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citrusrei · 7 years

Text

Synthesize Me.

Reader x Taehyung Robot!AU Summary: When the CEO of Lovecraft Robotics assigns you the job of creating the ‘Perfect’ boyfriend, will it just be another project? Or will something deeper blossom? Genre: Fluff, Gets kinda hot n heavy in dis, ANGST (of course), future smut Word Count: 7.3k

Part 1 of ?

AN: You guys, it’s been so long but I am back and bettah than evah with another series lol. It’s probably not going to be tooooo long, like maybe 5 parts or so? My original plan was to make it one whole long one but decided with this in the end. I hope you all enjoy it! <3 tae has been fucking me up so haslkdjlaksl I got a lot planned for this character lol (also the paragraphs that are italicized are a flashback!)

"Ah," you yawned, bringing the back of one hand to your mouth as the other clicked furiously away at the keyboard in front of you, "Nearly. Finished."

The project you'd been assigned a bit more than a month ago was almost complete and you didn't know if you were excited or terrified. Maybe a bit of both?

The code you were currently typing was merely a test run, in all honesty. Once it was finished, you could boot up the subject and correct any flaws or errors that it had. Which, you didn't mind if it did because at least you'd finally be able to see the being you'd been creating for the past 4 weeks. Working on its genetic makeup, the perfect emotional control, the impeccable AI that learned as quickly as the blink of an eye and after researching numerous polls and statistics of how people enjoyed their men, not only on appearance but personality as well, you'd typed up the ultimate boyfriend. Its coding was right here in front of you on the black computer screen lettered in green, blocky font. With the tap of just a few more buttons, the final enter was pressed, and then it was complete; well, not completely complete.

The perfect code for the perfect boyfriend? Why would anyone need that? Well, the company you worked for; Lovecraft Robotics, was known for this kind of thing. It's a lonely world out there, isn't it? And everyone is deserving of love, but when you can't find it in the flesh; artificial is the next best thing!

Your company was known for its Perfect girlfriend models, the newest one released last year had won numerous awards and was praised beyond recognition. So, it was the people who preferred men's turn! Lovecraft Robotics was to unveil its new, sexy, steamy, Perfect boyfriend. Emphasis on perfect. Capable of learning from its mistakes, saying "I love you" at the perfect moments, and not to mention it's undeniable and insatiable lust for pleasing you oh so right!

You, being the mastermind behind one of last year's model's biggest weapons, the CEO of the company was quick to assign you as Chief Coder and in charge of the whole Perfect Boyfriend branch. You'd be working hands on, in completing the world's first Artificial Boyfriend and the public would be ecstatic when it was announced.

At first, you were a mess. It was such a big deal, and such a massive assignment that you thought there was no way you could do it by yourself. Yes, by yourself. It was a hush-hush situation for the most part, only your co-workers in the robotics lab knowing, some even lending some insight on what to add and what no to add. So, for the past 4 weeks, it was your life. You'd wake up, head to the lab, stay late into the night, go home and sleep, repeat. It was your schedule and you accepted it. But now, it was done. At least for now. It was the first test, the prototype. In beta, you could say. You knew there'd be things to tweak, but the hardest part was done and you decided were terrified. Scratch the excitement.

As the cloning machine took the data from the bulky computer before you, scanning its contents onto the mechanic model, dread filled your stomach. This was your first time doing this by yourself... this whole bringing a robot to life thing. It could very well go terribly wrong. The subject could go haywire and completely off rail and just destroy you and everything and everyone in the lab!

With a quick look at the bar on the screen in front of you, indicating its completion, you swallowed any doubt or paranoia lurking in you, and reminded yourself that you are a smart, and capable scientist! If anything, the model would malfunction and just not work. You didn't put any aggressiveness in its code and you didn't plan on teaching him any either, so it'd be okay, right?

The completion bar was almost at max. Suddenly, you swung your black chair around, facing the machine and waited just a few more seconds before a small 'ting' sounded off in the air. Your heart dropped into your gut as you waited for the cold, metal doors to swing open, revealing your masterpiece.

Not before long, a mechanic purr was heard and smoke swept from the cracks, blocking your view. The thick smog filled your lungs, causing you to gag and cough into your closed fist. You almost forgot just what you were waiting for until it spoke.

