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anim-ttrpgs · 8 months ago

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Gorgon Player Character Rules in Eureka: Investigative Urban Fantasy

Eureka has six playable "monster" types, and about ten total supernatural character options all together. Each supernatural trait is taken basically as if it is a normal trait like the ones you have been seeing us post. You cannot give a character more than one supernatural trait--and from what you are about to read, you probably wouldn't want to. Playing monsters is recommended for "advanced" players only, people who like a lot of "crunch" in their games, as require you to keep track of a lot more mechanics than playing a normal human.

I was going to post the wolfman but a bunch of people wanted me to do the gorgon so I'm impulsively doing the gorgon.

Here is the Gorgon Trait. This is going under a Read More because it's long as hell but we really hope that you will check it out and comment. This is, like, the whole entire ruleset for playing a gorgon in Eureka.

Gorgon (Monster Trait)

A gorgon is a mythological creature owing its origin in legend to Ancient Greece, Medusa being the most well-known example, but far from the only one. Historically, gorgons are often, but not always, depicted with serpents for hair, wings, and/or a serpentine tail[1], as well as frequent descriptions of other reptilian or serpentine features.

[1. Off to the side in the final formatting] The latter of which is far too noticeably abnormal for an investigator, but is not excluded from the possibility of belonging to a monstrous NPC. Gorgons as they are already push the boundaries of what a monstrous investigator can look like.

Petrifying Gaze

One of a gorgon’s most defining features is their petrifying gaze. Any living thing with eyes the gorgon makes direct eye-contact with for more than an instant will be turned completely to stone within seconds. This only works at a range of about 10 feet. Clothing and small objects they are holding will be turned to stone with them. [go back and clarify this is how the witch and fairy’s curse works too] This is not an ability the gorgon can control in any way, it happens to anyone they make eye-contact with.[1]

[1 off to the side in the final formatting] This works even if it is eye contact with only one eye.

If a gorgon makes direct eye-contact with someone unintentionally (as is a natural human instinct), they can avert their gaze quickly enough to spare them with a Full Success on a Reflexes check. If the other party is aware of the gorgon’s petrifying gaze, they may also make this Reflexes check. A Full Success by either character will prevent the petrification.[1]

[1 off to the side in the final formatting] A gorgon’s life is often one of isolation, with intimacy their most deadly curse.

Investigators are assumed to make eye-contact by default if they have a non-negative stat in Social Cues. For NPCs, the Narrator rolls 1D6, and on a 2 or higher, the NPC is assumed to make eye-contact by default.

The petrifying gaze only works through direct eye-contact, not through artistic depictions, photographs, video, or reflections. Looking through sufficiently opaque fabric, lenses, or other material will also prevent petrification, as long as the gorgon’s eyes are obscured from view.[1] The effect of direct eye-contact with a gorgon is still potent even if the gorgon is deceased, so long as the eyes are intact. Undead, living dolls, and gorgons are not affected by this petrification.

[1 off to the side in the final formatting] Contact lenses will not help to prevent petrification. Also, only the gorgon’s eyes being obscured from view matters. If the other party is wearing sunglasses, they will still be petrified.

Petrification is generally absolutely permanent, and is not reversed when the gorgon who caused it dies.

Effects of Being Petrified

A victim of petrification will not be aware of their surroundings while petrified, but they will lose 4 points of Composure per day until they are effectively dead, and can never be returned to normal. If relevant, consider NPCs to have 1D6+1 points of Composure to lose before this Composure loss starts to eat into their HP.

Reversing Petrification

However, a fairy or fairytale witch could reverse the effect (see p.XX). However, the petrification of gorgons is not the same as the petrication of a witch or fairy’s curse, and requires different components to reverse. Instead of the name or a lock of hair, this requires both eyes of either the victim or the gorgon who caused the curse. If this is done with the gorgon’s eyes, this only works on one victim (since the gorgon’s eyes are destroyed by the process)

Anyone coming out of petrification will do so as if they have just had a very long and totally unrestful sleep, and any damage they sustained as a statue will immediately take effect. For example, chips in their stone body become lacerations in their living body. If an arm was broken off their statue, their arm is now severed.

Snake Eyes

The eyes of a gorgon resemble those of a snake, and have vertical pupils. For a gorgon, “automatic” success or failure results are reversed, so a roll of double 1s is an automatic success, and a roll of double 6s is an automatic failure.

Gorgon Skin

Choose only one of the options below:[1]

[1 off to the side in the final formatting] The coloration of a gorgon’s scales is up to the player’s choice.

Normal Skin (Option): It’s normal.

Scaly Skin (Option): The gorgon’s skin is covered randomly in large patches of thick, hard scales. It is up to the player where on the body these patches are, which may make it easier or harder for the gorgon to pass as a normal human. Regardless, these scales reduce damage by half against 1-Damage and 2-Damage melee weapons. Having Scaly Skin also gives the gorgon Claws.

Full Coverage Scales (Option): The gorgon has no human hair anywhere on their body, and is instead covered nearly head-to-toe in thick, hard snake scales except for a smooth underbelly on the front of the torso, the inside of the hands, and soles of the feet. These scales make it near impossible to pass as a normal human without wearing full-body coverage, but reduce damage from all melee weapons by half. Having Full Coverage Scales also gives the gorgon Claws.[1]

[1 off to the side in the final formatting] Gorgons with Full Coverage Scales also shed their skin a few times a year, but this does not happen often enough to be worth considering a codified mechanic. The patches of scales for Scaly Skin may also shed occasionally.

Gorgon Claws

A gorgon only has claws if they have Scaly Skin or Full-Coverage Scales. If they do, the gorgon’s nails are hard and sharp, like claws[1]. Because of their superhuman strength, these claws deal 2 Penetrative Damage.

[1 off to the side in the final formatting] A steel file is required for filing these nails down, they tear up lesser files.

Gorgon Wings

Choose only one of the options below:

No Wings (Option): The gorgon has no wings. This is very helpful for passing as normal in public.

Wings (Option): A large pair of wings (leathery or feathery, player’s choice) stretch out from the gorgon’s back with at least a 15-foot wingspan from tip to tip. Effective use of these wings for flight requires enough space in one’s surroundings to fully extend the wings as well as get a running start, and an Athletics check. However, because gorgons lack any sort of tail or rudder, their flight will never be as stable or graceful as most other winged creatures. Apply a -1 to any roll to avoid obstacles or take any other action while in flight.

Full Success: The gorgon can take flight fully. +4 Acceleration.

Partial Success: The gorgon can at best glide low to the ground, maintaining flight for a few seconds at a time as they must touch down to kick themselves back off frequently. The gorgon will still have to contend with most Chase obstacles while this low to the ground. (As a travel method for the purposes of tracking Ticks during travel scenes, this kind of “flight” is only -2 Ticks.) +2 Acceleration.

Failure: The gorgon fails to take to the air, and probably falls flat on their face.

A gorgon’s wings are nearly impossible to hide without attracting at least some attention. As long as the gorgon is wearing sufficient clothing,[1] a Stealth roll can be made to hide their wings for the duration of one Scene, on a per-Scene basis.

[1 off to the side in the final formatting] One suggestion would be to wear a large overcoat and walk with a hunch.

Full Success: No one will notice if they’re not already looking for it.

Partial Success: Most people won’t notice or care, but the gorgon will likely attract some stares in public. It looks like they are hiding something, maybe a backpack, under their clothes.

Failure: The gorgon’s wings slip out and, even if just for a moment, it is obvious to anyone looking that they are real or at least very convincing fakes.[1]

[1 off to the side in the final formatting] Which is weird in and of itself.

Gorgon Hair

Choose only one of the options below:

Normal Hair (Option): It’s normal. If the gorgon has Full Coverage Scales, then this means no hair at all.

Normal Hair with Serpents (Option): (This option cannot be chosen alongside Full-Coverage Scales.) Alongside regular hair, the gorgon has several snakes which protrude from their scalp. These snakes grow in length at the same rate as the gorgon’s hair, though they are always slightly longer than it. So long as the snakes are behaving well, a gorgon can pass for normal without wearing a hat or hair cover. See “Head Snakes” below.

Full Serpent Hair (Option): Many snakes protrude from the gorgon’s scalp, fully covering it. These snakes grow out at the same rate as human hair. The gorgon will require significant coverage to hide these from the public eye.

Head Snakes

The snakes on a gorgon’s head can be any species of medium-sized venomous snake, though they are always all the same species. These snakes are part of the gorgon’s body, share their nervous system, and do not require independent sustenance, but do have minds of their own. The gorgon has only about as much control over them as they would a moderately trained pet. Unlike a gorgon’s primary eyes, the snakes’ eyes do not cause petrification.

The gorgon can sense anything that their snakes can sense, granting them a +1 Contextual bonus to all Senses checks. (If the gorgon has Full Serpent Hair, increase this bonus to +2.)

The snakes can swallow objects up to about the size of a baseball and spit them out at will.[1][2]

[1. Off to the side in the final formatting] No, this does not mean they can spit them out with any considerable force.

[2. Off to the side in the final formatting] These snakes do not have a back end, they end at the gorgon’s skull.

A snake’s head being severed is painful and upsetting, requiring the gorgon to make a Composure roll at +0, but the head will grow back from the stump within one day. If the gorgon wants to cut their “hair,” it won’t be a fun process, but the gorgon only needs to make one Composure roll (with an exacerbating factor) no matter how many snakes they cut.

The snakes on a gorgon’s head have their own venom (chosen from the same list as “Venomous Fangs,” below). All snakes share the same type of venom with each other, but this does not have to match the type of venom in the gorgon’s primary fangs. Because it is a much smaller dose, however, it has an increased Onset Time of 1D6-1 Ticks to take effect. (If the gorgon has Full Serpent Hair, it takes 1D6-3 Ticks instead.)

At any point when another character is within arm’s reach, the gorgon may attempt to sic her snakes on them. When the gorgon is at 3 Composure or lower, this is no longer a choice. The snakes become aggressive, and this is rolled every time a person comes within arms reach of the gorgon. Roll 1D6. This takes one Movement if time is measured in Turns.

1-4: the snakes will do nothing.

5: the snakes will lunge out but miss the target.

6+: one or more of the gorgon’s snakes will lunge out and inject venom into the target. If the target is not Grabbing or being Grabbed by the gorgon, they can avoid the bite with a Full Success on a Reflexes roll.

Add +1 to this roll if the gorgon has Full Serpent Hair. Also add +1 if the target is antagonizing, aggressing, or otherwise frustrating the efforts of the gorgon. Add an additional +1 for every point of Composure the gorgon is missing below 3, as seen below.

3 Composure: +0

2 Composure: +1

1 Composure: +2

0 Composure: +3

Forked Tongue

Gorgons have forked tongues like snakes, as well as the ability to sense heat through pit organs in the nostrils. They can still identify the approximate location of living organisms and heat sources even in total darkness. Additionally, they are able to detect a much wider variety of chemicals than any human nose. These properties mean that gorgons can reasonably make Senses checks that an ordinary human could not attempt, or could gain additional information from relevant Investigative rolls that others would not.

