deep breath, I sprinted for the stairs to the Red Line station a block from where I’d been standing, hoping that my wallet was in the bag I was still carrying from the off-world run and that I hadn’t left it with my coat.

           Too late now.  Already made the run for it.

           I stumbled down the concrete steps and into the warmth of the subway tunnel, already shivering from the late winter chill.  It had been a relatively mild winter here in Chicago, but that didn’t mean it was much warmer than bitter cold—especially not this close to the lakeshore.  I dug around in my bag, hoping to find my wallet and eventually locating it in the deepest, darkest corner of the bag as I made my way to the turnstiles guarding the entry to the train platforms.

           I breathed a sigh of relief as my fingers closed around my car keys and CTA card.  Small favors.  That’s all I can ever ask for.

           I took the train from Harrison and hit my connections—Red Line to Blue all the way to Rosemont where I’d left my car.  Sometimes I took the Metra all the way in and out of the city, but when I didn’t know when I’d be coming home, I liked the convenience of leaving my Jeep closer to downtown rather than at the Metra stations in Barrington or Schaumburg.  I stared out the windows of the train, at the city and at tunnel walls, fingers tapping against my knee in agitated impatience, all the way from the station where I’d gotten on the Blue Line to Rosemont, where my insane life with the Corps and UNSETIC had begun.  It felt like a long time ago.

           How am I going to tell him?  How am I going to break that news?

           I wasn’t sure if I was trying to figure out how to explain this to my uncle, or how I was going to break the news to my brother that our other uncle, our mother’s brother, was dead.  I didn’t know which one would be harder.

           I closed my eyes and sighed.  Dammit.

           The train stopped at Rosemont and I got off, went hunting for my car.  Somewhere between there and home, I’d figure out how I was going to tell Uncle Chris.

           I really didn’t have much choice about that.

Copyright 2016-2017 Erin M. Klitzke.

Like what you see?  Consider becoming a patron on Patreon for more of Erin’s writing, answers to your questions, other odds and ends, and, of course, pictures of her furry roommate, Katy the House Panther.

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The Best Indie Games From PAX East 2020

March 4, 2020 1:00 PM EST

PAX East 2020 is filled to the brim with indie games from all over the world; here were a few of our favorites from the show floor.

While PAX East 2020 had some notable last minute absences from the show floor such as PlayStation, what the convention didn’t lack was a breadth of indie games to choose from. PAX has always held its reputation of being a treasure trove of incredible indie gaming experiences, and PAX East this year was certainly no different.

During PAX East 2020 last weekend, the DualShockers team played an assortment of indie games from all different backgrounds, genres, and development teams. We’ve already covered a few of our favorites and will have more in-depth previews coming in the next week or two ahead with a few of our favorites, from newly-announced indies like Curse of the Dead Gods to major upcoming releases like Baldur’s Gate 3.

Though we can’t list all of the dozens of amazing indie games that we played collectively on the show floor of PAX East 2020, here are a few of our favorites that we wanted to highlight from the show.

Deceive Inc.

I spied this game on the last day of PAX by pure happenstance while on my way to an appointment. Filled with stereotypical ’70s super-spy tropes, the trailer for Deceive Inc. from indie developer Sweet Bandits Studios stopped me in my tracks. Before me were silly spies, outlandish gadgets, and grandiose locations fit for a super villain, all wrapped up in the style of Pixar’s The Incredibles. The gameplay is what I would describe as if you took Overwatch–with unique characters each with special abilities–and instead of killing one another, they had to sneak around and work to try and steal the same item. Everyone is vying for the same keycards, intel, and goodies that everyone else is. Spies can take with them a loadout of super-secret gadgets into each round, helping them to blend in, stop foes, and secure the objective.

After playing a game with some friends and speaking with the developers at the booth, I quickly realized just how much of an absolute blast this game has the potential to be. Sweet Bandits Studios has a plethora of ideas in store for this game. Team-based modes, a take on Splinter Cell’s “Spies vs Mercs” (but with “Spies vs Security Guards”) and more are all being considered, and then some. Keep your eyes peeled, Agent, when this game launches later this year on Steam, and possibly consoles. – Scott White, Associate Staff Writer

Deceive Inc. is currently in development on PC and expected to arrive later this year.

Disc Room

With playing over fifteen different titles at PAX East, there was no other game that was more chaotic, addicting, or just plain fun than Disc Room. Filled with arcade goodness, Disc Room has players going from room-to-room to survive an onslaught of discs. It’s simple enough, but the design has more layers to it, which creates a gripping cycle of gameplay that includes being rewarded for dying. Ever since I got my hands on it, all I’ve been thinking is about playing it as long as my body can will itself. – Cameron Hawkins, Staff Writer

Disc Room is currently in development on PC and expected to arrive later this year.

Maneater

There’s something fitting about having the ability to live your life as a massive man-eating shark, but it’s another thing to live out that fantasy in a game as chaotic and satisfying as Maneater. Putting players into the role of a shark on the loose, what starts as essentially “Shark Simulator” turns into something a bit more, as playing through the demo on the PAX show floor showed me the numerous ways that Maneater challenges players to take out their prey. From chomping on sea creatures to creating a literal bloodbath with beachgoers a la Jaws, Maneater is looking like a delightful source of fantasy wish fulfillment as a killer shark. Dum dum, dum dum… – Ryan Meitzler, Features Editor

Maneater will release for PS4, Xbox One, and PC on May 22, 2020, followed by a Nintendo Switch version later this year.

Moving Out

I can’t say that I’ve ever been a fan of moving out in my lifetime (read: it’s a pain in the a**), but Moving Out might have convinced me otherwise. A frantic multiplayer game in the style of Overcooked!, Moving Out captures the energy that any great couch co-op game should have, even when it literally involves couches. With the game coming out next month, you won’t have to wait too much longer to start packing up your things and enjoying what Moving Out has to offer for fans of fun, silly multiplayer mayhem. – Ryan Meitzler, Features Editor

Moving Out will release for PS4, Xbox One, Nintendo Switch, and PC on April 28, 2020.

Panzer Paladin

With the popularity and success of games such as Shovel Knight and The Messenger, several indie developers have found interesting ways to turn retro-style throwbacks into unique experiences of their own. One of the most promising of these is Panzer Paladin, which seems to take the elements of games like Mega Man and Castlevania and wraps it around the dynamic of players swapping in and outside of a super-powered mech suit to take on enemies, solve puzzles, and defeat challenging bosses. From the brief demo that I played at PAX East on the show floor, Panzer Paladin already shows a lot of promise for mech lovers and fans of retro-styled games, and it’s only a few months away from release on Switch and PC. – Ryan Meitzler, Features Editor

Panzer Paladin will release for Nintendo Switch and PC this spring.

Spiritfarer

Throughout my gaming life I have never been attracted to or found any management games fun or compelling. While gamers are clamoring for the upcoming Animal Crossing: New Horizons, I look at the game, shrug, and move on. The same goes for indie hit Stardew Valley. They just have never been my type of game because I never felt any satisfaction or purpose. It wasn’t until I played Spiritfarer from developer Thunder Lotus that has not only got my attention, but it is now one of my most anticipated indie titles for this year. The tasks that you complete have nothing to do with relaxing and passing the time, but instead help your companions learn to accept death and move on. Along with a gorgeous art style and lively animations, Spiritfarer has quickly become the management game I’ve always wanted. – Cameron Hawkins, Staff Writer

Spiritfarer will release for PS4, Xbox One, Nintendo Switch, and PC later this year.

Wintermoor Tactics Club

In case you haven’t seen or heard, Dungeons & Dungeons (and everything revolving around it) has been having quite the moment in pop culture. From the RPG’s pop culture resurgence in shows like Stranger Things to massively popular webseries and podcasts like Critical Role and The Adventure Zone, new generations are gathering around the table with their friends to embark on fantastical adventures, and the upcoming Wintermoor Tactics Club seems to be tapping into that sense of discovery and wonder. As the main character Alicia, players are transported to a magical academy where the students challenge each other in a D&D-esque RPG, wrapping its core strategy gameplay around a story and character-driven experience. Mixing the elements of strategy RPGs and visual novels, Wintermoor Tactics Club so far seems like an intriguing blend of genres that D&D fans should definitely keep their eye on. – Ryan Meitzler, Features Editor

Wintermoor Tactics Club will release for PS4, Xbox One, Nintendo Switch, and PC this spring.

March 4, 2020 1:00 PM EST

from EnterGamingXP https://entergamingxp.com/2020/03/the-best-indie-games-from-pax-east-2020/?utm_source=rss&utm_medium=rss&utm_campaign=the-best-indie-games-from-pax-east-2020

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Salvatore Ferragamo

When examining advertising campaigns throughout history different political, economic, and social issues are very obvious. Advertising always seems to mirror not only what is occurring across mass society, but also the themes unique to a diverse group of sub cultures in society during a particular time period. After closely exploring fashion ads throughout history it was clear how the ideas about body image have changed over time. Gradually it has become acceptable to show more and more skin and advertising in general has become much more sexualized. In the book Adorned in Dreams, Elizabeth Wilson explained how people have used fashion as a way to represent themselves and their reactions to society across the decades. She says, “In all societies the body is ‘dressed’, and everywhere dress and adornment play symbolic, communicative and aesthetic roles. Dress is always ‘unspeakably meaningful’.” Wilson goes on to describe how in the twentieth century the integrity of dress has progressed to disassociate itself from the rigid behavioral codes that once sustained it. Fashion has been freed to become both an aesthetic vehicle for experiments in taste and political means of expression for dissidence, rebellion and social reform. In this book Elizabeth has set up an important foundation for further analysis into current fashion advertising. Many of the issues presented in contemporary advertising convey very similar messages about body images; however more distinctions can be made based on the market a particular ad is targeting.