"Are you okay?" He asked.

Your eyes shot open, straight forward to the man that was standing before you and finally you could breathe again. It was like a fresh, spring day had been simulated in the room. Your lungs clear of any smoke, your muscles unclenched and a sigh of relief escaped your mouth. He was truly, perfect.

The subject had sandy, dark blonde hair, a bit too long as it was nearly covering his cacao eyes. You made a mental note to tweak that just slightly. His facial features were beyond remarkable. So broad, and chiseled and symmetric. It was almost too good but then you noticed the small mole on his tall nose and it gave you a sense of quirkiness, which is what you had in mind as you typed the little detail into his genetics folder. His lips were the prettiest shade of dusty rose and the ideal shape for his face, which was also impeccable. He had a jawline sharp enough to cut diamonds. From there, your eyes traveled further down, appreciating the slope of his collarbones to the about of fitness his torso held. And that was also when you realized that he was stark naked.

You looked away as a ruby red blush inked across the entirety of your face but still definitely noticed just how well-endowed he was as well. You had really outdone yourself. You deserved a pat on the back.

He moved forward a few steps, watching you curiously and you knew he was already learning; studying your reactions and body language as he scanned his vaults for the appropriate response.

"You're very red in the cheeks. Are you sick? Do you have a fever?" He pressed further, his neck craning as he looked at you from a different angle.

You shook your head hesitantly, muttering a quick 'no' before shuffling across the room to grab him some clothes. Just a simple white shirt with grey sweats. You tossed them to him, to which he clumsily grabbed, still trying to make sense of how to use his limbs and such.

"Put those on, please. You have to wear clothes for the most part."

He nodded quickly, shoving each leg forcefully through the leg holes and slipping the tee on in a breeze. Once he was finished with that, he looked upon you for guidance as to what to do next.

"Oh right, um... here," You said, handing him a booklet of rules and such that he needs to abide by, "Read this, and then tell me when you're finished."

He scanned it quickly and was done before you even sat down. "Okay, what's next?"

You turned around with wide eyes, mentally scolding yourself for thinking he'd take longer than a good 5 minutes. After all you were his creator, you knew him better than he knew himself.

Eager to learn, he was. But you found it somewhat endearing. He'd only been out of the machine for less than 3 minutes and you'd already fallen for him. He was definitely a keeper.

"Well, what do you feel like doing?" You asked him, sitting idly next to him on the long couch in your lab.

"Hm," He pondered, his eyes blinking slowly as his head cocked to the side, "I think I want to... lie down?"

"Then lie down. You should be able to do what you want like that. If you feel tired, then take a rest."

He looked at you, muttering something under his breath and then his eyes turned hard.

"Anything I want to do? I can... kiss you then?" He leaned in swiftly and thankfully your usually slow reflexes kicked in almost immediately.

"No!" You yelled, putting your arms up defensively, "you uh, you can't kiss me. I'm not the one you need to seduce."

"Oh." Was all he said as he backed up, returning to his straight-postured sitting position.

You let out a breath you didn't know you were holding and released your tight fists.

He was kind of an airhead, wasn't he? Maybe you'd missed something in his coding because you could have sworn you'd put in a bit more intelligence. Women like a smart man.

"Wait here," You spoke, raising yourself from the couch as the bot watched you saunter back to your desk, "OH, also. Think of a name for yourself. Something you think you'd like, okay?" You called back.

After a few tweaks to minor issues in his genetics and what not, he seemed up and running and well aware of everything. He was bright, a little too bright. He was curious, also a little too much. He was funny, oh boy, was he funny. It seemed like he thought his mission in life was to make you smile. Which you didn't mind at all, it was like it was too long since the last time you had a good laugh.

The day passed and suddenly it was nearly time for you to head home for the night, leaving you with hopes nothing crazy would happen to the bot over the 8 hours you were gone.

"So, what am I going to do when you're gone?" He asked.

You swung around in your black, leather chair to look up to him. His gaze was heavy and maybe you were just imagining it but seemed a bit sad. You almost didn't want to leave.

"Hm, well I was just going to shut you down for tonight." You began. His eyes bulged open, clearly not liking the idea of being offline.