Scent Tracking

Gorgons are capable of Scent Tracking. (See p.xx “Scent Tracking”.) A gorgon must regularly and very noticeably taste the air with their tongue while tracking a scent.

Superhuman Strength

Gorgons are considered to have superhuman strength, and have a +2 Base bonus to Athletics and +1 Base bonus to Close Combat.

Serpentine Anatomy

With an Athletics check, a gorgon can squeeze their entire body through any gap larger than their own skull, and/or perform other extreme acts of contortion.[1]

[1 off to the side in the final formatting] If the gorgon in question has the Just Built Different Trait, apply a -2 modifier to this roll.

Full Success: Gorgon makes it through.

Partial Success: Gorgon takes 2 Superficial Damage but makes it through.

Failure: Gorgon takes 2 Superficial Damage and gets stuck.

Venomous Fangs

Most gorgons have long, retractable, venomous fangs in their upper jaw. The venom only takes effect if injected into the target’s body, not if ingested.[1] Regardless of the type of venom, a second bite will double the damage or penalties taken by the target from the venom, but will not accelerate the process.

Each gorgon’s fangs has one of four possible venoms, though if they have snakes on their head, those may have a different type. Choose only one of the options below:

[1. Off to the side in the final formatting.] Unless the victim has open cuts in their mouth or stomach.

Constrictor (No Venom) (Option): This gorgon does not have venomous fangs and neither do any snakes that may be attached to their head, and instead they rely on raw physical strength to subdue their prey. A gorgon with this feature has an extra +2 Base bonus to Athletics.

Paralyzing Venom (Option): One minute after being bitten, the target must make an Athletics check.

Full Success: The target has a -3 penalty to all rolls for 3 Ticks.

Partial Success: The target has a -4 penalty to all rolls for 4 Ticks.

Failure: The target has a -5 penalty to all rolls for 5 Ticks.[1]

[1 off to the side in the final formatting] This will be the number of Scenes instead if you aren’t tracking Ticks.

Agonizing Venom (Option): This venom applies poison (Non-lethal, OT: Immediate, DF: Per Round) to the target.

Lethal Venom (Option): This venom applies poison (Lethal, OT: 10 minutes, DF: Per minute) to the target.

Spray Venom (Option): Can be injected or sprayed, but requires 2 doses (see “Venom Doses” below) to take effect either way. When injected, it applies poison (Non-lethal, OT: Immediate, DF: Per Tick) to the target. When sprayed, the gorgon can propel the venom up to a range of 6 feet with a Close Combat roll, which causes immediate damage:

Full Success: 4 Superficial Damage

Partial Success: 2 Superficial Damage

Failure: No damage.

The gorgon must aim for the target’s face or an open wound for this attack to be effective. Clothing which completely covers the eyes will render this spray harmless, and a target wearing glasses will take half damage. Any Injury roll taken as a result of damage from this attack will count as one degree worse than the actual result.

Venomous Bite

When a gorgon has someone in a Grab or (regular) Hold, they may make a bite attack to inject venom into their opponent. This attack is rolled using either Athletics or Close Combat, and is subject to all other regular rules regarding melee attacks.

Full Success: Gorgon injects venom and deals 2 Superficial Damage.

Partial Success: Gorgon injects venom and deals 1 Superficial Damage.

Failure: Gorgon cannot get their fangs into the victim.

Venom Doses

Gorgons do not have an infinite supply of venom, and replenishing it takes a long time. If a gorgon does not have enough doses, they cannot use their venom. A gorgon can never have more than 4 doses stored at a time. At the start of the adventure, gorgons have 1D6-2 (to a minimum of 1) doses of venom stored. Venom is replenished at a rate of 1 dose per week, however, a gorgon can spend a number of Eureka! Points to instantly recover an equivalent number of doses.

Terrifying Visage

At will, the gorgon can contort their face grotesquely. Gorgons have a +2 Contextual bonus to Threaten.

Gorgon’s Blood

Arterial blood from a gorgon is deadly poison.[1] If it enters the body through any means, it will cause Lethal Poison.[2]

[1. Off to the side in the final formatting.] Obviously this does not affect gorgons.

[2. Off to the side in the final formatting.] For vampires, this counts as Non-Lethal Poison.

However, venous blood from a gorgon has supernatural healing properties for living creatures other than gorgons.[1] If fresh venous gorgon blood is applied to the wound with a Medicine check, the Medicine check will restore 1 or 2 additional HP depending on the amount applied. Extracting enough blood to restore 1 HP will cause the gorgon 2 Superficial Damage. Extracting enough blood to restore 2 HP will cause the gorgon 4 Superficial Damage.

[1. Off to the side in the final formatting.] Though vampires are humans, their healing is not the same, and this blood will have no special effect on them whether ingested or applied to a wound.

Blood taken from a wound will usually be a mixture of arterial and venous blood. If this type of blood enters the human body, roll 1D6.

1-5: The blood counts as arterial, as the poison ruins any medicinal properties of the venous blood.

6: The blood counts as venous.

If a character attempts to extract venous blood from a gorgon, the Narrator makes a hidden Medicine check for that character.

Full Success: Up to 2 HP worth of venous blood may be extracted.

Partial Success: Up to 2 HP worth of venous blood may be extracted, but causes an additional 1 Superficial Damage to the gorgon.

Failure: The gorgon takes the same amount of Superficial Damage as with venous blood, but the extracted blood is contaminated with arterial blood, unbeknownst to the characters.

Serpent’s Jaw (Gorgon True Nature)

Gorgons need to devour human beings whole as part of their diet.

The following sections deal a lot with “size” and “capacity,” which in most cases we handle abstractly. We advise that players and Narrators use common sense when working with these mechanics. Go with what seems to fit in the moment based on the rules provided, rather than pausing to calculate the exact volume of people or objects.

The gorgon regains no Composure from eating normal food, but does gain Composure from sleeping. They will lose Composure from skipping meals or skipping sleep. A gorgon’s diet works very differently from most characters’, see below for details.

Composure loss from skipping meals: Yes

Composure restoration from eating three meals a day: No

Composure loss from skipping sleep: Yes

Composure restoration from full night’s sleep: Yes

Normal Food

Gorgons are obligate carnivores. In order for a meal to count towards their daily meals, it must be primarily composed of meat. When gorgons eat normal food, they need to eat one exceptionally large meal and subsist off that for some time. Gorgons need only eat one meal per 48 hours, but the Wealth roll for buying this meal has a -3 penalty.[1] Food Budget for a gorgon costs 3WP, and only covers a single meal.

[1 Off to the side in the final formatting] Ordering this much food in public may attract attention.

Eating this one meal of normal food will prevent Composure loss, but will not restore Composure. At the start of an adventure, they are always assumed to be in need of food that day.

If a gorgon attempts to eat multiple smaller meals over the course of a day like a regular person (or eat people piece by piece) they will suffer intense indigestion and lose 1 point of Composure each day they attempt this. Snake digestive systems aren’t built for that.

Swallowing Large Objects

Despite being outwardly near indistinguishable from the shape of a regular human, the internal muscular and skeletal structure of a gorgon resembles that of a snake. Their lower jaw is comprised of two separate mandibles attached by elastic ligaments, allowing their mouth and throat to stretch to incredible size. The back teeth in both upper and lower jaw are hooked backwards like those of a snake.

Their collar bone and sternum are similarly only attached by elastic ligaments, and, where needed to accommodate their eating habits, their skin and musculature are able to stretch well beyond the limitations of a regular person.

A gorgon can effortlessly swallow anything up to about the size of a baseball.[2] For anything up to a little larger than 3 feet in diameter[1] the gorgon must make an Athletics check.

[1 off to the side in the final formatting] About the diameter of a large beach ball.

[2 off to the side in the final formatting] This does not prompt a supernatural ability Composure roll.

Full Success: One Movement

Partial Success: One Action

Failure: 3 Actions (or 1 Tick)

Objects that are larger, but are elongated and able to pass through an opening a little larger than 3 feet in diameter (such as a human body), take longer to swallow:

Full Success: 1 Action

Partial Success: 3 Actions (or 1 Tick)

Failure: 6 Actions (or 2 Ticks)

The gorgon can still attempt to swallow objects of even larger size, but may hurt themselves. The gorgon takes 2 Superficial Damage[2] and a -2 penalty to the Athletics for every 1 foot or so of diameter the object increases beyond that of a human body.[1]

[1. Off to the side in the final formatting] If the target is around 4 feet in diameter (your average hula hoop), that would be 2 Superficial Damage and -2 to the Athletics roll. If it’s around 6 feet in diameter (a large dinner table), that would be 6 Superficial Damage and a -6 to the roll

[2. Off to the side in the final formatting] This damage should only be applied after the object is fully swallowed (or after a Failure).

Full Success: 3 Actions or 1 Tick, but takes no Superficial Damage

Partial Success: 6 Actions or 2 Ticks

Failure: They can’t swallow it, but still take the Superficial Damage from the attempt. They may try again.

Spitting Out Objects

Reversing the process is much trickier. To spit out any swallowed object, the gorgon must make an Athletics roll. If the object smaller than about a 3-foot diameter sphere (such as a beach ball), the item, use the following results:[1]

[1. Off to the side in the final formatting] After a victim has been digested, only one roll needs to be made to spit out all or most of their clothing. Particularly protective articles of clothing (such as a motorcycle helmet) may still contain bones.

Full Success: The gorgon can spit out the object as 1 Action.

Partial Success: The gorgon either:

takes 2 Actions (or 1 Tick) to cough up the object, as well as 1 Superficial Damage,

loudly belches (drawing a lot of attention) as they cough up the object,

or, if they were trying to retrieve a specific object, coughs up a different random object from the Random Gorgon Contents Table.

Failure: The gorgon fails to cough up the object, and either:

takes 1 Superficial Damage

loudly belches, drawing a lot of attention

Larger objects (including most people) are a bit more difficult to spit out and use these results instead:

Full Success: The gorgon is able to spit out the object with 3 Actions (or 1 Tick).

Partial Success: The gorgon is able to spit out the object with 6 Actions (or 2 Ticks), and both take 2 Superficial Damage.

Failure: The gorgon not only fails to spit them out, but belches, either:

drawing attention

or, if the gorgon was hoping to get them out alive, reducing the time they have before suffocation by 6 Rounds.

Stomach Elasticity

An experienced gorgon’s stomach can stretch virtually indefinitely, though weight and bulk can quickly become an issue.[1] The gorgon may take penalties or encounter other difficulties based on how much volume they have in their stomach, as seen below:

[1. Off to the side in the final formatting.] Any gorgon without Full-Coverage Scales is very likely to have noticeable stretch marks around their waist.

Less than a Basketball: No penalty. One of a gorgon’s “normal” meals is about the upper limit of this.

Less than One Adult Person or Equivalent Mass: No penalty. Could pass for pregnant.[1]

[1 off to the side in the final formatting] The stomach is quite a bit higher up than the uterus, but the likelihood of anyone shouting “Hey, her pregnancy is too high up!” is pretty low.

One Person or Equivalent Mass: -1 to Athletics, Close Combat, Reflexes, and Stealth. Could pass for pregnant with nonuplets.[1]

[1. Off to the side in the final formatting.] At this point the gorgon must lean back as they walk to adjust their entire center of balance.