As illustrated through the movie “Happiness Machines”, an important tool in advertising is the ability to create desire. The “desire”/ Consumer society was born after World War I as a response to the fears of the new industrial society that was a product in America from the war. Based on what Bernays had previously learned from his Uncle, Sigmund Freud, about the human mind and subconscious thinking, he realized this would require him to transform the way society thought about products and turn America from a needs based society into a desire culture. He had to create the new types of customers. Bernays began to create many of the techniques of mass consumer persuasion we still use today. He began to glamorize products by placing advertisements linking products with celebrities who used them. He used product placements in movies and dressed the stars for film premiers with the clothes and jewelry from other firms her represented. He told car companies they could sell cars as symbols of male sexuality. He also employed psychologists to claim a product was good for you and pretended they were independent studies. Finally he paid celebrities to repeat the new and essential message; you bought things not just out of need but to express your inner sense of yourself to others. “Wearing certain clothes will make you more attractive”. This caused a change in society called consumerism.

Today desire is still constructed through political, cultural, and economic conditions, but it is also invested with the power to authorize and normalize those conditions (Helstein, That’s Who I Want to be: The Politics and Production of Desire within Nike Advertising to Women). Susan Bordo described how ads play off of the female fear of food and desire to gain control. In Hunger as Ideology Susan Bordo explains the negative effects advertising has on womens’ body image. Throughout history advertising has played off of womens’ fear of food and desire to gain control and while doing so has embedded the idea that men are superior to women and food should be feared by women, as it is a sign of weakness. Marketers try to sell products by showing it as a tool to gain control over some aspect of their lives. Not only do advertisements play off of females’ struggle for control, they also must be considered as gender ideology- that is, as specifically servicing the cultural reproduction of gender differences and gender inequality, quite independent of marketing concerns. Although it is arguable, these desires seems to be an underlying theme in most advertisements. Different markets have unique desires that take precedence in their lives, thus the major distinctions between modern fashion ads lies in the specific market a brand is targeting.

One of the most dominant types of fashion advertising is that of high-end brands. The pages of fashion magazines are filled with ads for brands such as Gucci, Dolce and Gabbana, Fendi, Christian Dior, and Prada just to name a few. Although all the brands have unique ads with their distinct trademark on them, there is an eerie similarity between them all. Slender, blonde, Caucasian females seem to dominate the script for high-end fashion advertising. Although in the 21st century advertising seems to becoming more culturally diverse, even the “ethnic” models have very westernized features. The typical ad depicts this female adorned in the latest fashions by the designer and is preposterously posed in a glamorous setting. Often times sex appeal is created either from the way the model is posed or the ‘lack’ of clothing covering her body. Occasionally males are used in these ads as an accessory to the women. Although society in general has become immune to these imagines since they have become so common, the messages they enforce about body images are not acceptable.

According to The Beauty Myth, as found in the Naomi Wolf readings, a thin, white, blonde woman is considered the ‘perfect woman’ and the most beautiful woman to feature. The typical high-end fashion ad plays to that stereotype. In The Beauty Myth, Wolf argues that it is men that create this idea of what or whom is "beautiful". It is the men in society that deem white, thin, blonde woman as beautiful, not women. Men create these "beauties" so that culture can remain male and male dominated, as argued by Wolf. The idea of male dominance is very clear in the advertising industry. The readings from Fresh Lipstick by Scott support this idea of the male dominated gaze. Scott mentioned that a male point-of-view shot is just another way for men to continue to dominate society.

This first set of ads comes from the Fall/Winter 2007 fashion ad campaigns of some of the top high-end designers in the industry. Many of the models are either well known super models of famous celebrities. Ads like these are extremely common today in the fashion industry. They are neither innovative nor distinct and they only help to reinforce the body image crisis currently plaguing the general public.

The role the fashion industry plays on society is haunting. The westernized ideals and images of beauty are rapidly scattering through humanity. As discussed in Making the Body Beautiful by Gilman, aesthetic surgery is a growing industry. More and more people want to have western features and the age of the patients undergoing these surgeries keeps getting younger. Gilman said, “Patients seeking rhinoplasty…frequently show signs of guilt-tinged, second-generation rejection of their ethnic background masked by excuses, such as not photographing well.” When people are constantly bombarded with images of Caucasian females modeling the latest fashions and depicted as the “ideal beauty” it creates a desire to have those same features. “Happiness in our modern world is in part defined by the desire to vanish into the world beyond ourselves where there is no difference. We want to become happy like everyone else and thus be absolutely unique in our happiness. This contradiction is at the heart of the matter. The heart of the matter in aesthetic surgery is the common human desire to ‘pass’ (Gilman, 330).” By filling the fashion magazines with models that all share similar features it creates the idea that through plastic surgery one can achieve those same features and in doing so fit into society.

Another popular type of high-end fashion advertising is shock value. Certain brands choose to fulfill their consumer’s need for desire by use of shock value. These ads typically depict a fantasy world in which they illustrate deep desires that might not be considered proper to openly discuss. An example of this type of advertising is the Fall/Winter 2007 ad campaign by Dolce and Gabbana. According to Domenico Dolce the image is artistic and was meant to “recall an erotic dream, a sexual game.” Protesters complained that the ad depicted rape and was demeaning to women. Spain’s Labor and Social Affairs Ministry said in a statement, “One could infer from the advertisement that it is acceptable to use force as a way of imposing oneself on a woman, reinforced by the passive and complicit manner of the men looking on.” This ad continues to be filled with Caucasian individuals all scantily clad and exposing extremely cut bodies. Naomi Wolf, in The Beauty Myth, explains how images such as this can have negative consequences on men as well as women. “So powerful is pornography, and so smoothly does it blend in with the advertising of products…that many women find their own fantasies and self-images distorted too…So rare is it to see sexual explicitness in the context of love and intimacy on screen that it seems our culture treats tender sexuality as if it were deviant or deprived, while embracing violent or degrading sex as right and healthy (Wolf, 140).” Men also face the stereotypic ideal of how they are supposed to look and act; men must be in shape, toned, tall, with good hair, teeth and eyes. Today, men make up one-third of all cosmetic surgeries. Images are damaging and may lead to inferiority and inadequacy, and can lead to cosmetic surgery. Men are finally understanding and feeling the affects that advertising and unrealistic expectations of beauty. However, women have been dealing with these issues throughout history. Along with enforcing very negative messages about body images through the use of male positioning and facial expressions the ad creates a very negative message about male superiority. The men is this ad are holding the female down and forcing themselves upon her. She looks on with a very blank expression, implying that she is dazed and not enjoying herself. The men in the background are just looking on and not doing anything to help her or interfere with the act. In Fresh Lipstick Scott mentions the arguments Beauvior makes that women have an inbreed fear of being raped and becoming the sexual prey of men. Women learn to see themselves as an object viewed from the outside, thus she begins to dress in a way to attract a lover. This involves imagining how one might appear to the desired male (226). This ad perpetuates this fear and seems to allocate rape. Although the ad campaigns for high-end fashion brands may seem innocent at first glance, upon further investigation it is obvious that they are enforcing negative messages about body image. If these brands clutter society with so many negative messages surrounding body images, how can they continue to remain so popular? It seems as though the designers of these ads knows that their main audience viewing their actual campaigns are not their actual clients purchasing the products. The majority of the people who wear these clothes have personal shoppers or stylists who buy their clothes for them. Rather, the images in these ads are designed to create a desire among a lower class of society to achieve this rich and luxurious lifestyle; however, the consequences resulting from the message of how to achieve this particular lifestyle is devastating.

In Self-Help, Inc. McGee describes how there is a growing interest in the self-help society. The movement can be traced all the way back to the Bible as the first example of a self-help book. Today there is a book to teach people how to help themselves succeed in just about every aspect of life. Advertising seems to foster self-anxieties and endless imperfections. It is important to acknowledge the growth of this trend in society since it seems to parallel a slow shift toward more conscious advertising. In the early 1990s sales of self help books went up 6% following the trends in society of unemployment and a bad economy. In the past ten years there has been a noticeable amount of ads produced in effort to portray positive messages about the body.

The ad campaign by the French brand Nolita is an attempt to create a more positive message about the body image. The author of the campaign is famous Italian photographer Oliviero Toscani. The campaign is designed toward young women who keep up with fashion and is called to draw public attention to such awful disease as anorexia. The ad billboards feature a 27 years old French woman named Isabella Caro who weighs a mere 68 pounds. She says that she has decided to show her body for people to know and to see how the disease impacts the body. It is common knowledge that there is a major problem with eating disorders in the fashion industry. As previously mentioned the typical model has an abnormally tall slender frame. Maintaining this body image is generally unnatural, but models will go to any length to ensure that they stay at a dangerously low body weight.