"But, I think I can allow you to do some studying while I'm away. It's only for a few hours, but you have to promise me to stay in this room, okay?"

The man nodded smiling down to you, flashing his unique rectangular grin and you mimicked him right back.

"I'll give you this laptop for tonight," You breathed, reaching into your black work bag and handing the electronic to him, "Just look up what you deem fit. Nothing violent, nothing scary and nothing too weird okay?"

You laughed because you knew being on the internet it was kind of impossible to avoid, but he took it as a genuine command and agreed wholeheartedly. Was he about to learn tonight. You weren't concerned, however. You'd thrown in a 'knowing right from wrong' option in his folder a bit earlier today. Trial and error, you reminded yourself.

He shuffled back to the cream couch in the corner and began clicking away. Of course, he'd know what to do as soon as his flipped the screen open. His AI was top class. You made a mental note of toning it down tomorrow though. Even though you work hands on in a robotics factory, dealing with AI and everything, you thoroughly believed in that scientist who said to be careful with it. The market for robots were on the rise and it wasn't going to slow down anytime soon. Especially, with a man like this coming to hit the shelves.

"Oh, that reminds me," You spoke as you wrapped your wine-colored scarf around your neck, "Did you decide on a name?"

The man sat in silence for a second before looking to you, "Yes, I've thought a bit. How about Renaldo? It's rather regal, in my opinion."

Your face scrunched together, which made him laugh. He'd noticed your displeasure and decided to throw out a few uglier ones such as Gerald, Linus and even Beethoven von Beethoven. Whatever the hell that was. But finally, he settled on something simple and something that suited him completely.

"Taehyung. I like that one. I'd decided on it since you asked me this morning." He quipped.

Taehyung. You repeated it in your head probably a million times. The flow of it was like water, trickling down a summer creek and felt as right as the sun coming up in the morning to the moon making its home in the sky at night.

"Hmm," you mused, "I like it. Very much so."

Your soft grin was wiped from your face as the ping of your cellphone chimed, bringing you back from the clouds. You pulled it out of your lab coat, and as the screen lit up, you saw it was a text from your fiancé. Yes, fiancé. You were engaged to a man you'd been with for nearly 5 years. A man who knew little of what you were doing at work, and you planned on keeping it that way. Not that you were doing anything bad, because you weren't. But, he'd definitely get jealous and be overdramatic and more than likely make you give up the project that'd been your baby so long. That was not about to happen.

"Who was it?" Taehyung piped, peaking from over the screen of the laptop.

"Huh? Oh, it was my fiancé." You hummed mindlessly, typing a quick response to him and shoving the small item back into your pocket.

The fast clicking from the laptops keys stopped abruptly, but only for a couple of seconds before they began to clack again.

"Oh, you have a fiancé? Why are you trying to create the perfect boyfriend then?"

"It's my job. Other ladies and men out there who like men need love too right? Especially if they can't find it naturally?"

"Naturally?" He mimed back. His eyes dropping to his lap, looking as though you'd killed his puppy.

"Yes, naturally. Like, when the bars aren't just cutting it anymore or every date you go on fails. You turn to Lovecraft Robotics-"

"Like a last resort?" He interjected.

"Huh? No! I'd think of it as more of a saving grace. I mean, you guys are quite literally the perfect spouse."

"Well, not exactly. We can't get pregnant or get people pregnant. We don't actually feel things, we're merely programmed to say it. It's like we're an empty shell for some horny bastard out there looking for a sex slave or something."

"A sex slave? Of course there are people out there like that. But I've heard many success stories from men and women who have fallen in love with their Perfect Girlfriends. Your AI is quite capable of learning emotions which in turn, you really do feel. I think you've already learned one." You smiled.

"Oh yeah, what?" He squirmed.

"Well, in my eyes, I see that you've already learned stubbornness. Most men are stubborn anyways, so don't worry about it. You're one step closer to becoming a truly perfect boyfriend."

He stayed quiet at that, even stopping his fast typing as he sat with thoughts buzzing around in his artificial mind.

"I have a question." He said, removing the laptop from his lap and pulling his legs on to the couch to get a bit comfier.

"If I wasn't made for you, why was I made at all?"

"Ah, you're barely a day old and you're already having existential thoughts?" You joked, but Taehyung did not seem to laugh.