Two People or Equivalent Mass: -2 to Athletics, Close Combat, Driving, Reflexes, and Stealth. Can’t reasonably go out in public like this.

Three People or Equivalent Mass: -3 to all Physical Skills except Senses. Can’t reasonably go out in public like this.

Four People or Equivalent Mass: -4 to all Physical Skills except Senses. Can’t reasonably go out in public like this.

Five People or Equivalent Mass: -5 to all Physical Skills except Senses.. Can’t reasonably go out in public like this.

Six People or Equivalent Mass: -6 to all Physical Skills except Senses. Gorgon cannot move more than a bare minimum speed.

Seven People or Equivalent Mass: -7 to all Physical Skills except Senses. Gorgon cannot move more than a bare minimum speed.

Eight People or Equivalent Mass: -8 to all Physical Skills except Senses. Gorgon cannot move at all without a Full or Partial Success on an Athletics roll, and even then only bare minimum speed.

Nine People or Equivalent Mass: -9 to all Physical Skills except Senses. Gorgon cannot move at all without a Full or Partial Success on an Athletics roll, and even then only bare minimum speed.

Ten People or Equivalent Mass: -10 to all Physical Skills except Senses. Gorgon cannot move at all without a Full Success on an Athletics roll, and even then only bare minimum speed.

Beyond Ten: -10 Athletics, Close Combat, Driving, Reflexes, and Stealth. Gorgon cannot move at all, period.

On a per-Scene basis, a gorgon can make three types of roll to make their stomach appear one size smaller for the duration of the Scene. With a Full Success on an Athletics roll, the gorgon can suck in their stomach. With a Full Success on a Stealth roll, the gorgon can adjust sufficiently baggy or form obscuring clothing to hide their stomach size. With a Full Success on a Manipulate roll, they can act nonchalant so as not to draw attention to themselves. These methods can be combined, for up to a total three size category reduction in visibility and attention drawn.[1][2] Each of these rolls counts as one Movement if time is measured in Turns.

[1 Off to the side in the final formatting] These methods do not reduce the penalties, just the amount of staring.

[2 off to the side in the final formatting] A gorgon with the Just Built Different Trait can have their stomach counted as one size smaller all the time by default.

Neither of these methods of reducing the conspicuousness of the gorgon’s belly will hold up under direct scrutiny, it only “passes for normal” in the sense that even for people who do take notice, their first guess won’t be that there is a body in there, and it would be very rude to ask.

If anyone inside the gorgon’s body is attempting to struggle or scream for help, count the gorgon’s stomach as two sizes larger for both conspicuousness and penalties.

Swallowing Live Prey

If a target is (very understandably) resisting being swallowed the gorgon must first Grab them. Once a gorgon has a target Grabbed, they can put them in a Hold as normal, or put them in a Swallowing Hold.

Swallowing Hold

Mechanically this works exactly like a regular Hold except where stated otherwise. The gorgon has stretched out their jaw and begun to swallow the target whole. There is no Submission with a Swallowing Hold. If this is being done head-first, start to apply the Drowning/Suffocation rules to the target immediately.

Once a gorgon has their target in a Swallowing Hold, at the next opportunity, they may make another Swallowing Hold to finish the process and fully swallow their target.[1]

[1 off to the side in the final formatting] Experienced gorgons often prefer to start with the hands. It also helps to lift a victim upside down, bringing gravity on one’s side.

Once a victim is cut off from air, the Drowning & Suffocation rules come into play. Optionally, once a victim is fully swallowed, the Narrator may simply declare them as good as dead with no need to play out their struggle mechanically.

Once a target is swallowed fully, the gorgon no-longer has any of the penalties associated with putting anyone in a Hold. Instead, refer back to p.xx Stomach Elasticity.

Internal Struggle

As mentioned earlier, living victims can struggle and fight, causing trouble for the gorgon inside and out. While in the stomach, they count as Held. If armed with a small piercing blade or a small firearm, they can attempt to attack the gorgon from inside, dealing normal damage. In this case, a Partial Success on a Firearms attack will still hit for full damage, and a Failure would fail to correctly operate the firearm and pull the trigger under these conditions. To escape, a victim will have to succeed at two Escape attempts, the first to reach up to the gorgon’s mouth, where they will count as being in a Swallowing Hold but without Drowning/Suffocation, and the second to pull themselves out of it. If the gorgon is taking a penalty to Athletics rolls because of stomach size, this penalty is not applied for the purposes of Weight Class with the victim’s Escape attempts. Attacking or trying to Escape will count as exertion for the purposes of the Drowning/Suffocation rules.

Digestion and Composure Restoration

Regardless of which option is chosen, the gorgon’s player should track the Ticks for digestion separately on their own. It should be noted that gorgons get more nutrients from live prey, but can subsist on recently-dead victims as well, as long as there is no decomposition. Choose only one of the options below:

Serpentine Enzymes (Option): The gorgon will digest person-sized meals over the course of a full week, and is able to fast comfortably for some time after. The size of the stomach will gradually decrease by one degree (see “Stomach Elasticity” above) every 48 hours or 40 Ticks. For 14 days, the gorgon will not lose Composure from skipping meals. For 7 days, the gorgon will regain 2 points of Composure per day per victim.They will regain an additional 1 point of Composure per day if the victim was eaten alive. Inorganic materials swallowed (such as a victim’s clothing) may sit in the gorgon’s stomach indefinitely until spit out. Neglecting to spit out clothing for several meals may result in being unable to reduce the size of the stomach past a certain point.

Additionally, at the start of each adventure, roll 3 times on the Monster Stomach Contents Table (see p.XX). The results are leftover objects that are still in a gorgon’s stomach from their last several victims.[1] Write these objects in the gorgon’s inventory but mark that they are in the stomach. Once per Scene, at the cost of 1 Superficial Damage, a gorgon with Serpentine Enzymes can attempt to spit out a single random object from the Random Gorgon Contents Table that they forgot was even in there.

[1 off to the side in the final formatting] The random results that this table spits out[1.1] will tell a story, and could imply a lot about the gorgon in question, but the intent is to leave creative leeway for the player to work with. A shoe belonging to the whole party’s mutual friend Jennifer could imply that Jennifer is never to be seen again, or that Jennifer is alive and well after she and the gorgon made a drunken bet.

[1.1 off to the side in the final formatting] Pun intended.

Aqua Regia (Option): The gorgon digests food with shocking rapidity, burning calories like a jet engine[3], and nothing can remain intact in their stomach for long. Eating an entire person still only sates the gorgon for 48 hours. The size of the gorgon’s stomach decreases by one degree every 2 Ticks. A victim is considered “digested” after 4 Ticks, and the gorgon regains 1 point of Composure from that victim (or 2 points instead if they were eaten alive). The gorgon can continue to swallow more prey while they are digesting - track the Ticks for each victim separately.[1] There will be nothing left to spit out, as this gorgon’s stomach even rapidly breaks down inorganic material into vapor.[2]

Victims in the stomach of a gorgon with Aqua Regia suffer from damage equivalent to Lethal Poison, not representing actual poison, but rather the rapid dissolution of their flesh. (Lethal, OT: Immediate, DF: Per Round)

Additionally, Wealth rolls to buy food for this gorgon have a -4 penalty instead of -3, and they lose 2 Composure for skipping a meal instead of 1.[4]

Gorgons with Aqua Regia cannot spit out random objects. No small object can survive more than a single Tick in their stomach. If they do try to spit anything out, double any relevant damage penalties.

[1 Off to the side in the final formatting] Note that with Aqua Regia, each victim only restores Composure once, not continuously like with Serpentine Enzymes.

[2 off to the side in the final formatting] The large amount of vapor created by this digestion means that the gorgon will have to expel it after eating - often with a small burp.

[3 Off to the side in the final formatting] While gorgons with Serpentine Enzymes can be found to have all manner of body types regardless of their diet, gorgons with Aqua Regia struggle to put on any weight at all.

[4 off to the side in the final formatting] Sometimes there are people who simply require more than others to live at the same standard of health. Can they simply curb their greed?

Cold Blooded Killer (Gorgon Weakness)

Cold-Blooded

Though they still have mammalian features, a gorgon’s body temperature is not self-regulated. Their skin will feel room-temperature to the touch, and they will not be easy to spot with thermal imaging.

Gorgons have nine levels of body temperature (seen under “Body Temperature Levels” below), and their body temperature can have significant effects on their ability to function. At the start of an adventure, a gorgon’s body temperature will always start at Ideal. Under most circumstances, their body temperature will decrease by one level at the beginning of every Scene, not counting the very first Scene of an adventure.

Because gorgons can not regulate their own body temperature, they are at the mercy of ambient temperature. In average ambient temperatures of 90°F and above, the body temperature will instead increase by 1 level each Scene. In average ambient temperatures of 50°F to 32°F, the body temperature will drop by 2 levels every Scene. In average ambient temperatures or 32°F and below, it will decrease by 3 levels every Scene. With no internal body heat, jackets and blankets are of limited help, though in temperatures of 50°F or below, they reduce the temperature drop by 1 level.

In real life, temperature fluctuates from day to day, and throughout the day and night. However, to keep bookkeeping from being a nightmare for the Narrator and player of the gorgon, for game mechanic purposes we recommend you set a single average outside temperature for the entire adventure based on the region and time of year it is taking place. For interior locations, most buildings are kept at a “comfortable” temperature between 65°F and 75°F.

Body Temperature Levels

At high body temperatures, gorgons digest more quickly. When an entry says “double digestion speed,” that means count every Tick that passes as 2 Ticks for the purposes of how quickly something is digested. At colder temperatures, gorgons cannot continue digestion at all - spending extended periods of time at this temperature will count as not eating for that amount of time, even if they have food in their stomach.

Overheating: Double digestion speed. -3 to Composure rolls. -5 to all Skills. 2 Superficial Damage for every Tick that passes at this level.[1]

[1. Off to the side in the final formatting] Overheating is the only body temperature that will make a gorgon’s skin feel warm to the touch like a regular person’s skin.

Too Hot: Double digestion speed. -1 to Composure rolls. -2 to all Physical and Interpersonal Skills.

Hot: Double digestion speed. +1 Contextual to Reflexes. -1 to all other Physical Skills and all Interpersonal Skills.

Warm: +1 Contextual to Reflexes.

Ideal: No bonus or penalty.

Cool: +1 Contextual to Stealth

Cold: Do not advance digestion. +1 Contextual to Stealth. -1 to all other Physical Skills and all Knowledge Skills.

Too Cold: Do not advance digestion. -1 to Composure roll. -3 to all Physical and Knowledge Skills.

Freezing: Do not advance digestion. -3 to Composure rolls. -5 to all Skills. 2 Superficial Damage for every Tick that passes at this level.

Warming and Cooling Sources

Spending 1 Tick engaging in the listed activities or standing near the listed objects will raise or lower the gorgon’s body temperature as noted below. With no internal body heat, jackets and blankets are of limited help, though for Moderate Cold Sources or colder, they reduce the temperature drop by 1 level.

Major Heat Source: Increase by 3 levels. Examples: bonfire, furnace, “hot” bath or shower (around 100°F or higher)[1].