Women are continually bombarded with advertisements and commercials for weight-loss products and programs. This type of advertising has been around for a long time and continues to enforce negative views of food for women. The media starts targeting girls from a young age and over time the idea is cemented in girl’s heads that food is bad. Many of the advertisements show the power that food has over women. They illustrate how the female psyche is in a constant state of starvation through their efforts to sell products that can create a “cool” or casual relationship with food for women. The issues surrounding food are a lot deeper and more serious than advertisements are willing to admit. Most often women feel upset and depressed and unhappy when they discuss compulsive eating or over indulgence. Since the Victorian era it has been considered taboo to show women eating, particularly in sensuous surrender to rich, exciting food (Hunger as Ideology, Susan Bordo).

Naomi Wolf made a lot of important points about the gravity of eating disorders. She illustrated how it is a vicious cycle that can often lead to death. When people diet the body often feels as if it is starving and chemicals in the head get messed up. It is really hard to control and basically anyone who diets is at equal risk for becoming anorexic or bulimic. Female fat is a sign of sexuality and reproductive ability. There have never been any studies on females that indicate being over weight can lead to other health concerns or put them at higher risk for death. Every study that has been done on obesity has involved male subjects; yet, females are the ones put under constant pressure from society and the media to be thin. It is acceptable for men to be fat, and men should have hardy appetites. It is age old and universal that if there is ever a shortage of food the women are the first to do without. In reality women really need just about as many calories as men and women suffer more serious problems if they are malnourished. Eating disorders effect a significant population in society. It is really scary because it is such a psychological problem that is seems there is no real way to prevent any one person from getting it unless the entire mind set of basically the world is transformed (The Beauty Myth, 179-116).

This ad from Nolita is defiantly a step in the right direction; however it does not do enough. Rather than say how to help someone with an eating disorder it almost seems to criticize the individual with the problem. People with eating disorders already have very flawed and negative self-images. Although this image is not seen as sexualized at all, it is merely because of the condition the model is in. She is still naked and being shot from a male gaze. It seems like a more effective approach would be to illustrate ways to prevent the problem or find a path to recovery; however, it is nice to see the problem is finally being recognized in the fashion industry.

Although the fashion industry is filled with images that perpetuate negative body images in society there seems to be some hope for improvement in the new century. It is very difficult to find ads that do a really good job of portraying positive body images, but they do exist. Some brands do a really good job of producing campaigns that portray a positive body image. United Colors of Benetton has a really unique campaign. It is interesting to note that the photographer for this campaign is also Oliviero Toscani, who shot the pictures of Isabella Caro for the Nolita campaign. Benetton Group’s advertising campaigns are not only a means of communication but an expression of our time. Through their universal impact, they have succeeded in attracting the attention of the public and in standing out amid the current clutter of images.

The latest campaign by the United Colors of Benetton depicts the faces of four different species of apes. The print reads, “If we don’t do anything to save them, in ten to 15 years the great apes could disappear from the majority of the areas where they now live.” There were about two million chimps in Africa one hundred years ago, now there are little more than 150,000. They are dying out as a result of the expanding human population, deforestation, the destruction of their habitat, hunting and traps. The situation of mountain gorillas and orang-utans is even worse. The number of wild apes is falling while the number of orphans in sanctuaries is rising. This campaign does a great job of bringing awareness to important social issues. Some of the other ads depict the problems with starvation, AIDS and heart disease to name a few. Several of the communication projects created by Fabrica, Benetton’s research center have also been developed in cooperation with prestigious associations (including FAO, UNV, WFP) obtaining important acknowledgements at an international level.

Although these ads do not show the clothes, it creates the desire to help fight these problems. Through the campaign people realize that United Colors of Benetton does a lot of work with different organizations and that through buying this brand they are helping to support a very good cause. In that sense it is effective in creating a desire and does not perpetuate the negative body images that the fashion industry has been continually associated with.

Another genre of fashion advertising that seems to do a good job of portraying positive body images is in campaigns for athletic apparel. Currently both Adidas and Nike are attempting to produce campaigns that generate positive body images and messages. Nike’s campaign is a good effort to demonstrate more positive messages about body image, but it has been causing a lot of controversy. Nike’s new ad campaign, “Big Butts, Thunder Thighs, and Tomboy Knees” has been criticized because they highlight the butt, thighs, and knees of women athletes who could hardly by any means be considered out of shape. The campaign seems to have back fired and while those butts, thighs and knees should be praised, the manner that the ad presents the body parts almost condemns them. As explained in The Beauty Myth by Naomi Wolf, in modern society women are expected to have split personalities and lifestyles. Women feel pulled in different directions, such as housewife, working women, athletic social, etc. It seemed that this would have been a great opportunity for Nike to reach the diverse desires of all women, but this campaign does not seem to be there quite yet.

While the campaign seems to have stayed away from the typical genre of fashion advertising, it is not very effective in creating a more positive body image. The images are black and white and shot in a way to eliminate the male gaze or cultural inequalities. However, the depiction of these well-oiled, muscle crunching body parts has sparked some questions. If the message is supposed to be about authenticity, hard work, and in-your-face reality, how about showing a little more sweat and a little less creatine? Furthermore, this ad seems to be appealing to current Nike customers while the whole point of advertising is to try and attract new consumers. Finally, the ad is a copy of the dove campaign which totally strips it of any creative or unique credit the campaign could have been given.

The Adidas campaign launches a new global basketball movement featuring NBA All-Stars Tracy McGrady, Kevin Garnett, Tim Duncan, Chauncey Billups and Gilbert Arenas. The movement of the “It Takes 5IVE” campaign is based on the idea of believing in something bigger than the individual-believing in five, believing in team. Adidas wanted to tap into the idea that there is more to the game then just individual achievement and focus on the value of being part of a team. That is the true spirit of the game of basketball. By bringing together five of the game’s most successful athletes and having them deliver the message that real success can only come from being part of a team, and that any individual achievements cannot measure to the success that five players on the court can achieve together shows that teamwork is the most essential aspect to a team sport.

This campaign seems to do a much better job of creating a positive message; however the message creates a desire for team work to help you succeed. While this is a good message, it is not a positive message about body image. Since this campaign stays away from assisting the fashion industry in creating negative body images and more importantly negative overall messages, it is a pretty good campaign.

Finally there are a few campaigns from popular designers that do a rather good job of staying away from continuing the negative body images being produced by the fashion industry. Both Tommy Hilfigure and Old Navy have ads that completely stay away from the body and in that sense they are not effective at creating a positive body image either, rather they are neutral. In the Tommy Hilfigure ad a herd of sheep are standing in front of an American Flag and the tag line reads “follow the flock.” This ad is cute and creates the desire to fit in and then eludes to the idea that through buying Tommy Hilfigure clothing you will be like everyone else; however, as previously stated, people in society today desire control over their destination and the idea of being like everyone else seems to distract from the notion of controlling one’s destiny. The Old Navy ad also uses animals by creating ads depicting images of their icon dog. These ads are effective at getting the name of the brand to the public, but it creates no desire and is therefore not as effective as the Tommy Hilfigure ad.

Overall, fashion advertising is dominated by ads that encourage negative body image through highly sexualized poses, a majority of male gazes, and unrealistic body types. There is not enough cultural diversity in today’s fashion advertising. The ads are effective at creating desire; however, the desire is to achieve unrealistic and unhealthy goals. In the past few years some very significant changes have been made, but it isn’t enough right now. It is a gradual process so it will probably take some time before any major noticeable differences appear on the pages of the top fashion magazines. Hopefully the steps that are taking place now will have a lasting positive impact on the body images created through future fashion advertising.

Posted by megan.leith on 2007-12-10 22:25:45

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Darklands

Darklands may well have been the most original single CRPG of the 1990s, but its box art was planted firmly in the tacky CRPG tradition. I’m not sure that anyone in Medieval Germany really looked much like these two…

Throughout the 1980s and well into the 1990s, the genres of the adventure game and the CRPG tended to blend together, in magazine columns as well as in the minds of ordinary gamers. I thus considered it an early point of order for this history project to attempt to identify the precise differences between the genres. Rather than addressing typical surface attributes — a CRPG, many a gamer has said over the years, is an adventure game where you also have to kill monsters — I tried to peek under the hood and identify what really makes the two genres tick. At bottom, I decided, the difference was one of design philosophy. The adventure game focuses on set-piece, handcrafted puzzles and other unique interactions, simulating the world that houses them only to the degree that is absolutely necessary. (This latter is especially true of the point-and-click graphic adventures that came to dominate the field after the 1980s; indeed, throughout gaming history, the trend in adventure games has been to become less rather than more ambitious in terms of simulation.) The CRPG, meanwhile, goes in much more for simulation, to a large degree replacing set-piece behaviors with systems of rules which give scope for truly emergent experiences that were never hard-coded into the design.