"You were made as my first prototype for Lovecraft Robotics perfect boyfriend. You are going to be the basis of what the rest of your kind will be based on. They won't look like you, though. We have thousands of variations of models ready to be brought to life. Plus, we can even take requests from the higher payers out there on what they want their Perfect to look like. A literal dream man come to life."

"I'm your dream man?" He laughed.

In a way he was, you figured. You were the one to choose the traits you liked the best from the numerous lists you'd looked up before and it turned out to be a winning combo in your eyes. So, you decided he was your subconscious dream man.

"Well, no. Not really. I based you off of polls and such in terms of looks. You're handsome, don't get me wrong. But not my type, per say. You're rather tall. I like my guys a bit smaller... darker hair as well."

"So, your dream man is your fiancé then, I'm assuming?"

"A-ah, well no not really either. Your dream man or woman doesn't have to be who you fall in love with."

Taehyung soaked in your words, never letting a single one drop as he absorbed them and stored it into a file deep in his circuits. He'd definitely remember that.

"Hmm... Well, maybe you should head home to him then," He smirked, "The lucky guy. Ah, I don't know whether to be jealous or angry. Maybe a bit of both?"

You smiled at his blatant flirting, knowing he'd have fallen for you. That was in his makeup, he was in fact supposed to fall in love with his owner. Of course, there was the clause in that allowed him and all other bots in the Perfect line to leave their human companions if it turned out they didn't like them or whatever the case. Even robots deserved that basic human right.

It was rare though. Of all the bots you'd seen stories about, maybe only 3 or 4 out of 1000 had left. They were reassigned to new owners and found their happiness. If you were being honest with yourself, you secretly hoped Taehyung would never want to leave you. Even if your relationship was never romantic or sexual, having him around was something you really enjoyed. You'd only known him less than a day and you were sold. But you also pinned it on the fact that working in a lab by yourself all day could get quite lonely. The company was something you didn't even realized you missed.

"Well, don't pout all night. I'll come back to you in the morning. Don't stay up too late too. You still gotta sleep to charge! Remember," You pointed at Taehyung sternly, "Stay here. No wandering."

Taehyung squinted his eyes, waving you off with the flick of his wrist, "Yes, I know. Now go before you make your man mad. Unless, you'd like to stay here with me?"

You blinked a few times before yelping a quick, "Nope!" And then you were out the door.

The brisk autumn air settled your mind on the short walk back to your shared apartment from the lab. This morning you were absolutely terrified of the unknown. Taehyung could have gone completely wrong in more ways than one, but for the most part, he was well, perfect. You were really impressed with your work on him and you wanted to do nothing more than to talk about it with everyone, especially your fiancé, Rowoon.

He was always very positive about the work you did, speaking highly of it and even offering some advice and tips of the genetic build as he was a biologist. Of course, that was with the Perfect Girlfriend line though, so he didn't have much to be 'concerned' about. Even now, there was no reason for him to get jealous. You were in love with him and you were not the type to cheat even if it were with an artificial dick. You weren't going to fall in love with Taehyung or any other robot man so he shouldn't worry. You figured it'd be the best to keep it from him for now, though. Once it was announced and released, he'd find out and he'd be mad at first, but by then the two of you would be married so you'd basically have trapped him anyways. Like, what was he going to do, divorce you?

You laughed at your thought process, complimenting yourself on your own humor. You were sure people walking by might have thought you were crazy but that didn't bother you. Another one of your thoughts was 'How many people walking by right now are Artificial?'

Even though you'd been in the company for years, and been surrounded by them for just as long, it was near impossible to tell the difference. They were so lifelike from the features, to their mannerisms, and the most realistic of all- thanks to your genius brain; an artificial heart that coincides with their AI. It beats as a normal heart, but speeds up when they're around the one they love, or if they become upset. It even slows down as they're charging, just as a human's does when they're sleeping. So, with realistic skin and eyes, to a heartbeat. It was beyond difficult to tell who was real and who was, well, not.

You didn't like that though. You hated calling the bots fake, because they weren't fake. They were here, physically and emotionally. It wasn't a hologram or an illusion. You saw them daily with your own eyes so how could they be fake? You understood what people meant when they didn't see them fit as real, however. They aren't real people because they were made in a lab, they have metal skeletons, they're incapable of feeling emotions. But that was quite the contrary.