[1 off to the side in the final formatting.] What is “hot” or “warm” to a warm-blooded individual is very different to a cold-blooded individual.

Moderate Heat Source: Increase by 2 levels. Examples: Heat lamp, campfire, space heater, heated blanket, “warm” bath or shower (around 90°F), sharing body heat with a warm-blooded individual under a blanket.

Minor Heat Source: Increase by 1 level. Examples: hand warmers, heat vent, hot water bottle, strenuous exercise[2], ambient air temperature of 90°F or above, sharing body heat with a warm-blooded individual through skin contact[1].

[1 Off to the side in the final formatting] Having the warm-blooded individual in the gorgon’s stomach counts.

[2 Off to the side in the final formatting] Muscle movement generates heat.

Minor Cold Source: Decrease by 1 level. This is the default for ambient heat loss in the environment, which is why gorgons lower 1 body temperature level in most Scenes.

Moderate Cold Source: Decrease by 2 levels. Examples: AC unit, open refrigerator, ambient air temperature of 50°F to 32°F.

Major Cold Source: Decrease by 3 levels. Examples: Open freezer, ice pack, cold bath or shower (around 50°F), ambient air temperature below 32°F.

Monster Eyes

Most gorgons have learned the hard way not to look too closely at other people’s faces without a good reason. Gorgons have a -1 penalty to Social Cues and Charm. Additionally, if a gorgon sees their own uncovered eyes in any way, such as through a reflection, photograph, etc. they must make a Monster Composure Roll.

Yawning

If a gorgon gets less than a full night’s sleep the previous night, the Narrator rolls a hidden D6, and that many Ticks later, the gorgon will feel a monstrous yawn coming on, and must make a Reflexes check to stifle it if they don’t want anyone to see their enormous maw.

Full Success: The yawn is fully suppressed.

Partial Success: The gorgon yawns wide, but not noticeably wider than a normal person could. However, anyone looking directly at them may notice the other serpentine features of their mouth.

Failure: The gorgon yawns, momentarily opening their mouth at least wide enough to swallow a football.

Loss of Eye Coverage

Gorgons will typically wear dark or mirrored sunglasses, dark veils, or other means of covering their eyes. This eye coverage is always at risk of being lost in some way. If any offensive roll is made against them, and at least one of the dice on this roll shows a 6 [1], the gorgon’s eye coverage is knocked off, knocked away, or otherwise slips[2], regardless of the outcome of the roll. Additionally, if the gorgon gets a Partial Success or Failure on an Athletics or Close Combat roll, their eye coverage is also knocked off if either of the dice show a 6.

[1 off to the side in the final formatting] To be perfectly clear, this is not about a +6 modifier, or a cumulative 6 made by adding things up. If you roll the dice and see a 6 on the physical dice, that is when the glasses are knocked off. This also applies when any roll happens to use a D12, still look for a 6.

[2 off to the side in the final formatting] Just go with what makes sense - if the gorgon is wearing glasses, they are knocked to the ground. If they’re wearing a veil, it might just blow aside and require an action to readjust. If their eyewear is firmly secured to their face (such as ski goggles or a tightly tied blindfold), then don’t use this rule (though wearing ski goggles indoors is going to turn heads).

To recover their eye coverage after losing it, they must take 1 Action to retrieve it. Another character may also use their own Action to find and retrieve the glasses.

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project-sekai-facts · 10 months ago

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Project SEKAI 4th anniversary: Brand New Your World - recap post

Much like last year, I thought it would be useful to make one long post recapping all of the information about the 4th anniversary updates. Even if there won't be as many major updates and changes as last year, we still will be receiving news about other related projects like the movie during the anniversary thanksgiving festival, so I'll be recapping that too.

Note that all of this applies to the JP server only.

Official site link

Before we start, the next Broadcast Station episode will be held on the 27th, featuring Isobe-san, Jiena, Imai-san, and Daichan. It will be broadcast live from the Thanksgiving Festival. Related event speculation will be done in a separate post, and the stream itself can be found here.

Section 1 - Game Updates

Most game updates will be announced during the aforementioned Broadcast Station stream, but some things have already been announced, such as:

Virtual lives (after lives/holiday lives) will now be held every hour, cutting the long wait times between some showings.

You will now be able to collect character rank XP for an entire unit in one go, rather than going to each member's page individually.

Calendars for songs and events will be released in advance, so we finally will actually know in advance what days songs are being added and what days events will run (though by the sounds of things, event lineups will be kept a secret outside of the unit).

Broadcast Station News

A new game mode has been added, called MYSEKAI. It's an Animal Crossing-esque side game that will be available through the main app. More details on this will be in section 6.

A story completion progress tracker will be added. You can earn crystals and gacha tickets based on your progress

You can now earn gacha tickets through Clearing and Full Comboing songs on different difficulty levels. These can only be claimed on the first time you clear/FC a song of each difficulty from 15 to 37. Autoplay doesn't count and you can earn up to 140 tickets.

All Kizuna ranks will be added! All of them! However, the new ones will not have specific titles or unlockables for levelling up the rank. Instead you will be given a title that says "X & Y Fan". The unlockables will be implemented when relevant.

You can now autoplay during Challenge Show. You will also be able to get CH show rewards up to a score of 2.5 million, as well as increase CH rank up to level 150

Project SEKAI is opening a store on their official website. You will be able to buy gems and get some freebies by using it. You will have to use your apple/google account to sign in. By the sounds of things this will replace the in-game crystal shop

Max character rank has been increased to 160, and as always new titles for max player rank and daily login will be added

As per the norm, character rank missions will be increased

Live bonus has been reworked. You will now be able to recover up to 15 bonus energy naturally (the limit is currently 10), and you will be able to overfill the meter to 999 instead of 99. Bonus energy's effect on event pts will also be reworked, refer to the chart below for the new bonuses

It will now be easier to obtain another vocal tickets. Their cost has been reduced in the event exchange and wish piece exchange, and two tickets will be given out from character rank and birthday lives. However, to balance this, the cost of a solo alt vocal has been changed to two tickets. The amount of another vocal tickets you own will be adjusted accordingly in the update.

Fes cards will now count as event bonus towards the event they were released alongside. E.g, the Rui and Rin Bloom Fes cards will count as event bonus for the upcoming Nene event.

The rewards earned from completing the tutorial will be increased. Existing users will be compensated accordingly.

You will now be able to exchange limited gacha tickets for wish pieces

All stories will now be fully voiced, even for faceless NPCs. Currently unconfirmed if this will apply retroactively

Starting from October, the number of random rerun limited gachas will decrease to one. This is because they ran out of gachas to rerun.

Birthday gacha reruns have been reworked. Rather than rerunning all past birthday cards separately, they will now be lumped into one gacha.

Kizuna rank for Honami/Mafuyu, Saki/Mizuki, and Haruka/Len implemented

Section 2 - Campaigns

Here's a list of all the campaigns and gachas that will be running over the next few weeks.

Fortune Flower Parade

This campaign will be held from September 30th for one month

You will be able to collect Fortune Flowers and Petals from event exchange, live missions, and stamp missions.

You will be able to exchange those items for some other special items, such as costumes, skill up scores that will instantly max out your skill, Character Rank XP vials, and some special wish jewels (i'm not exactly sure of their purpose but they have a unique design)

There are six different colours of petals and each can be obtained through different methods and be exchanged for different items. Refer to the chart below

Present 4 You

To celebrate the fourth anniversary, four presents will be given out to players

Present 1: Five 4* guaranteed gacha tickets will be given out to all players. These will also replace the 3* tickets for any new players.

Present 2: All another vocals will be released on youtube for two weeks. You will also receive two another vocal tickets for every character.

Present 3: There will be an in-game survey asking players to pick their three most wanted prizes from a list for the next couple days. The three most picked prizes will be awarded at a later date.

Present 4: There will be a prize giveaway on twitter. For following their twitter and retweeting the campaign post, there's a chance to win some prizes (they're really random like a gopro and a coffee machine lol).

Other campaigns and gachas

Operation Welcome to SEKAI will run again

Special Prize gacha: a gacha where you can earn prizes the more you pull in it. This will run between the 28th and 30th of September. It will also have doubled 4* rates.

Stamp missions and paid costume gachas as per the usual

Happiness Package gacha

Limited edition select list and memorial select list (same as last year)

Section 3 - Songs

Anniversary Song

The fourth anniversary song has been announced! The title is Neppu and it was produced by kemu! Below is kemu’s comment on the song (via @/pjsekai_eng on Twitter).

Song Campaign

The song campaign hint sheet has been revealed, and actually has hints again for the first time in a while. The answers will be revealed during broadcast station on the 27th.

Note: blank tiles include special characters

Answers

Mozaik Role -Reloaded- by DECO*27 (L/n cover + 3DMV)

Mesmerizer by 32ki

Kisaragi Attention by JIN (MMJ cover)

Main Character by *Luna

Call Boy by syudou (BAD DOGS cover)

Kimi to Boku no Resonance by nanameueP

Tensei Ringo by PinocchioP (WxS cover)

Blackjack by YuchaP

Shadow Shadow by Azari (N25 cover + 3DMV)

Outside of the campaign, we also have Cat Food by doriko covered by MMJ + Miku.

This year's high-difficulty commission has also been announced. The song is called Seimeisei Syndrome and was produced by Camellia. It will have a master difficulty of 33 and an append difficulty of 36. A preview can be viewed in the livestream archive (for some reason it was not uploaded to Twitter).

Section 3 - Lives

4th live

Project SEKAI's 4th live was announced last month, titled Unison!! The live will be held in two locations: Osaka on December 13th-15th, and Tokyo on January 24th-26th!

A PV can be found here!

The official account for all information about the live is, as always, @/pjsekai_live on Twitter.

Here are some close-ups of the group artwork above, as well as some chibi artworks. The costumes used as the ones that will be available from the Fortune Flower exchange.

youtube

A video teaching player the glowstick movements and chants for I'm Mine has also been posted to Youtube!

Connect live

A connect live to celebrate the fourth anniversary has been announced. It is titled Brilliant Stage and will be held on the 6th of October! There will also be a "meet and greet" session after the two performances of the live, similar to Resonance Beats. A short login story to commemorate the live will be available on October 5th & 6th.

A medley of previously unperformed songs will be performed during this connect live. The songs were given as Aioi, Hug, Hitsuji ga Ippiki, CYBERPUNK DEAD BOY, and I nandesu.

Section 4 - Event and gacha

The next event will be Carry These Feelings! Dream Stage, a Nene-focused event. Shiho, Airi, and Toya will be the other rateups! The 3* is Ena based on the event logo. Rui and Rin will be featured as the Bloom Fes cards.

The bfes gacha will be Dream Pick, utilising the same system as last year (you get two extra slots to fill). You will also be able to get Fortune Flowers as a reward for pulling on this gacha.

As mentioned earlier, there will also be paid costume gachas. You will be able to earn Fortune Flowers from pulling in these gachas. Here's a preview of the costumes.

Section 5 - Project SEKAI: The Movie

youtube

A Project SEKAI movie animated by P.A.WORKS was announced back in July. More information on that can be found here. A new trailer was shown during Broadcast Station, which can be found linked above. Some new character visuals will be posted below, but aside from that, please refer to the linked post which will go into the new information in further detail.