Another clear difference between the two genres, however, is in the scope of their fictions’ ambitions. Since the earliest days of Crowther and Woods and Scott Adams, adventure games have roamed widely across the spectrum of storytelling; Infocom alone during the 1980s hit on most of the viable modern literary genres, from the obvious (fantasy, science fiction) to the slightly less obvious (mysteries, thrillers) to the downright surprising (romance novels, social satires). CRPGs, on the other hand, have been plowing more or less the same small plot of fictional territory for decades. How many times now have groups of stalwart men and ladies set forth to conquer the evil wizard? While we do get the occasional foray into science fiction — usually awkwardly hammered into a frame of gameplay conventions more naturally suited to heroic fantasy — it’s for the most part been J.R.R. Tolkien and Dungeons & Dragons, over and over and over again.

This seeming lack of adventurousness (excuse the pun!) among CRPG designers raises some interesting questions. Can the simulation-oriented approach only be made to work within a strictly circumscribed subset of possible virtual worlds? Or is the lack of variety in CRPGs down to a simple lack of trying? An affirmative case for the latter question might be made by Origin Systems’s two rather wonderful Worlds of Ultima games of the early 1990s, which retained the game engine from the more traditional fantasy CRPG Ultima VI but moved it into settings inspired by the classic adventure tales of Arthur Conan Doyle and H.G. Wells. Sadly, though, Origin’s customers seemed not to know what to make of Ultima games not taking place in a Renaissance Faire world, and both were dismal commercial failures — thus providing CRPG makers with a strong external motivation to stick with high fantasy, whatever the abstract limits of the applicability of the CRPG formula to fiction might be.

Our subject for today — Darklands, the only CRPG ever released by MicroProse Software — might be described as the rebuttal to the case made by the Worlds of Ultima games, in that its failings point to some of the intrinsic limits of the simulation-oriented approach. Then again, maybe not; today, perhaps even more so than when it was new, this is a game with a hardcore fan base who love it with a passion, even as other players, like the one who happens to be writing this article, see it as rather collapsing under the weight of its ambition and complexity. Whatever your final verdict on it, it’s undeniable that Darklands is overflowing with original ideas for a genre which, even by the game’s release year of 1992, had long since settled into a set of established expectations. By upending so many of them, it became one of the most intriguing CRPGs ever made.

Darklands was the brainchild of Arnold Hendrick, a veteran board-game, wargame, tabletop-RPG, and console-videogame designer who joined MicroProse in 1985, when it was still known strictly as a maker of military simulations. As the first MicroProse employee hired only for a design role — he had no programming or other technical experience whatsoever — he began to place his stamp on the company’s products immediately. It was Hendrick who first had the germ of an idea that Sid Meier, MicroProse’s star programmer/designer, turned into Pirates!, the first MicroProse game to depart notably from the company’s established formula. In addition to Pirates!, for which he continued to serve as a scenario designer and historical consultant even after turning the lead-designer reins over to Meier, Hendrick worked on other games whose feet were more firmly planted in MicroProse’s wheelhouse: titles like Gunship, Project Stealth Fighter, Red Storm Rising, M1 Tank Platoon, and Silent Service II.

“Wild” Bill Stealey, the flamboyant head of MicroProse, had no interest whatsoever in any game that wasn’t a military flight simulator. Still, he liked making money even more than he liked flying virtual aircraft, and by 1990 he wasn’t sure how much more he could grow his company if it continued to make almost nothing but military simulations and the occasional strategic wargame. Meanwhile he had Pirates! and Railroad Tycoon, the latter being Sid Meier’s latest departure from military games, to look at as examples of how successful non-traditional MicroProse games could be. Not knowing enough about other game genres to know what else might be a good bet for his company, he threw the question up to his creative and technical staff: “Okay, programmers, give me what you want to do, and tell me how much money you want to spend. We’ll find a way to sell it.”

And so Hendrick came forward with a proposal to make a CRPG called Darklands, to be set in the Germany of the 15th century, a time and place of dark forests and musty monasteries, Walpurgis Night and witch covens. It could become, Hendrick said, the first of a whole new series of historical CRPGs that, even as they provided MicroProse with an entrée into one of the most popular genres out there, would also leverage their reputation for making games with roots in the real world.

The typical CRPG, then as now, took place in a version of Medieval times that had only ever existed in the imagination of a modern person raised on Tolkien and Dungeons & Dragons. It ignored how appallingly miserable and dull life was for the vast majority of people who lived through the historical reality of the Middle Ages, with its plagues, wars, filth, hard labor, and nearly universal illiteracy. Although he was a dedicated student of history, with a university degree in the field, Hendrick too was smart enough to realize that there wasn’t much of a game to be had by hewing overly close to this mundane historical reality. But what if, instead of portraying a Medieval world as his own contemporaries liked to imagine it to have been, he conjured up the world of the Middle Ages as the people who had lived in it had imagined it to be? God and his many saints would take an active role in everyday affairs, monsters and devils would roam the forests, alchemy would really work, and those suspicious-looking folks who lived in the next village really would be enacting unspeakable rituals in the name of Satan every night. “This is an era before logic or science,” Hendrick wrote, “a time when anything is possible. In short, if Medieval Germans believed something to be true, in Darklands it might actually be true.”

He wanted to incorporate an interwoven tapestry of Medieval imagination and reality into Darklands: a magic system based on Medieval theories about alchemy; a pantheon of real saints to pray to, each able to grant her own special favors; a complete, lovingly detailed map of 15th-century Germany and lands adjacent, over which you could wander at will; hundreds of little textual vignettes oozing with the flavor of the Middle Ages. To make it all go, he devised a set of systems the likes of which had never been seen in a CRPG, beginning with a real-time combat engine that let you pause it at any time to issue orders; its degree of simulation would be so deep that it would include penetration values for various weapons against various materials (thus ensuring that a vagabond with rusty knife could never, ever kill a full-fledged knight in shining armor). The character-creation system would be so detailed as to practically become a little game in itself, asking you not so much to roll up each character as live out the life story that brought her to this point: bloodline, occupations, education (such as it was for most in the Middles Ages), etc.

Character creation in Darklands is really, really complicated. And throughout the game, the spidery font superimposed on brown-sauce backgrounds will make your eyes bleed.

All told, it was one heck of a proposition for a company that had never made a CRPG before. Had Stealey been interested enough in CRPGs to realize just how unique the idea was, he might have realized as well how doubtful its commercial prospects were in a market that seemed to have little appetite for any CRPG that didn’t hew more or less slavishly to the Dungeons & Dragons archetype. But Stealey didn’t realize, and so Darklands got the green light in mid-1990. What followed was a tortuous odyssey; it became the most protracted and expensive development project MicroProse had ever funded.

We’ve seen in some of my other recent articles how companies like Sierra and Origin, taking stocking of escalating complexity in gameplay and audiovisuals and their inevitable companion of escalating budgets, began to systematize the process of game development around this time. And we’ve at least glimpsed as well how such systematization could be a double-edged sword, leading to creatively unsatisfied team members and final products with something of a cookie-cutter feel.

MicroProse, suffice to say, didn’t go that route. Stealey took a hands-off approach to all projects apart from his beloved flight simulators, allowing his people to freelance their way through them. For all the drawbacks of rigid hierarchies and strict methodologies, the Darklands project could have used an injection of exactly those things. It was plagued by poor communication and outright confusion from beginning to end, as Arnold Hendrick and his colleagues improvised like mad in the process of making a game that was like nothing any of them had ever tried to make before.

Hendrick today forthrightly acknowledges that his own performance as project leader was “terrible.” Too often, the right hand didn’t know what the left was doing. An example cited by Hendrik involves Jim Synoski, the team’s first and most important programmer. For some months at the beginning of the project, he believed he was making essentially a real-time fighting game; while that was in fact some of what Darklands was about, it was far from the sum total of the experience. Once made aware at last that his combat code would need to interact with many other modules, he managed to hack the whole mess together, but it certainly wasn’t pretty. It seems there wasn’t so much as a design document for the team to work from — just a bunch of ideas in Hendrick’s head, imperfectly conveyed to everyone else.

The first advertisement for Darklands appeared in the March 1991 issue of Computer Gaming World. The actual product wouldn’t materialize until eighteen months later.

It’s small wonder, then, that Darklands went so awesomely over time and over budget; the fact that MicroProse never cancelled it likely owes as much to the sunk-cost fallacy as anything else. Hendrick claims that the game cost as much as $3 million to make in the end — a flabbergasting number that, if correct, would easily give it the crown of most expensive computer game ever made at the time of its release. Indeed, even a $2 million price tag, the figure typically cited by Stealey, would also qualify it for that honor. (By way of perspective, consider that Origin Systems’s epic CRPG Ultima VII shipped the same year as Darklands with an estimated price tag of $1 million.)

All of this was happening at the worst possible time for MicroProse. Another of Stealey’s efforts to expand the company’s market share had been an ill-advised standup-arcade version of F-15 Strike Eagle, MicroProse’s first big hit. The result, full of expensive state-of-the-art graphics hardware, was far too complex for the quarter-eater market; it flopped dismally, costing MicroProse a bundle. Even as that investment was going up in smoke, Stealey, acting again purely on the basis of his creative staff’s fondest wishes, agreed to challenge the likes of Sierra by making a line of point-and-click graphic adventures. Those products too would go dramatically over time and over budget.

Stealey tried to finance these latest products by floating an initial public offering in October of 1991. By June of 1992, on the heels of an announcement that not just Darklands but three other major releases as well would not be released that quarter — more fruit of Stealey’s laissez-faire philosophy of game development — the stock tumbled to almost 25 percent below its initial price. A stench of doom was beginning to surround the company, despite such recent successes as Civilization.

Games, like most creative productions, generally mirror the circumstances of their creation. This fact doesn’t bode well for Darklands, a project which started in chaos and ended, two years later, in a panicked save-the-company scramble.

Pirates!

Darklands

If you squint hard enough at Darklands, you can see its roots in Pirates!, the first classic Arnold Hendrick helped to create at MicroProse. As in that game, Darklands juxtaposes menu-driven in-town activities, written in an embodied narrative style, with more free-form wanderings over the territories that lie between the towns. But, in place of the straightforward menu of six choices in Pirates!, your time in the towns of Darklands becomes a veritable maze of twisty little passages; you start the game in an inn, but from there can visit a side street or a main street, which in turn can lead you to the wharves or the market, dark alleys or a park, all with yet more things to see and do. Because all of these options are constantly looping back upon one another — it’s seldom clear if the side street from this menu is the same side street you just visited from that other menu — just trying to buy some gear for your party can be a baffling undertaking for the beginner.

Thus, in spite of the superficial interface similarities, we see two radically opposing approaches to game design in Pirates! and Darklands. The older game emphasizes simplicity and accessibility, being only as complex as it needs to be to support the fictional experience it wants to deliver. But Darklands, for its part, piles on layer after layer of baroque detail with gleeful abandon. One might say that here the complexity is the challenge; learning to play the entirety of Darklands at all requires at least as much time and effort as getting really, truly good at a game like Pirates!.

The design dialog we see taking place here has been with us for a long time. Dave Arneson and Gary Gygax, the co-creators of the first incarnation of tabletop Dungeons & Dragons, parted ways not long afterward thanks largely to a philosophical disagreement about how their creation should evolve. Arneson saw the game as a fairly minimalist framework to enable a shared storytelling session, while Gygax saw it as something more akin to the complex wargames on which he’d cut his teeth. Gygax, who would go on to write hundreds of pages of fiddly rules for Advanced Dungeons & Dragons, his magnum opus, was happily cataloging and quantifying every variant of pole arm used in Medieval times when an exasperated Arneson finally lost his cool: “It’s a pointy thing on the end of a stick!” Your appreciation for Darklands must hinge on whether you are a Gary Gygax or a Dave Arneson in spirit. I know to which camp I belong; while there is a subset of gamers who truly enjoy Darkland‘s type of complexity — and more power to them for it — I must confess that I’m not among them.

In an interview conducted many years after the release of Darklands, Arnold Hendrick himself put his finger on what I consider to be its core problem: “Back then, game systems were often overly complicated, and attention to gameplay was often woefully lacking. These days, there’s a much better balance between gameplay and the human psychology of game players and the game systems underlying that gameplay.” Simply put, there are an awful lot of ideas in Darklands which foster complexity, but don’t foster what ought to be the ultimate arbitrator in game design: Fun. Modern designers often talk about an elusive sense of “flow” — a sense by the player that all of a game’s parts merge into a harmonious whole which makes playing for hours on end all too tempting. For this player at least, Darklands is the polar opposite of this ideal. Not only is it about as off-putting a game as I’ve ever seen at initial startup, but it continues always, even after a certain understanding has become to dawn, to be a game of disparate parts: a character-generation game, a combat game, a Choose Your Own Adventure-style narrative, a game of alchemical crafting. There are enough original ideas here for ten games, but it never becomes clear why they absolutely, positively all need to be in this one. Darklands, in other words, is kind of a muddle.

Your motivation for adventuring in Medieval Germany in the first place is one of Darklands‘s original ideas in CRPG design. Drawing once again comparisons to Pirates!, Darklands dispenses with any sort of overarching plot as a motivating force. Instead, like your intrepid corsair of the earlier game, your party of four has decided simply “to bring everlasting honor and glory to your names.” If you play for long enough, something of a larger plot will eventually begin to emerge, involving a Satan-worshiping cult and a citadel dedicated to the demon Baphomet, but even after rooting out the cult and destroying the citadel the game doesn’t end.

In place of an overarching plot, Darklands relies on incidents and anecdotes, from a wandering knight challenging you to a dual to a sinkhole that swallows up half your party. While these are the products of a human writer (presumably Arnold Hendrick for the most part), their placements in the world are randomized. To improve your party’s reputation and earn money, you undertake a variety of quests of the “take item A to person B” or “go kill monster C” variety. All of this too is procedurally generated. Indeed, you begin a new game of Darklands by choosing the menu option “Create a New World.” Although the geography of Medieval Germany won’t change from game to game, most of what you’ll find in and around the towns is unique to your particular created world. It all adds up to a game that could literally, as MicroProse’s marketers didn’t hesitate to declare, go on forever.

But, as all too commonly happens with these things, it’s a little less compelling in practice than it sounds in theory. I’ve gone on record a number of times now with my practical objections to generative narratives. Darklands too often falls prey to the problems that are so typical of the approach. The quests you pick up, lacking as they do any larger relationship to a plot or to the world, are the very definition of FedEx quests, bereft of any interest beyond the reputation and money they earn for you. And, while it can sometimes surprise you with an unexpectedly appropriate and evocative textual vignette, the game more commonly hews to the predictable here as well. Worse, it has a dismaying tendency to show you the same multiple-choice vignettes again and again, pulling you right out of the fiction.

And yet the vignettes are actually the most narratively interesting parts of the game; it will be some time before you begin to see them at all. As in so many other vintage CRPGs, the bulk of your time at the beginning of Darklands is spent doing boring things in the name of earning the right to eventually do less boring things. In this case, you’ll likely have to spend several hours roaming the vacant back streets of whatever town you happen to begin in, seeking out and killing anonymous bands of robbers, just to build up your party enough to leave the starting town.

The open-ended structure works for Pirates! because that game dispenses with this puritanical philosophy of design. It manages to be great fun from the first instant by keeping the pace fast and the details minimal, even as it puts a definite time limit on your career, thus tempting you to play again and again in order to improve on your best final score. Darklands, by contrast, doesn’t necessarily end even when your party is too old to adventure anymore (aging becomes a factor after about age thirty); you can just make new characters and continue where the old ones left off, in the same world with the same equipment, quests, and reputation. Darklands, then, ends only when you get tired of it. Just when that exact point arrives will doubtless differ markedly from player to player, but it’s guaranteed to be anticlimactic.

The ostensible point of Darklands‘s enormously complex systems of character creation, alchemy, religion, and combat is to evoke its chosen time and place as richly as possible. One might even say the same about its lack of an overarching epic plot; such a thing doesn’t exist in the books of history and legend to which the game is so determined to be so faithful. Yet I can’t help but feel that this approach — that of trying to convey the sense of a time and place through sheer detail — is fundamentally misguided. Michael Bate, a designer of several games for Accolade during the 1980s, coined the term “aesthetic simulations” for historical games that try to capture the spirit of their subject matter rather than every piddling detail. Pirates! is, yet again, a fine example of this approach, as is the graceful, period-infused but not period-heavy-handed writing of the 1992 adventure game The Lost Files of Sherlock Holmes.

The writing in Darklands falls somewhat below that standard. It isn’t terrible, but it is a bit graceless, trying to make up for in concrete detail what it isn’t quite able to conjure in atmosphere. So, we get money that is laboriously explicated in terms of individual pfenniges, groschen, and florins, times of day described in terms that a Medieval monk would understand (Matins, Latins, Prime, etc.), and lots of off-putting-to-native-English-speakers German names, but little real sense of being in Medieval Germany.

Graphically as well, the game is… challenged. Having devoted most of their development efforts to 3D vehicular simulators during the 1980s, MicroProse’s art department plainly struggled to adapt to the demands of other genres. Even an unimpeachable classic like Sid Meier’s Civilization achieves its classic status despite rather than because of its art; visually, it’s a little garish compared to what other studios were putting out by this time. But Darklands is much more of a visual disaster, a conflicting mishmash of styles that sometimes manage to look okay in isolation, such as in the watercolor-style backgrounds to many of the textual vignettes. Just as often, though, it verges on the hideous; the opening movie is so absurdly amateurish that, according to industry legend, some people actually returned the game after seeing it, thinking they must have gotten a defective disk or had an incompatible video card.

One of Darklands‘s more evocative vignettes, with one of its better illustrations as a backdrop. Unfortunately, you’re likely to see this same vignette and illustration several times, with a decided sense of diminishing returns.