Section 6 - MY SEKAI

youtube

MY SEKAI is a new gameplay feature that will be added during the 4th anniversary. It's an Animal Crossing-esque farming/life sim game that you can play using your Virtual Live avatar. You can build you own SEKAI and house and decorate it however you like! You will also be able to talk to chibi versions of the main characters and interact with them, as well as visit your friends' SEKAIs!

Your MY SEKAI will also have a new feature called the transformation machine! This is where you can exchange some of your excess resources into things that are more useful to you (that's right they finally made the materials exchange).

I do not know how much storage or power this will take to run. I am very sorry for your devices.

Section 7 - Misc News

A livestream leading up to the 4th anniversary has been scheduled for 29th September at 11:30pm JST (2:30pm UTC). The stream will feature Chiruriin, Honchan, Akina, Daichan, and Ruirui.

A digest video of the previous Colorful Lives will be shown on Youtube on the 5th of October at 6pm JST (9am UTC). This stream will not be archived, so make sure to catch it!

#project sekai #will be updated as new information is released #(also!!! updates will probably be slow on the stream day because i have uni induction stuff literally right after the stream lol)#Youtube

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emgy805 · 8 days ago

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YUME NIKKI'S CONNECTIONS TO DELTARUNE (AND WHY IT COULD BE MORE RELEVANT THAN WE THOUGHT)

Hi! If you're here, you've probably got a curiosity for Deltarune and Yume Nikki. After playing through Chapter 3 and 4, I ended up realizing quite a few things I'm not sure if anyone else has noticed yet--and that's the amount of allusions and references to Yume Nikki. Of course, this is going to include spoilers for DELTARUNE Chapters 2~3, so stop reading if you don't want to be spoiled please! This is also going to be full of crazed ramblings that aren't really organized, so take my words with a grain of salt. Good? Good. Let's go.

For starters, I want to talk about the most blatant and genuine, honest-to-god canon connection to be made; The Egg Man, also known as the Smiling Man. I'm sure almost every DELTARUNE fan knows who the guy is, so I won't go too super indepth on any theoretical lore pertaining to him. The idea is that he gives the player an Egg whenever found in inherently secret, chance-based areas. This is obviously pretty goofy, right? This guy is just giving you an egg and disappearing, never to be seen again until the next chapter.

..Of course, that is, unless you know even a little bit about Yume Nikki and the plot of the game. The goal of Yume Nikki is to gather Effects, which change the player character (Madotsuki)'s appearance and sometimes give her unique abilities. You typically receive Effects from special NPCs, who give them to you upon interacting. At the end of Yume Nikki, you are then instructed to set the Effects down and wake up.

You might be wondering, 'aren't the Effects just going to be the NPCs themselves or their specific items'? It's neither. They become Eggs. You spend so much time trying to receive Effects that sometimes are harder to locate because they show up in chance-based locations. Sound familiar?

It should. Speaking of sounding familiar, what about the track that plays when you find the Man..? https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lEJpVwvKq1g

Pretty, right? Did you know it's actually a track Toby Fox reused from something else?

..It's actually a fansong he made for Yume Nikki, titled Waltz of Seccom Masada. For those unaware, Seccom Masada is an NPC found in Yume Nikki only able to be accessed by falling asleep in a dream.

He lives in a big, round, white spaceship; its exterior is only visible if you initiate the Spaceship Crash Cutscene.

Curiously enough, the spaceship looks like it's egg-shaped...

Of course, you can chalk this up to Toby Fox wanting to make a little nod to one of his largest inspirations, but there's more than this to look at. In fact, these connections and references might hold way more weight than you'd think.

Shifting gears, let's think about the Dark Worlds for a second. Specifically, how they're made, how they look, etc.

We do literally see Kris make one in Chapter 2, via their knife.

Instantly, the world is shrouded in Darkness. It seems that any sharp object could be used to make a Dark Fountain/Dark World, as long as a Lightner has the will to do so. ..Which might remind someone of the fact that there's a certain dream world in Yume Nikki, home to a certain very well-known Effect.

A dream world called the Dark World. Without the Lamp Effect, you can't see anything--but once the world is lit up, you can see patterns on the floor.

A Knife? In the Dark World? How queer! ..What's with those patterns of hands just to the sides of where the Knife is? Does it look familiar?

Kind of!

How much further can we go, though? How much Darker can this rabbit hole of connections get?

There's at least one more big connection that could be made, and it's regarding Chapter 3's Sword Route.

The main premise of Chapter 3 is about playing through two segments of an RPG, called The Legend of Tenna -- an obvious reference to THE LEGEND OF ZELDA. The only exception is that they aren't full length games (there's only 2 Boards/Segments) and you aren't going around and directly attacking monsters. ..unless you get curious and wander off somewhere. Maybe if you play so poorly, or so well, that you get the worst possible score--or the best possible score--and get access to secret rooms for high-ranking/low-ranking players only. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ifINNsGgFyA

It's strange, right? After worming your way through the manhole, you're now into an exclusive backstage area, with a secret old version of THE LEGEND OF TENNA--seemingly the original version. The one Tenna doesn't want you to see.

In this version, Kris can obtain their SWORD, allowing them to fight and kill enemies directly without battles.

Funnily enough, if you do well (or poorly) enough, you'll even get access to a secret BOARD 3; albeit, it's the Original Version and not Tenna's remake. This seems to imply that a remake for Board 3 exists somewhere, right? It does. In the game files. By editing them, you can play Board 3 as it was likely intended by Tenna. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WVL1ai-_LtI

..How about the Yume Nikki side of this, though? Are there any proper connections to be made here? Of course! Yume Nikki has the 'FC World', AKA the Famicom World. There's two accessible worlds; Famicom World A and Famicom World B. Famicom World A is by far the much easier one to access, and takes place in a house! The other is a dark dungeon. (As a side note, FC World A is clearly inspired by Mother 1's House.)

The question is, though, how is FC World A reached?

..Through a maze of static. Garbage noise. By navigating through invisible walls to a manhole.

Think of that. Static also plays an interesting role as a visual in DELTARUNE (see Spamton, Queen, Tenna) too...

..There's one more thing to bring up, though. Didn't I just specify there's 2 accessible FC Worlds, just now?

That's right.

There's a third one. The only way to reach it is through editing Yume Nikki's game files. The only way to reach FC World C.

youtube

As far as things go, these are the main connections and references I managed to pick up from DELTARUNE. There's likely more I missed, so if anyone has thought of something, comment below! I may add more to this if I think of anything else.

#deltarune #deltarune chapter 3 #deltarune chapter 2 #deltarune spoilers #yume nikki #deltarune theory #emgy805.txt #Youtube

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weirdunclegamer · 9 months ago

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Was laying in bed and starting having Thoughts™️ about something in AC6 and while I don't normally do this, I figure I should try just... rando talking about stuff on my blog.

I found it very amusing and interesting (strongbad voice; amteresting), how AC6 decided to use the term Raven in its new AC timeline. Its explained to us (eventually) to not just be one pilot's name, but a title that many pilots of a somewhat bygone time had used, a title that supposedly stood for their sense of freedom.

It's pretty obvious what the metatext is there, its using the Raven title from earlier AC games... and giving it a sort of mythologizing that the term likely sounds like it has irl to new players who, coming to the series new, and seeing all the old fans reawakening to the bell of a new game, heard the wistful, nostalgic tales of playing the games back in the day, of being Ravens for the first time on the old consoles.

And even irl that title faded from its original use, obviously because the game series slowed down then went on a full decade hiatus. But it actually faded in the games as well. In AC4 the pilots are no longer called Ravens, but Lynx. A change I remember personally feeling a bit bummed by at the time even. In AC5 (a good game and I will not tolerate the meatheaded hate it gets), you are uniquely "the mercenary" instead of holding a shared title, further diluting the very idea of the titles.

It was one of those sorts of things I'm still not entirely sure how I feel about. On one hand I feel like they should've just gone back to calling the pilots (or maybe just certain affiliations) Ravens in AC6, a way of going back to the roots, since AC6 is a proper reboot. But on the other hand I can appreciate the metatext, which def feels very FromSoft to do, weaving a sense of the real world history of the franchise into the lore of the new era. Either way, it is especially amusing, because it all stems from a funny quirk of the progress of video game technology; the problem game writers came into when voice acting was added to games, wherein it was impossible to account for the names a player would name themself, so they had to find ways to write around characters saying the players' name, in games where the player names themself.

Its a thing I feel people mostly associate with the more "modern" era, with epic adventure create-a-character games like the Elder Scrolls, Mass Effect, or, of course, the Souls family. But its been a thing since as early as the PS1. Before voice acting was whole-game prevelant, when all the dialogue was text, you could just insert that bit of code to put in the players' chosen name into the npc dialogue (for true immersion, or to name you're pokemon stuff like "I" or "You" or "Farts"... also for true immersion), but now... well I already said the thing about the voice work. Coming up with a title to call the player (Dragonborn, Courier, Commander Shepard, etc etc) has been a popular way to handle the problem... which seems to be almost satirized in AC6.

Despite everything I just said about the use of Raven in AC6, the player character has like two scoops of nicknames the other characters call you; 621, hound, raven, buddy, tourist, G13, freelancer, wallclimber, wormkiller, liberator of rubicon... pretty sure there's others I can't remember. That might've just been a side effect of how the characters are written vis-a-vi the players' in universe muteness, but knowing From, its very likely to have been a sort of good natured ribbing about the fad both in their games and others.

The use and challenge of use of players' getting to name the protagonist in games is one of those fantastic things that mostly only exists in video games.

#video games #armored core #ac6 #names

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katyahina · 5 months ago

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Okay so, according to Moonlight Ruin who datamines Dark Souls 2, almost all the summons and invaders use the same preset faces

(Source: ( x )) So I guess I had to put my own take on them.. Donna, Bellclaire and Scarlett are not altered as I felt like at least someone from each list should use this data! I don't include Abyss people since they're just mirrors of characters/enemies, and 'Nameless Usurper' is actually Licia!

(Also have bonus Melinda pre-Gutter I guess)

Some thought process under cut!

I assume Foreigner Wandering Phantom is one of those outsiders that failed to make it from the start like the Hollows we fight in the Thing Betwix, they literally invade there and wear this set.. That's where Hollowing traces come from. There is a NPC preset for Hollwing though that this NPC doesn't use though, so it is not that profound

Dingy Cleric Phantom HAD to have an "interesting" hairstyle, because she is implied to be Anastacia's descendant! She is the only character wearing full Ana's set, not just a piece, and the only way player can get it! Plus this set mentions "original owner" in DS2 and does not reappear in DS3! She deserved "anime character" treatment fdhfhds (And a small lighning scar upon first tries of wielding her every Warrior of Sunlight miracle). Basically Lautrec canonically dies and I will NOT let you forget about it lololololol

Roenna's look is actually @val-of-the-north's fault because when he was doodling DS2 shitposts, he drew Roenna like Chara from Undеrtale fjdjfddffd I at least altered the colors well enough, but the joke stuck and I can NOT unsee it ;-; xD Also, pupils of different sizes are intentional!