But undoubtedly the game’s biggest single problem, at the time of its release and to some extent still today, was all of the bugs. Even by the standards of an industry at large which was clearly struggling to come to terms with the process of making far more elaborate games than had been seen in the previous decade, Darklands stood out upon its belated release in August of 1992 for its woefully under-baked state. Whether this was despite or because of its extended development cycle remains a question for debate. What isn’t debatable, however, is that it was literally impossible to complete Darklands in its initial released state, and that, even more damningly, a financially pressured MicroProse knew this and released it anyway. To their credit, the Darklands team kept trying to fix the game after its release, with patch after patch to its rickety code base. The patches eventually numbered at least nine in all, a huge quantity for long-suffering gamers to acquire at a time when they could only be distributed on physical floppy disks or via pricey commercial online services like CompuServe. After about a year, the team managed to get the game into a state where it only occasionally did flaky things, although even today it remains far from completely bug-free.

By the time the game reached this reasonably stable state, however, the damage had been done. It sold fairly well in its first month or two, but then came a slew of negative reviews and an avalanche of returns that actually exceeded new sales for some time; Darklands thus managed the neat trick of continuing to be a drain on MicroProse’s precarious day-to-day finances even after it had finally been released. Hendrick had once imagined a whole line of similar historical CRPGs; needless to say, that didn’t happen.

Combined with the only slightly less disastrous failure of the new point-and-click graphic-adventure line, Darklands was directly responsible for the end of MicroProse as an independent entity. In December of 1993, with the company’s stock now at well under half of its IPO price and the creditors clamoring, a venture-capital firm arranged a deal whereby MicroProse was acquired by Spectrum Holobyte, known virtually exclusively for a truly odd pairing of products: the home-computer version of the casual game Tetris and the ultra-hardcore flight simulator Falcon. The topsy-turvy world of corporate finance being what it was, this happened despite the fact that MicroProse’s total annual sales were still several times that of Spectrum Holobyte.

Stealey, finding life unpleasant in a merged company where he was no longer top dog, quit six months later. His evaluation of the reasons for MicroProse’s collapse was incisive enough in its fashion:

You have to be known for something. We were known for two things [military simulators and grand-strategy games], but we tried to do more. I think that was a big mistake. I should have been smarter than that. I should have stuck with what we were good at.

I’ve been pretty hard on Darklands in this article, a stance for which I don’t quite feel a need to apologize; I consider it a part of my duty as your humble scribe to call ’em like I see ’em. Yet there is far more to Darklands‘s legacy than a disappointing game which bankrupted a company. Given how rare its spirit of innovation has been in CRPG design, plenty of players in the years since its commercial vanishing performance have been willing to cut it a lot of slack, to work hard to enjoy it on its own terms. For reasons I’ve described at some length now, I can’t manage to join this group, but neither can I begrudge them their passion.

But then, Darklands has been polarizing its players from the very beginning. Shortly after the game’s release, Scorpia, Computer Gaming World magazine’s famously opinionated adventure-game columnist, wrote a notably harsh review of it, concluding that it “might have been one of the great ones” but instead “turns out to be a game more to be avoided than anything else.” Johnny L. Wilson, the magazine’s editor-in-chief, was so bothered by her verdict that he took the unusual step of publishing a sidebar response of his own. It became something of a template for future Darklands apologies by acknowledging the game’s obvious flaws yet insisting that its sheer uniqueness nevertheless made it worthwhile. (“The game is as repetitive as Scorpia and some of the game’s online critics have noted. One comes across some of the same encounters over and over. Yet only occasionally did I find this disconcerting.”) He noted as well that he personally hadn’t seen many of the bugs and random crashes which Scorpia had described in her review. Perhaps, he mused, his computer was just an “immaculate contraption” — or perhaps Scorpia’s was the opposite. In response to the sidebar, Wilson was castigated by his magazine’s readership, who apparently agreed with Scorpia much more than with him and considered him to have undermined his own acknowledged reviewer.

The reader response wasn’t the only interesting postscript to this episode. Wilson:

Later, after 72 hours of playing around with minor quests and avoiding the main plot line of Darklands, I decided it was time to finish the game. I had seven complete system crashes in less than an hour and a half once I decided to jump in and finish the game. I didn’t really have an immaculate contraption, I just hadn’t encountered the worst crashes because I hadn’t filled my upper memory with the system-critical details of the endgame. Scorpia hadn’t overreacted to the crashes. I just hadn’t seen how bad it was because I was fooling around with the game instead of trying to win. Since most players would be trying to win, Scorpia’s review was more valid than my sidebar. Ah, well, that probably isn’t the worst thing I’ve ever done when I thought I was being fair.

This anecdote reveals what may be a deciding factor — in addition to a tolerance for complexity for its own sake — as to whether one can enjoy Darklands or not. Wilson had been willing to simply inhabit its world, while the more goal-oriented Scorpia approached it as she would any other CRPG — i.e., as a game that she wanted to win. As a rather plot-focused, goal-oriented player myself, I naturally sympathize more with her point of view.

In the end, then, the question of where the point of failure lies in Darklands is one for the individual player to answer. Is Darklands as a whole a very specific sort of failure, a good idea that just wasn’t executed as well as it might have been? Or does the failure lie with the CRPG format itself, which this game stretched beyond the breaking point? Or does the real failure lie with the game’s first players, who weren’t willing to look past the bugs and other occasional infelicities to appreciate what could have been a whole new type of CRPG? I know where I stand, but my word is hardly the final one.

Given the game’s connection to the real world and its real cultures, so unusual to the CRPG genre, perhaps the most interesting question of all raised by Darklands is that of the appropriate limits of gamefication. A decade before Darklands‘s release, the Dungeons & Dragons tabletop RPG was embroiled in a controversy engendered by God-fearing parents who feared it to be an instrument of Satanic indoctrination. In actuality, the creators of the game had been wise enough to steer well clear of any living Western belief system. (The Deities & Demigods source book did include living native-American, Chinese, Indian, and Japanese religions, which raises some troublesome questions of its own about cultural appropriation and respect, but wasn’t quite the same thing as what the angry Christian contingent was complaining about.)

It’s ironic to note that much of the content which Evangelical Christians believed to be present in Dungeons & Dragons actually is present in Darklands, including the Christian God and Satan and worshipers of both. Had Darklands become successful enough to attract the attention of the same groups who objected so strongly to Dungeons & Dragons, there would have been hell to pay. Arnold Hendrick had lived through the earlier controversy from an uncomfortably close vantage point, having been a working member of the tabletop-game industry at the time it all went down. In his designer’s notes in Darklands‘s manual, he thus went to great pains to praise the modern “vigorous, healthy, and far more spiritual [Catholic] Church whose quiet role around the globe is more altruistic and beneficial than many imagine.” Likewise, he attempted to separate modern conceptions of Satanism and witchcraft from those of Medieval times. Still, the attempt to build a wall between the Christianity of the 15th century and that of today cannot be entirely successful; at the end of the day, we are dealing with the same religion, albeit in two very different historical contexts.

Opinions vary as to whether the universe in which we live is entirely mechanistic, reduceable to the interactions of concrete, understandable, computable physical laws. But it is clear that a computer simulation of a world must be exactly such a thing. In short, a simulation leaves no room for the ineffable. And yet Darklands chooses to grapple, to an extent unrivaled by almost any other game I’m aware of, with those parts of human culture that depend upon a belief in the ineffable. By bringing Christianity into its world, it goes to a place virtually no other game has dared approach. Its vending-machine saints reduce a religion — a real, living human faith — to a game mechanic. Is this okay? Or are there areas of the human experience which ought not to be turned into banal computer code? The answer must be in the eye — and perhaps the faith — of the beholder.

Darklands‘s real-time-with-pause combat system. The interface here is something of a disaster, and the visuals too leave much to be desired, but the core idea is sound.

After my lights, Darklands is more of a collection of bold ideas than a coherent game, more of an experiment in the limits of CRPG design than a classic example of same. Still, in a genre which is so often in thrall to the tried and true, its willingness to experiment can only be applauded.

For sometimes experiments yield rich rewards, as the most obvious historical legacy of this poor-selling, obscure, bug-ridden game testifies. Ray Muzyka and Greg Zeschuk, the joint CEOs of Bioware at the time that studio made the Baldur’s Gate series of CRPGs, have acknowledged lifting the real-time-with-pause combat systems in those huge-selling and much-loved games directly out of Darklands. Since the Baldur’s Gate series’s heyday around the turn of the millennium, dozens if not hundreds of other CRPGs have borrowed the same system second-hand from Bioware. Such is the way that innovation diffuses itself through the culture of game design. So, the next time you fire up a Steam-hosted extravaganza like Pillars of Eternity, know that part of the game you’re playing owes its existence to Darklands. Lumpy and imperfect though it is in so many ways, we could use more of its spirit of bold innovation today — in CRPG design and, indeed, across the entire landscape of interactive entertainment.

(Sources: the book Gamers at Work: Stories Behind the Games People Play by Morgan Ramsay; Computer Gaming World of March 1991, February 1992, May 1992, September 1992, December 1992, January 1993, and June 1994; Commodore Magazine of September 1987; Questbusters of November 1992; Compute! of October 1993; PC Zone of September 2001; Origin Systems’s internal newsletter Point of Origin of January 17 1992; New York Times of June 13 1993. Online sources include Matt Barton’s interview with Arnold Hendrick, Just Adventure‘s interview with Johnny L. Wilson, and Arnold Hendrick’s discussion of Darklands in the Steam forum.

Darklands is available for purchase on GOG.com.)

source http://reposts.ciathyza.com/darklands/

[recentanimenews]

FEATURE: Crunchyroll Favorites 2016, Part Three: Everything Else!

Superhero friendships ended, the Death Star plans were stolen, we experienced more reboots than you could possibly imagine (although really, that's every year), and Emily cooked a lot of food. After looking at our favorite anime and manga in Part One, and our favorite games in Part Two, we're gonna close up Crunchyroll Favorites 2016 with our favorite EVERYTHING ELSE--movies, books, comics, and more! Let's get started!

  NATE MING (@NateMing)

Voltron: Legendary Defender- I think it's safe to say that Voltron--the US edit of Beast King GoLion--was what got me into anime in the first place, so I was pretty skeptical of this new take on the story by the creators of The Legend of Korra. Thankfully, I had absolutely nothing to worry about, as this is a really fun reboot that not only keeps the high-energy feel of the original, but also pays homage to both Voltron and GoLion. I can't wait for the next season (also, Shiro's totally gonna die).

    Ip Man 3- The first Ip Man was a cool quasi-historical beat-em-up with some great setpieces, but the second was only okay despite bringing in the legendary Sammo Hung. We're back to the good stuff with the third go-around--the Donnie Yen vs. Mike Tyson headliner is pretty awesome, but the real star is a rival Wing Chun instructor, played by Max Zhang.

    Star Trek Beyond- I've always liked Star Trek more than Star Wars, and while Rogue One was great, the real surprise for me was Star Trek Beyond--co-written by Simon Pegg--going back to the series' optimistic roots and giving every character a chance to shine. Justin Lin already has experience delivering with ensemble actioners, and the Enterprise herself has never looked cooler. Just goes to show you can't always judge a movie by its trailer.

    Shin Godzilla- This isn't the alpha predator from the 2014 US reboot--the King of the Monsters and reluctant, almost accidental protector of humanity. Hideaki Anno's Godzilla is a ruthless force of nature, death personified that leaves a trail of destruction and levels the heart of Tokyo in mere moments when pushed. Bureaucracy is the real enemy here, as the film constantly switches from meeting to meeting to planning session and back to another meeting to discuss the results of that planning session--sure, Godzilla's blowing stuff up, but nobody wants to take responsibility and act. I hope Anno gets another shot at the King, because this was fantastic.

    The VVitch- Low-key, creeping horror can be very hit or miss, but The VVitch wins by never letting you settle down or feel safe. Spot-on period presentation brings us into an American colonial family banished to the frontier for being too religious for settlement life, and how their fanaticism is just as destructive as the dark forces that are literally at their doorstep.

    Baskin- On the other hand, Baskin just goes all-out in its ferocity and surreal visuals, where five overly-macho cops investigate a cult and all hell breaks loose. Baskin is horror purity, almost like watching David Lynch join forces with Gareth Huw Evans--hold on tight, this one is absolutely not for the faint of heart.

    Batman vol. 2 (The New 52)- Western comics rarely end, or at least they very rarely have good stopping points, which is why I was so satisfied with Scott Snyder and Greg Capullo's New 52 run on Batman. From introducing new villains to really focusing on Batman's relationships with Alfred and Jim Gordon, this 50-issue run came to a close this year with an awesome, gigantic kaiju battle in the middle of Gotham. What's best, you barely need any background character knowledge to get started--just pick up Court of Owls and read all the way through to Superheavy. It's so damn good.

    Monstress- Gorgeous, mysterious, and part of an intricate and sometimes terrifying world, Monstress has me hooked. Marjorie Liu and Sana Takeda have crafted something that I try and show off every chance I get, something I want everyone to be a part of--a fantasy-horror story of revenge and intrigue set in an Asian-mythology-inspired world is just too good to pass up, especially when it looks this good.

  by 多無

  Fanart Friday comes to an end- After five years, I decided to close down my signature Crunchyroll column so I could focus on other projects. Fanart Friday - The Final Edition came on September 23, 2016, the exact fifth birthday of Fanart Friday, and it was great to say goodbye to the audience that was there every Friday for a half a decade. What's coming up next? Shaw City Strikers, a martial arts comic (and homage to shonen manga) I'm working on with some friends, and my new column BETTER NATE THAN NEVER. Stay tuned!

    That one tweet- It's nice to see this tweet still making the rounds. The initial explosion was a sight to behold--it just goes to show that 1) being in the right place at the right time is a real thing and 2) you know you've made good content when people brazenly steal it and claim it as their own. Also, 3) you know you did a good thing when it makes actual Nazis mad.

  PETER FOBIAN (@PeterFobian)

  Crunchyroll x Funimation- My personal favorite anime couple of 2016. The partnership between Crunchyroll and Funimation may just be the biggest news for western anime fans since Crunchyroll itself appeared. It’s one of those “everyone wins” situations that’s almost unbelievable. More free streaming anime, subbed and dubbed, for everyone.

    Westworld- I’m a die-hard Anthony Hopkins fan, love westerns, and love love love psychological thrillers with existential implications, so basically Westworld was made specifically for me and me alone. I’m extremely concerned with the direction the story is taking with the finale, but everything this season has been tremendous. Their use of a hybrid maintenance process/psychological evaluation to drive story is inspired.

    Monstress- I have a love/hate relationship with American comics, and often take refuge in independent works. Monstress has me more excited about a Western comic than I have been since I started reading Powers. The world, designs, and style alone are so gorgeous I feel like I bought an art book, and the story holds a lot of promise with a supernatural revenge mystery with a predominantly female cast and divine implications.

    Netflix Horror Serials: Stranger Things, Penny Dreadful, Hemlock Grove, Black Mirror- I’m not exactly a horror junky, but I’ve definitely spent a lot of time with the genre and couldn’t be happier about Netflix Originals diving in. After years of sitcoms, procedurals, and conspiracy shows dominating the environment it’s great to see some new blood (usually a lot of it) making its way out of cinema and into more available media. Not all of them are revolutionary works of art but they’re bringing in new ideas.

    Captain America: Civil War- Like almost everyone, I’m a fan of the Marvel movies and feel like the Avengers movies turned over a new leaf with Civil War. Where previously they were the campier, less-directed collaborations of the more interesting personal narratives of the heroes solo adventures, Civil War was just right, reigning in the theatrics of Age of Ultron with a much tighter, character-driven story. I’m eager to see what the Russo brothers do with the MCU.

  KARA DENNISON (@RubyCosmos)

  Working in the Crunchyroll Newsroom!- I've worked as a subtitle editor/QCer for Crunchyroll's anime side for a while now, but this year I made the switch to the newsroom and it's some of the most fun I've had in ages. The people I'm working with are awesome (and a couple are old friends) and our chats throughout the day are both informative and hilarious. And hey, I can put on my resume that I've written about Tezuka's mouse porn.

    (Re)Generation Who- This was my second year working with this awesome Doctor Who convention, and I was so pleased to be back with them again in Baltimore. I got to meet Peter Davison, Anneke Wills, Michael Troughton, and so many others who made the weekend amazing (not to mention re-meeting Colin Baker, Nicola Bryant, and even more). Hanging out with them -- whether during an interview or at the bar -- is a delight and a privilege, and I can't wait to see what year 3 will be like!

    SPACE.- Curiosity's 360 view of Mars posted as an interactive Facebook video. Watching the Pegasus XL rocket launch live. And the fact that the rest of the world is enthusiastic about it. I'm a big space geek and I always love finding more big space geeks. The fact that the majority of the people I encounter are just as ready to freak out about how awesome space is as I am is... well, AWESOME.

  EVAN MINTO (@VamptVo)

  Chapo Trap House- In the US, politics defined 2016, for obvious reasons. And for many like me on the left side of the spectrum, the political comedy podcast Chapo Trap House has served as an unexpected but welcome guide through the past year. But don’t let me get TOO sincere on you; the hosts have got a penchant for the ironic and absurd, as you might expect from a podcast named after a drug cartel that started off with analysis of pundits’ sexual pathologies and satirical praise for the Turkish deep state. Then again, between the brilliant comedy, they’ve inspired a lot of listeners like myself to get more involved in local politics, a feat that’s likely as baffling to them as it is to the political establishment they love to hate.

    Zootopia- Who would have thought a talking animal Disney movie would steal the hearts of jaded adults like me in 2016? On charm alone, Zootopia is one of my favorite American animated movies of recent years, with its carefully observed and animated animal behavior. The diverse cast of animals allows the animators to portray a similarly diverse range of exaggerated personalities — the tiny, timid rabbit, the brawny, surly bison—and the breezy script puts them all to brilliant comedic effect. But what really impressed me was Zootopia’s social commentary, which uses a mess of stereotypes of both predators and prey to shine a surprisingly stark light on real-world issues of race relations and criminal justice. It’s classic Disney meets contemporary Disney!