With Donna, you also need to design an outfit because HER equipment is frankensteined out of pieces you can't compromise lore with, so I decided to at least give the preset face to her or else it would be 100% OC lol

The phantom that was 99.99% Durgo is actually jossed from SotFS edition and is now just a corpse, but I still use that one for a reference! Fun fact: Japanese script doesn't have pronouns for Durgo, English localisation just opts out for a 'he' in every uncertain situation! Don't let me to stop you from making a twink though fdshgdgfh

Guthry is one of the characters with whom I just could not help almost ignoring the initial NPC preset... I needed someone with curly hair or so help me, also, helmeted character so even more freedom. Skin rash due to her (seemingly) spending too much time with rats lol

Melinda is in the Gutter, so I thought about very harrowing side effects. The twins from Black Gulch would probably do no better. Also, I am thinking that since she can be summoned (in Dragon Temple) only after being killed in the Gutter, her spirit actually sorta jumps in our pocket and sticks out to warn us about fake nature of the "dragon" too x) Pursuer somehow claims the spirits of the Undead that he haunts, so I think with her Bearer of the Curse somehow accidentially did the same, just only once, and she isn't suffering. She is free, actually.

Rachel seems to be one of the soldiers that served Vendrick, judging by her equipment! But those are overall found Hollowed, so I thought that'd apply to her too! She is also in Brume Tower and her helmet is replaced with Alonne Helm now, so I think she left with Raime?

Painting Guardian Phantom was my second potential pick for unaltered face data for this preset, but I decided to give that one to Bellclaire instead! O'Harrah is wearing Monastery Long Shirt as well but is a bit more "removed" from it. The Guardian, on the other hand, drops the full set pieces with each invasion! And the braid is an important detail in their designs, their hoods even imitate it, so I could not help giving her the braid as reference too!

That last preset was the simplest I guess, with only four character and only Scarlett not having a head piece! So, the choice of who gets the unaltered preset is obvious here? I also changed stones coloration for the Pyromancer to make it more individual, but removed them from Butcher Phantom (thought she was not supposed to wear this set from context stanpoint)

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zerbu · 1 year ago

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Project Squealer BIG REVEAL

Calling all mystery buffs, adventure seekers, and gumshoe wannabes!

I am developing MY OWN INDIE GAME under the working title PROJECT SQUEALER! In this action-packed adventure RPG game, a disease called Laughter Pox has plagued the town, and it's up to three kid detectives to investigate!

These days, I'm mostly known for making mods for The Sims 4, but I've been interested in game development as far back as 2009. In fact, I originally bought The Sims 3 for PC back in 2012 as a tool to plan out characters and worlds, before becoming hooked on the gameplay. For a long time, The Sims was my main creative outlet, but I was still coming up with game ideas in the background.

Skip ahead to mid 2016: while playing with my Go to School mod, I needed to create some child characters to fill the school with. I created two rival teams of kid detectives, and came up backstories and mysteries for them to solve. I ended up liking these characters far more than any other characters I had created. They felt like my creative masterpiece, begging for something bigger than just creations made in a character creator.

That's when "Project Squealer" started brewing in my brain. This indie RPG wasn't just some vague idea; I was developing full-blown stories, environments, and gameplay planned for my kid detectives. I also had the perfect art style in my head. Emphasis on in my head.

Turns out, bringing my dream art style to life was way harder than I thought. So hard, in fact, that I spent the next few years learning how to create art. It took until 2020 to finally have character and environment art that could (almost) pass for pro-level game stuff. Not only that, the project was undergoing what indie devs refer to as scope creep. I kept adding more and more ideas to the design doc, making the game more complex and pushing the release date even further into the future. In 2018, I even decided to move from 2D to 3D, and switched engines from MonoGame to Unity (and later to Unreal Engine 5 in 2023).

Now, it's 2024, and I'm finally, finally ready to announce what I've been working on for the past 6 years!

Project Squealer is the working title for my own indie game about a team of three kid detectives: Orlo (middle), Von (left) and Zoros (right). Together, they go on adventures and solve mysteries… or at least they would, if they weren't constantly having their business stolen by a rival detective team.

In this action-packed adventure game, a mysterious disease known as Laughter Pox has plagued the town, causing people to laugh hysterically. Where is it coming from? How can it be cured? It's up to our detectives to find out! If they can convince others to trust them with such an important mission, that is!

Project Squealer uses a hybrid of 2D and 3D graphics to create a 2D cartoon look with full 3D movement. Characters and some organic objects are 2D sprites that move with the camera. Most environments, objects and buildings are 3D, but have texture-based outlines to give it a 2D look.

The game features a variety of different quests, characters, abilities, enemies, locations, weapons and items. In addition to the main storyline, you can help out NPCs by performing "errands" for them, which will unlock cool rewards and even side missions.

Unlike many RPG games, Project Squealer won't include a character level system, because I want the player to be able to progress using their own skill, not by grinding levels. One of the game's main design philosophies is that there are few, if any, permanent upgrades. Weapons will eventually break, status effects that make your stronger will eventually expire, etc.

Project Squealer is still in relatively early development. I plan to post more information, screenshots, and eventually even videos, as it gets closer to release. Follow my Twitter for quicker updates: https://twitter.com/ZerbuTabek

Your support and feedback is welcome, and will help improve the game!

#gamedev #game development #indie games #unreal engine #indie game dev

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3gremlins · 8 months ago

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feel like im having a DA2 experience again where I really liked it and was in my little "this is good" cocoon where i played it many times only to emerge from underground and find everyone else hated it (i mean ive found the other da2 cicadas since but at the time it got really slammed). i've been really enjoying DA:TV so far ( lol tho obvs have notes) here's an early thoughts review, may be a bit spoilery, def rambley, trying to stay vague on stuff still (i think i'm about half way maybe? im trying to not look things up and doing it blind on my first run through. it's hard to tell b/c i went hard on all the side quests and am now way over level for the msq)

the combat system is a little jarring at first and i still miss at least being able to switch to and play as party members if your character dies (instead of the god of war style of full wipe), but i've gotten used to it (it's more annoying for boss fights, regular combat it's very zippy and fun). the targeting at least on controller is kind of annoying sometimes- i'll think i'm pointing at one enemy only to have rook turn and fire at nothing or companions to hit an add instead of a boss. I wish we at least had more control over how it queued who it was hitting. some of the arenas are obnoxious design wise - there's bosses that teleport to you and they give you like a tiny little box to dodge around, not the most fun. i do like that you can punch way above of your weight class sometimes which reminds me of DAO a little bit (like how you'd just wander into a fight or hit a gong and be like oh no, those enemies have skulls over their heads, oh well YOLO). sometimes it doesn't work out but when it does it's very satisfying. It's nice to be able to conquer something mechanically even underleveled (smol fromsoft vibes) Having always been a big fan of the strange composition parties (i.e not just war/rogue/mage), i like that this is now even more viable (and not just me being cheeky "we're having a leather party!" of all squishy rogues). but like the main thing about bioware games is the companions/interpersonal shit and i'm enjoying the heck out of that .i only do main quests to get more side quests from companions (or more side quests in general so we can troll around for more banter). i like petting griffons (and cats and dogs) and playing games with manfred*. I wish the gift system was more interesting like DAO or DA2- i was so excited to see it again and then it was a little disappointing to have them barely react when you get them stuff.

my current fave party are rook and the poison boys (emmerich and lucanis) since they're a rogue too and we just stack necrosis, bleeds and other elemental effects on things till they disintegrate. i like the lighthouse, it feels much cozier than skyhold. I love that you can just wander up to companions having convos and awkwardly eavesdrop. I do miss the little interactions/quests you could get with cole esp*** i think the animations are a little lack lustery? Idk there's something with the face model morphs that sometimes feels weird but the voice acting is strong enough that I don't notice too much. i do miss some of the more bioware-y cheeky things like item descriptions or weird notes near random silly environmental tableaus (there's a little but i just want to read all the notes! there's some in the grey warden areas where i was just like WAIT I HAVE QUESTIONS but there was no plaque about them T.T). where are the stacks of cheese (i do appreciate the fereldens love cheese jokes tho and harding getting so excited when someone says something nice about ferelden) i was esp bummed that there were no random things to read in the black emporium and it's all codex entries instead (that's my favorite tiny bit in DA2 where there's junk you can click on and xenon says weird shit to you). i also wish more had been done with accents of npcs- like i wish all the antivans had similar accents or your crow rook had an antivan accent, stuff like that (having a lot of "ferelden" generic british accents everywhere is disappointing. takes you out of the immersion a lot) My biggest gripe is probably the pacing - I wish it had more horror/mystery pacing like dao and da2 had- the reason we're all scarred by the brood mother is b/c the build up to that was so so creepy (also the necromancer bit w/hawke's mum in DA2). They gave us time to be unnerved or afraid and I do feel the evanuris reveals have been a little rushed so you can't really feel that worried about them (some of the side quests get close to this but still not quite there**). I wish they'd let them breathe a bit more instead of rushing from one giant world changing event to the next. Some of the reveals have been not so great- like lore that the fandom has poured over for 15ish years explained in one line?? i wish there'd been more build up of rook as a character too, maybe even a time skip from a prologue to finding solas kind of thing. the first trailer made it seem like that's what was going to happen but then it in media res'd us in a strange way. the first 10 hours of the game are probably the weakest imho, it took it a bit to get rolling and feel more natural. I appreciate that the first major decision doesn't really let you scum save for it (bit of a jump scare for me lol).

I also don't really need this much varric anymore, i kinda wish we had a different narrator if we have to have one. He feels really awkward to just have there and not doing anything(and not just kill off or have something happen to him? he got stabbed by the dagger and harding only touched it is what i'm saying). at least let him get better pjs and slippers or something Idk it does feel like bits of previous iterations they were working on are still there and they don't completely serve the plot well. And ofc there's the decisions not meaningfully carrying over thing- which is a huge bummer. But in reality they've never been good at that- the characters from previous games we see in new games don't really carry through their plots/arcs that much (it's more like cameos or they're a new person now) and the world states are usually effectively the same just with aesthetic faction swaps. I was sort of hoping we'd get some solavellan SOMETHING but it doesn't look like we will get much at all past the stuff in minrathous. i feel like if they were going to only include the one choice it really should have had more impact on the story. (i am also still a clown and want to talk to solas constantly still even tho he has no reason to talk to my rook at all, i do not care, i love a sad woof. i wish we could just casually visit him in the fade. i wish we could switch to lavellan and visit him in the fade, idk something. need more gareth david-lloyd pls) the interpersonal character decisions have been the only ones that mattered much and then only within the constrains of their own games- the bigger world changing stuff is usually the illusion of choice. It would have been nice if they let us have one protagonist carry through but i can also see why they liked changing it up and felt stuck in that format. tl;dr: i'm really like it for what it is but it's def got flaws. Parts of it feel super polished while other bits do not- i think knowing how game dev works that they had to make decisions on what was going to get prioritized and some of it works while others not so much. I wish the pacing was better for sure but i love the characters/companions which is generally what bioware is best at. sad it won't get meaningful dlc, i don't really care about mass effect 5 tbqh. So far I like it better than inquisition for the most part- it feels like a bigger/more polished DA2 in a lot of ways if that makes any sense (with similar budget/pacing issues, but the environments are more fun). as i mentioned in my other post, i really appreciated the trans/non binary inclusion into the story/cc tho. like that can't be discounted, even if the rest of the game has issues. (all the holes in the narrative make me want to do fan art and fan fiction tho so idk, maybe that's an okay thing. maybe dragon age is best at inspiring us to sandbox around in it)

*side note, i am surprised at how much i like emmerich like holy shit what a lovely soft nerd of a man! going to have to play through a few times and romance him and also bellara for sure (romancing lucanis this time round) i find myself shipping my companions with each other more than i normally do too. I just want them to be happy! I wish they'd let us have polyamory, like i could see little polycules in this squad so easily. i need to give bellara hugs and lucanis head pats. taash deserves head pats too, but my rook will need a ladder.

**i am going to cry if they do with the griffons what i think they're doing with the griffons. like straight up, feeling like it was a cursed wish to have them now T.T *** do we think the caretaker is cole? the character design makes me wonder (like the hat/silhouette is very cole like but maybe not. maybe i just want it to be cole lol) there's def characters i want to see show up that aren't going to and then bioware is like "what about this fan favorite??" and i'm like "eh".

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19thperson · 4 months ago

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19th's Steam Next Fest Impressions Feb 2025 Edition - Day 6

Day 0/Day 1/Day 2/Day 3/Day 4/Day 5

Wanderstop

youtube

Teashop running cozy game from half of the duo behind Stanley Parable and from the creator of Beginners Guide.

You play as Alta, a warrior who had an undefeated streak lasting 3 and a half years before experiencing of string of two (2) losses and having a complete physical and emotional breakdown about it. She journeys to see the illustrious Master Winters to get training, only to collapse partway there, losing the ability to even pick up her sword.

She's saved by Boro, a gentle and emotionally intelligent man who runs the teashop wanderstop. After several failed attempts to leave again, collapsing each time, she agrees to stay and help run shop until she can lift her sword again.

I've said this before but I like seeing cozy games that dig deeper into the iyashi-kei/healing story aspects, highlighting the melancholic alongside the soothing. And this game is going all in on that.

Alta and Boro have a great chemistry, someone putting up a stoic front and someone else who can see through it immediately. He has a wisdom about him that's blunted by an inherent goofy awkwardness that's legitimately funny, and Alta not being sure how to respond to this treatment. The kind of back and forth where either side can take the straight man role.

The demo only gives a taste of gardening and tea-making, but I like how involved each system is. The gardening is basically a space puzzle, where you need to plant seeds in specific formations. Nothing with a strenuous fail state, but adds some texture to the moment to moment stuff. The tea brewing machine is a rube goldberg machine with several steps that have to be done in the right order. It's a good way to simulate being mentally present and involved in small tasks.

Wheel World

youtube

Cyclist Breath of the Wild by Messof, the Niddhog guy. I am gald he is no longer self-sabotaging by making his games look as ugly as possible.

Your character, Kat, wakes up confused in the wilderness, and finds a temple. Inside is a bike spirit who explains that his job is to cycle spirits to the moon and back through the sewer of spirits to keep the cycle of life (do you get it) moving and shift the world into a new ger (do you get it). But between his old rider passing nad theives stealing all his legendary parts, he needs your help to fix the situation. The world is filled with bike puns.

The game does nail the "feel" of manual cycling. Hills drastically effect your momentum. Drafting not only speeds you up but further refills your boost. Turns at high speed need to be handled very deliberately.

Mildly worried about the "texture" of the world. The sense of it being a lived in place. The starting island didn't have much by way of landmarks save for some sparse houses and a beach, and most NPCs only existed to make further bike puns. But the trailer makes it look like there will be a lot more.

The first race the demo offered was dead easy, but the optional extended rematch actually provided a bit of challenge.

There's also, as the trailer clearly shows, a lot of customization, but so far the game hasn't given me any impetus to not just pick up everything that make number go up across the board. not much incentive to specialize yet. Expect that in the full game though.

Also if you press up on the d-pad you ring your bell. Ding Ding.

Am I Nima

youtube

Horror game about making your mother happy.

You play as Nima, a child who suffered a severe accident. You wake up with your memories foggy, tied up and locked in the basement by your mother. She claims it's for your own safety, yet seems… afraid. Distraught. You have to convince her that you are, in fact, her daughter.

The core gameplay is a word combining system. Either when exploring the basement or talking to mom, you'll get new keywords, which can be combined with other keywords to make further words. Those words can then be used in dialogue choices when talking with mom. While it's not a completely freeform system, the game gives you a lot more words than expected.

A lot of combinations circle back to the same words, like "pain," but that in turn leads to it being a very naturalistic way to deliver exposition and simulate memory recall. Combining words with "dad" will eventually lead to greif, and you realize that dad's probably dead, for instance, while combining words with "mom" leads to words about neglect and resentment.

It's doing a lot with a little.

Sol Cesto

youtube

Push-your-luck roguelite about italians delving into a dungeon.

Every floor is a 4x4 grid filled with enemies, treasure chests, traps, and healing items. When you choose a row, your character randomly lands in one of the 4 spots. If they land on an enemy, the enemy dies, but if they had a higher physical or magical damage stat, you take the damage in difference. empty at least 5 squares to unlock the floor's door, although you can spend extra turns there to get more resources.

Inbetween enemy floors you can get upgrades that change your percentages, with some drawbacks. +20% landing on a chest, but +10% chance landing on a physical type monster, for example.

You also have the "sun" ability which allows you to move in a different way than usual. The starting character of the knight can instead choose a column instead of a row. you need to build meter to use these but it refills quickly. You also have items that can heal you, weaken/eliminate monsters or areas, and even skip floors entirely. Despite the luck based gameplay, there are a lot of tweakable aspects.

I never beat the demo's boss because it's gimmick is it turns 1/4th of the map into an instant death zone and for some reason or another I kept doing the gamble instead of going for the 100% safe routes

It's a slot machine but one where the odds are very obvious.

Labyrinth of the Demon King

youtube

Feudal era Japan survival horror King's Field.

It is the latter age of Dharma. War and famine blight the country, and demons walk the earth. You're a simple footsoldier, whose army was decieved by a demon and led into an ambush. Having lost your lord and all your comrades, you descend into the demon's stronghold looking for revenge.

This is a game less that I "dislike" and more "I couldn't get my head around." Namely the combat. It has a stamina meter tied to your attacks, a very short dodge, and a parry. But this meter is punishingly strict. I was constantly finding myself on zero and dying at every enemy encounter. I'm assuming it's a me problem, that there's something about the rhythm of combat I'm not picking up, but I spent an hour with it and want to move on.

That isn't to say I couldn't appreciate anything, though. It has a strong atmosphere, and the cutscenes that deliberately up the grain feel very apropos.

Enemy behavior was impressive too. They won't just head straight toward you, they'll fight eachother if given the chance. One time I got lucky enough to whittle an enemy to low health, and it ran away. I was honestly just grateful for the breather, so I stopped for a bit to regain my stamina and slowly crept down the hallway.

The same enemy was hiding around the corner waiting to swing at me.

I may try it again later at some point, I just had other things I wanted to finish.

Isle of Reveries

youtube

Game Boy Color Styled Classic Zelda.

You play as a young nameless owl boy on a pilgrimage, to a mountaintop temple said to grant any wish. It's a pilgrimage that many take, but no one seems to come back from, and as you arrive, you realize something is terribly wrong here.

This one took much longer than it should. I got stuck. While being a classical top down zelda, you have the unbelievable power to manually jump. While I smiled at the novelty, I forgot it was something I could do right as a puzzle demanded it, and I sent myself back wandering through the halls thinking I needed to find an upgrade

Aside from my blunder this was a pretty good zelda like. I liked most of the dungeon design. But there were a couple complaints.

The first is… you're not actually stuck to a grid. Or at least, not the grid the pixel art implies. But the granularity of movement means you can easily slip into a pit or water trap by clipping the edge of it. There was a hidden optional upgrade to turn off damage from those but if you recognize that it's a problem you've just giving me a band aid, and an optional one at that.

You got a big chunky hitbox and you're garunteed to eat damage. To counteract this you can pick up hearts everywhere. Makes combat a bit frustrating

There was something that I really liked though. In the last bit of the demo you get the ability to copy a tile and replace it elsewhere. Like an extremely scaled down version of echoes of wisdom's ability. This turns what was previously "single room limited problems" into ones where you can drag anything from any point in the dungeon to a new space. I can see this being really interesting on a large scale.

Moon River

youtube

(wider than a mile, I'm crossing you in style someday…)

This is some classic RPG Maker Shit. Some Enterbrain Logo on startup shit. 640x320 resolution at start and hit F5 to fullscreen shit.

The world is ending from an event called "The Dimming." Shadows swallow the world, a void that supposedly leaves nothing but conciousness in a vaccuum. One island remains, where people can only exist in moonlight. Our protagonist, the mariner, arrives from the sea, and aims to read the end of the Moon River cutting through the island before sunrise.

It's mostly a puzzle game, although… not great puzzles. I didn't finish it, this demo was unexpectedly long, but save for a set of block pushing puzzles, it was all fetch quests.

But as a narrative experience, it was interesting. It has a repeating structure. Mariner goes down the river, hits a wall of shadow. It can only be dispelled by filling a nearby lantern with "pure light." You dock, and go to the nearby village to search for it.

Each village so far has been different ways people respond to the end times. Complete lethargy, paranoia, throwing their remaining time into longshot solutions, religious mania. It reminded me a bit of Kino's Journey.

The music is excellent. While the pixel art isn't the most detailed, I like the art direction of having each area use a different color pallete. Both in terms of giving the game a sense of visual progresssion, but also informing the mood of each section. The town of monks who turn themselves into trees, explicitly presented as mass ritualized suicide, is bathed in an oppressive red. The town of the astrologers aiming to reverse the dimming is pained in a gentle but melancholic purple.

Has some very clear technical issues though. I was clipping through areas I wasn't supposed to. One time I brought someone an item for a side quest, and he just responded as if I had already given it to him, while it still stood in my inventory. It's not deal breakers, nothing so far derails progression, but mildly annoying.

#19th's steam next fest impressions #Wanderstop #Wheel World #Am I Nima #Sol Cesto #Labyrinth of The Demon King #Isle of Reveries #Moon River #Youtube

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gamesception · 11 days ago

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Nightreign thoughts

Nightreign is a really interesting game with a compelling mix of very high highs in the parts that build on the Souls series character and combat and rather low lows in, well, most of the rest.

It's important to remember going in that this isn't a main-line full studio Fromsoft title. This is a side project with a small development team and a limited budget. A chance to experiment, and an opportunity for a veteran Fromsoft dev to get experience directing a project and leading a team in an environment where mistakes can be absorbed and learned from instead of being fatal. Projects like this are absolutely critical to the long term health of From as a dev studio - Miyazaki will want to retire some day, after all. And it's not like they're charging full price for the game, or stuffing it with microtransactions.

This is a AA title and an experimental toybox for the devs, and when judged as such there's a lot to like here. I'm glad that this game exists and I'm happy to focus mainly on the stuff it does well even if I think the overall package doesn't quite come together.