    Captain America: Civil War- I’ve got a bad case of Marvel fatigue (you’ll notice Doctor Strange didn’t make my list), but sometimes the Marvel Cinematic Universe still surprises me. Directors Anthony and Joe Russo, back after the previous high point of the film series, The Winter Soldier, deliver a similarly gray portrait of the Avengers, with the character flaws of the famed superheroes laid bare. It’s not as political as I would have liked, but Civil War is a surprisingly personal film with a deliberately unsatisfying, morally ambiguous finale. And yes, though he feels like a bit of an afterthought, the movie also has the greatest on-screen Spider-Man yet. Homecoming couldn’t come any sooner.

    Rogue One: A Star Wars Story- We’re just one year into the new annual schedule of Star Wars movies, so I can still muster some excitement about Disney’s reimagining of one of my all-time favorite franchises. Rogue One stumbles a bit at the beginning, introducing too many characters and planets without justifying their presence, but once the team comes together and heads off to steal the Death Star plans, the movie really kicks into gear. Seeing a classic Return of the Jedi-style space battle is enough to awaken some strong nostalgia even from me, but it’s the thematic resonance with the later films that really makes it all work — the forgotten art of the force, the Rebels’ desperation in the face of the Empire, and of course, the sheer terror of facing Darth Vader.

  SAM WOLFE (@_Samtaro)

  Rogue One: A Star Wars Story- Despite the release of The Force Awakens last year, Disney has already released a new Star Wars movie this year, and it’s a breed apart from what we’re traditionally used to. Rogue One took risks, and while some die-hard fans may have left the theater conflicted, the movie succeeded in exploring a side of the Star Wars universe never before seen on the big screen. This is the first time in history that two Star Wars movies have been released theatrically in two years consecutively, and although some fear that the brand might suffer from overexposure, it certainly hasn’t gotten stale yet.

    Chris Niosi- A smaller story, but one that deserves recognition. Artist Chris Niosi, better known as “Kirbopher”, landed the role of Arataka Reigen in the English dub of Mob Psycho 100 this year. Niosi is known for numerous projects, including animation work on Skullgirls, lending his voice to several shows, and creating the web series TOME, a love letter to anime. This role, in my opinion, is significant because it cements Chris as an anime fan who made his dream of being an anime voice actor. Way to go, Chris.

    A Personal Note- Look, 2016 was a rough year for a lot of people for a lot of reasons. Without trying to sound too preachy, as we move into 2017, remember to be kind to one another. It’s very easy, and dare I say it, trendy, to be cynical and apathetic when the chips are down. Take time to recognize what you have to be happy about, and how you can make a positive difference in peoples’ lives around you. If anime has taught us anything, it’s that when somebody knocks you down, you stand right back up and look ‘em in the eyes. I hope everybody has a good 2017!

  NICK CREAMER (@B0bduh)

  Italy- I took a family trip to Italy this past spring, and visions of Venice’s nestled alleyways and Tuscany’s rolling hills have been dancing through my head ever since. The rural European aesthetic of shows like Kino’s Journey and Haibane Renmei has always been one of my favorite settings, and actually walking through cities that realized those majestic worlds felt like wandering through a dream. It was an inspiring trip, and I hope to one day return.

    Westworld- I haven’t really been making enough time for the big western TV dramas, but I was able to catch this year’s Westworld, and I’m glad I did. Though I found the show’s focus on mysteries at the expense of all else a little draining, the fundamental world it established was a fascinating place, and the show built up to some remarkable dramatic high points. It’s the kind of messy but ambitious narrative I always tend to root for, and the fact that it was populated by icons like Anthony Hopkins and Ed Harris certainly didn’t hurt, either.

    The VVitch- I’d actually almost forgotten The VVitch came out this year, but it was likely the most gripping new film I’ve seen. In lieu of jump scares or gross-out violence, The VVitch constructed a breathing world that promised danger around every turn, where the fear and distrust of its human characters was every bit as terrifying as its supernatural predators. There’s something fundamentally ominous about the New England countryside - a sense of old secrets and old grudges, a place where humans are not meant to tread. By emphasizing the alien danger of the natural world and tethering it to a precise and claustrophobic moment in history, The VVitch stands as one of the most powerful horror films in years.

  EMILY BUSHMAN (@yumpenguinsnack)

  Personal Favorite Anime Food of 2016: Mushroom and Cheese Gyoza from Food Wars- This dish never made an anime appearance in this season of Food Wars! but, having read the manga, I really wanted to try this dish out. Soma teaches the gyoza folding method to a class of kids he's teaching, and he lets them fill the gyoza with whatever they want. One kid picked mushrooms and cheese, which at first seemed weird but in hindsight obviously worked out well. Chop the cheese and mushrooms finely and toss with some sauteed onion. Mix with salt and pepper. And simply wrap in gyoza wrappers. It's simple, it's fun to make with friends or on your own, and holy cow, is it amazing! Best of all, the ingredients are easily interchangeable with your own personal favorites, so it's a great recipe to experiment with. I told my housemates that they could eat all the extras I'd made...and sadly had nothing to show after an hour in the kitchen. I'd eaten them all.

    Fan-favorite Anime Food of 2016: Katsu Pirohzki from Yuri!! On ICE- This was a big surprise for me. First of all, it's not the easiest thing to make at all. It requires a lot of focus, lots of parts working together, and an ability to handle sticky dough, in excess. Second, it wasn't actually all that amazing tasting. It's an extremely hearty dish, like a lot of Russian foods, and left me feeling over-full after eating one. I also found that I had to dip it in a sauce to heighten the flavor pay-off. For a recipe designer, the ideal is to have a perfectly seasoned, delicious dish, which isn't exactly what happened. But the story behind the dish makes it all worth it, in my opinion. Who would have guessed that this show would be so popular? I love the character dynamics, and the plot was just charming. Best of all, it inspired lots of people to try making this dish, to recreate the magic for themselves. I got more hits on this recipe than anything else this year on Crunchyroll, which is why I designated it the fan-favorite dish of the year.

    Magical Roommate Favorite Anime Food of 2016: Sukiyaki from Princess Jellyfish- My roommate, Sarah, is my savior in times of crisis. When I have too much food, she always helps me eat it without a single complaint. So, I felt it was only right to give her a chance to choose her favorite recipe of the year. Princess Jellyfish is by no means a 2016 original, but I came across the recipe for this dish late 2016, and made it for my friends. We all love this show, and had all watched it together when it aired a few years ago. So, I had a hunch they'd enjoy a recipe from the anime, and I was right. It was an instant hit! My darling roommate, who I depend on to eat basically everything I make, elected this as her favorite dish of the year. According to her: "I like it cuz it was just as good as the one we had in Japan and I liked how interactive it was with not only the food but with our friends. I loved the veggies just as much as the meat and the sauce was to die for. It was super fun to eat with everyone and compete for the food with our friends."

    A Gathering of Shadows by V.E. Schwab- A brilliant sequel to a fantastic first book. The story focuses on a guy named Kell, one of the few remaining members of his kind of magic wielders, and his struggle to protect his adopted family from harm while also living free of their over-bearing protection. Along the way he makes friends with a cut throat thief who keeps him alive, mostly to suit her own desires, a prince who's too good at heart for his own good, and a dashingly dangerous ship's captain who's in the business for the keeping and collection of the deepest and darkest of secrets. I was startled to find that this book not only added onto the world building of the first novel, but did so in a way that skillfully integrated the events of the first book into the second. A heart-wrenching and gut-clasping read the entire way through. The first book in the series is called A Darker Shade of Magic. Not 100% necessary to enjoy the sequel, but it would definitely help.

    Morning Star by Pierce Brown- A great cap to a fantastic space opera-y series. This story follows the life of one man, Darrow, and his quest to overthrow a government that takes care of the best of society at the expense of a those considered the lowest. Racism at its worst. What else is new in a sci-fi novel? It's a familiar plot carried out with the elegance and grace of a particularly dangerous chess game. This book takes no prisoners, cuts your throat, and leaves you to die. And while you're busy trying to return from the dead, it carries on carving a savage path of friends loved and lost, lives risked and gambled away, dirty, secret games played in the dark, and an ending that eviscerates you, heart and soul. The first in the series is called Red Rising. I recommend you start there, unless you like working your way backwards.

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And that's a wrap for our three-part series! Be sure to check out Part One and Part Two if you missed them! If you're still in the mood for past CR Favorites, check out the previous years' features here:

  Crunchyroll Favorites 2015 Part One Part Two Part Three

Crunchyroll Favorites 2014 Part One Part Two Part Three

Crunchyroll Favorites 2013 Part One Part Two Part Three

Crunchyroll Favorites 2012 Part One Part Two Part Three

Crunchyroll News' Best of 2011 Part One Part Two

  What were your favorite "everything elses" of 2016? Remember, this is a FAVORITES list, not a BEST OF list, so there's no wrong answers--sound off in the comments and share your favorites with us!

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Nate Ming is the Features and Reviews Editor for Crunchyroll News, creator of the long-running Fanart Friday column, and the Customer Support Lead for Crunchyroll. You can follow him on Twitter at @NateMing.

By: news+feed@crunchyroll.com