On the positive side, the main bosses are, when taken as a group, the best co-op boss fights in the Souls franchise by a wide margin. Multiplayer (both co-op and pvp) has been one of the most unique and compelling elements of the Souls series going all the way back to Demon's Souls, but Elden Ring was the first time it felt like some bosses were being deliberately designed with the co-op experience in mind. Nightreign follows up on the sort of half-step Elden Ring made in that direction with a huge leap. There are stumbles where one boss might be a bit obnoxious or another a bit too easy, but overall? Yeah, the Nightreign bosses are spectacular.

Even more than the bosses, though, the real triumph of Nightreign are the Nightfarers themselves. Eight distinct playable characters, each with a unique play style that is recognizably soulsy while being extremely distinct, and maintaining that distinction even as you switch up what weapons and spells you use over the course of a run or from one run to another. Recluse and Ironeye make playing a wizard or archer respectively feel fun and cool in a way that they never really have in From's previous games. Executor captures some of the magic of Sekiro's deflect based katana dueling. Wilder seems very generic 'John Eldenring' guy-with-a-sword-and-a-shield, but his grapple scoot makes playing him the most fun I've ever had in a game with souls style combat and I don't know how I go back to Elden Ring base game without it.

The Nightfarers aren't all equally amazing - blocking with guardian needs to be more effective especially given how bad they made his dodge, Revenant is a bit too dependent on rng drops for offense - but not one of them is bad and on the whole they're fantastic.

And it's not just their gameplay - though that is the biggest part. Their visual designs are great, their personalities are fun, and they each have minimal but just enough to be compelling story progressions, in the style of fromsoft npc quest lines/interactions. These go a long way towards making them feel more integrated into the world and the game than typical Souls protagonists.

The Nightfarers make me want something that I've never wanted before - a class-based soulsborn from Fromsoft with defined playable characters. Imagine if Elden Ring's starting classes were like the nightfarers, with their distinct skills and ultimates, maybe unlocking the various gem upgrades over the course of the game by following a unique character questline. Imagine how much more replay value there would be from replaying the game with different characters. Imagine how much cooler a particular boss might be for a given run if they tied into your character's personal questline.

Or if not locked to starting class, what if the play-styles created by the Nightfarers' abilities, skills, and ults were baked into the Great Runes, where every Rune bearer you killed and divine tower you climbed to restore a Great Rune unlocked a completely different playstyle? Sort of like different jobs or classes being unlocked as you progress through Final Fantasy 3 or 5 or Tactics.

Heck, some of the Nightfarers are so good that I'd want to see entire games fully devoted to their play style. I want games that are to Recluse or to Ironeye what Sekiro is to Executor.

So the bosses and the playable characters are absolutely fantastic and make me extremely excited to see these ideas incorporated into proper Souls games in the future. But as for Nightreign itself?

Limveld's Castle is no Stormveil.

While Nightreign uses Elden Ring's combat engine, it isn't a souls game. It's a co-op Rogue-lite with a Battle-Royale style collapsing map. This format is almost completely at odds with everything that makes souls games great other than the combat system.

For example, one of the map variant events is the missing Eternal City from Elden Ring - the lost and collapsed old quarter of Leyndel that you only find scattered ruins of in the Depths beneath the capitol, preserved here in the Night in its glory. And just like the Eternal Cities (and really most key locations) in the base game, it's full of little architectural details that hint at the story of the setting, of its people and history. It's not just the kind of place that I would love to spend hours combing over, it's a specific place that the base game left me wishing I could see and explore. But this is Nightreign, so even on my first visit I just blitzed through it without taking anything in, because that's just the nature of the game.

It's not just the big stuff, either. Traps aren't really a thing, dungeons aren't really a thing. You don't explore. You can get turned around in the rush, but you can't really get lost. The game can't let you.

Exploration and discovery are imo even more core to the Souls experience than the combat, and they're nowhere to be seen in Nightreign. Bloodborne's much-maligned Chalice Dungeons from fully a decade ago were a better implementation of the 'bite sized taste of souls game in a randomized, rogue-like package' concept. They had more randomization to them, and more aesthetic variety between the different chalices, than you get from Nightreign's static map with randomized points of interest. And they had traps, and illusionary walls. They had layouts to navigate, blind corners hiding unexpected surprises - especially if you opened them up to pvp invasions. The Chalice Dungeons didn't quite capture but at least brushed up against a dream of infinitely-playable Souls game magic that Nightreign doesn't even reach for.

The first time you see this view it seems full of possibilities. Sadly that feeling doesn't last long.

Even judged by the standards of the game it is, instead of the game I might have wanted it to be, Nightreign still stumbles. Because it's clear that not only did Nightreign's devs not have experience making this sort of game, it seems like they didn't even consult with devs who did. Or even really look at other games of this sort to see what makes them tick.

No cross-play. No voice chat. No duos. Extremely minimal meta progression. If you're trying to advance a character story you can't be paired with anyone else doing the same, which can make the already bad queueing system nigh unusable. Only one map (absurd! unforgiveable!) with not nearly enough available randomized points of interest to keep it interesting over dozens of runs, let alone hundreds, even with the handful of special event variants.

Nightreign is not a long game if you're just trying to see the credits, but you will get tired of Limveld's rocks and fields and skybox long before you finish, which is absolutely fatal in a genre that's supposed to support hundreds of hours of multiplayer sessions. The previously mentioned special map events are too rare and change too little about how a run goes. Worse, they'll often be completely ignored since the rewards for beating them aren't worth the extra time and uncertainty vs. just clearing the usual camps and ruins.

It will not take you long to figure out the optimal pathing strategies, after which runs will all start looking and feeling very much the same, and you'll start to wish you could just skip the run around entirely and go straight to the bosses. But the run around *is* the game, that *is* Nightreign. There is no more damning criticism for a game than saying it would be better if you didn't have to play it.

Nightreign is also ~punishingly~ hard. Like, the Souls series has a reputation for difficulty in general, but with the notable exception of Sekiro you've always been able to level grind, to go exploring for stronger gear, to unlock shortcuts to let you fight a boss over and over again until you either learn their patterns or just get lucky, or summon help to let you gang up on bosses not designed to fight more than one player at a time.

None of that is the case with Nightreign. Boss run backs are at least half an hour every time. You never know going in what gear you'll have when you get to them. You start each run at level 1 and have to level up from scratch in the limited time you have. Ideally you have 2 co-op partners (miyazaki help you if you're going solo), but these bosses are designed with that in mind.

With a competent crew of teammates, especially if you're coordinating over discord or some other voice chat, Nightreign isn't necessarily any harder than, say, the "intended default" experience of Dark Souls 3 or Elden Ring. But it lacks any of the difficulty work arounds and pressure release mechanics that previous Souls games had. Nightreign demands players 'get good' in a way that even previous souls games (again, other than Sekiro) never really did, and some players simply won't be able to do it.

This is particularly a problem for a game following and sharing a name with Elden Ring, the Fromsoft Souls game with the most plentiful and potent difficulty work arounds in the series.

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It was a bad choice for the marketing to highlight returning Dark Souls bosses. That implied some sort of grand multiverse crossover situation, and long time fans naturally bubbled over with visions of how cool that would be. Getting stalked across the map by the pursuer. Facing off against a version of Pontiff Sullivan optimizing his clone copy concept for a co-op experience. Would Manus or Darklurker or Midir return as Nightlords? Would any of the Nightfarers turn out to be characters we already knew as Dark Souls npcs?

But no. Returning Dark Souls content is limited to exactly 2 bosses from each game as mid-run fights and some alternate character skins that mean nothing in universe. All of the Nightlords and Nightfarers are new - which isn't a bad thing, but it feels bad if you were duped by the marketing into looking forward to a Dark Souls vs. Elden Ring mega mashup full of fan service.

The game doesn't even have Patches in it! What kind of 'love letter to the souls series' leaves out Patches?

Especially when he would be so simple to implement - a camp full of bandit enemies and traps, a mini boss fight against Patches where he surrenders half way through and becomes a merchant with rare items if you don't kill him. Maybe have an additional 'special event' with a nasty bunch of enemies at the bottom of a pit or cliff that he kicks you into/off in a short cut scene when you get close to it, and he shows up at the round table with some higher quality gems to sell if you clear it?

I'm not even really suggesting that Nightreign /should/ have leaned harder into fan service, or that I want the game changed after the fact to add more of it (other than Patches, Patches should absolutely be Patched in). Again the Nightlords and Nightfarers we got are far and away the best things about the game, and I wouldn't trade a single one of them for some backwards-looking nostalgia pick, not even the Jellyfish. But the marketing shouldn't have pushed the crossover element if it wasn't going to be important. The returning Dark Souls bosses should have kept secret in the leadup to the game as surprise easter eggs, they should never have been part of the marketing.

More frustrating than the lack of Dark Souls tie ins is the lack of Elden Ring tie ins. This isn't just a marketing issue, Elden Ring is right there in the name, and couldn't have been otherwise with how Nightreign is built out of Elden Ring's engine and assets. Margit is again present in the marketing and also the tutorial, and he's a common mid-run boss, AND he can randomly invade you during runs (though like all such random events it happens too infrequently and changes too little when it does). But as far as I can tell so far he means nothing to Nightreign's core story. He's just... there. And just as with Shadow of the Erdtree, fans waiting for Godwyn's big moment are once again left empty handed.

Which isn't to say Nightreign's narrative is bad, at least not by From standards. There's interesting stuff going on. In particular, we finally get to see an on-screen version of a 'Dark Lord' personifying the subversion and rejection of the Order of Light, a concept that the Souls series has been gesturing towards since Dark Souls 1 with lore and secret ending cut scenes but hasn't really delivered in game before. Between the Night Lord and Deltarune's [spoiler redacted], it's been a really good month for cool as heck darkness themed video game bosses, and that's very much my jam.

But for those invested in the lore? As an Elden Ring spinoff featuring Dark Souls content? Nightreign isn't going to answer many of the questions that Elden Ring might have left you with, and the Dark Souls stuff is wholly divorced from context with no greater meaning than 'hey, remember this?'.

one safe place

Overall I can't say Nightreign really succeeds at what it's trying to do, so I can't exactly recommend it to other Souls fans. Especially those who like souls games mainly for the feeling of exploration and discovery, and doubly especially those with brain situations that don't handle time pressure well.

But as I mentioned at the start, Nightreign was from the beginning intended to be a 'safe space' for experimentation by it's developers, a comparatively low stakes environment where failure could be a learning tool rather than a defeat. Exactly the sort of AA project I want to see more of from Fromsoft, and from any other big studio for that matter. Especially in an industry where the established talent of previous generations is starting to age out but their successors have few opportunities to build the leadership experience needed to replace them, because the bloated budgets of AAA games have grown beyond the point where studios can take a risk on an unproven director or game concept.

In that context I think Nightreign is a success, one full of ideas that I'm eager to see integrated into future Fromsoft games, and one I'll happily spend a few dozen hours on in the mean time - even if it's not 'my kind' of game, or even a particularly great at being the kind of game it is.

#nightreign #elden ring #fromsoft #long post

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