You were amazed with science and just how far it'd come in the past few years. We'd found ways to make them feel real and deep emotions. To shed tears when they're upset, or to laugh when they become overjoyed, even becoming aroused when stimulated. It was impressive, and you knew that if you didn't have Rowoon you'd be down for giving one a shot.

So, when anyone slammed the idea of having an artificial lover, or friend; because not all bots were made to be just a significant other, you just laughed. There would always be people who were closedminded, and even though it was slightly upsetting, you weren't going to let it bother you.

Once inside your apartment, your nostrils were filled with the scent of your vanilla orange candle you'd burned just this morning. The heat from the radiator hugged your body as you shed off the heavy parka you'd worn outside. You called for your fiancé and were met with a hum from the kitchen, beckoning you to where he was.

"Hello there, love," Rowoon cooed, wrapping his arms around you as soon as he saw your frame enter the room, "how was work? You're home later than usual. Did you eat?"

His worrying made you feel bad. Him being a biologist made his hours different from yours and the only time the two of you had seen each other recently were in the mornings as he's just waking up and you're heading out the door and the evenings where you wouldn't get home until he was ready for bed, all cozied up in his pajamas. You had the weekends, but the next few months of training and tweaking Taehyung were going to eat those up. But, you figured if the two of you could last 5 years with one another, a few more rough months would be a cake walk!

"I'm sorry, dear... I got caught up at work and lost track of time. But it went well! Also, I ate a bit earlier so I'm not that hungry. Thank you for asking."

Rowoon grinned down at you, bending over slightly to peck your lips, "My little hard worker! Such an overachiever, I bet your colleagues are so envious of you." He sing-songed.

You almost cackled as it was quite the opposite. Nobody in your department wanted a job of that size, especially when it was to be done alone and in secret. Nobody in their right minds would want that. But it was apparent that you weren't in your right mind. You never regretted taking it and you didn't think you would ever come to regret it even within the next few months of testing and kinking out any errors. Even if Taehyung malfunctioned, which was very likely considering how early staged he was; you wouldn't regret it. You had that whole 'If you fail, try again' mindset. You had people to prove wrong and you weren't about to let them win.

When your CEO announced you as the person who'd take on the project, people were relieved. But just because they weren't the ones who had to do it. You were newer to the company and hadn't made much of a name for yourself besides that artificial heart feature, which everyone loved. But, you were still young, fresh out of college and despite your impressive resume and intelligence, the majority of your coworkers doubted you could handle something like this. They thought, if they couldn't manage something like that, then, how could you?

Your friend in the office, Jinyi was the only one to cheer you on. She figured that if the CEO could choose you as someone to handle a large scaled project like this, then you were more than capable. Before the project, you worked with her on the company's Perfect Pet line. They had dogs, cats, fish and were now working on a line of rodents, which you thought was the oddest thing because who would want a robot pet when there are real ones out there that needed to be adopted and such, but, to each their own.

"So, how's the coding going?" Jinyi asked, stuffing her mouth the leafy, green salad she'd been eating for lunch.

"It's going okay. It's a lot more than I expected honestly. I mean, it's been 3 weeks and I'm here from 7:00am to 11:00pm every day and I'm only about 30% done." You sighed, gently flicking a limp piece of lettuce around your tray.

She nodded slightly, "Yeah. It's going to be like that. Do you have a deadline for the final product?"

"No, thankfully," You breathed, "My ideal deadline was 3 months. But, it might take a bit longer than that."

Jinyi knew where you were coming from. It was like she had some super power that made it so she was perfectly able to empathize with someone. She always knew what to say and when to say it and her advice was extremely solid. You'd go as far to say that she was more than just a work buddy, but maybe even a good friend, if not your closest.

"Well, I know you and I know you'll get it done flawlessly as usual. That's why CEO chose you, right? We're both rooting for you, so cheer up!" She grinned, flashing you her flawlessly pearly whites.

You smiled back, her words really cheering you up. She was the epitome of happy vitamin and you envied that. If you could be as optimistic as her, life would be a lot easier.

"Do you have a name for it yet?" She continued.

"Nope. I added something so that he can think of his own name. I think that's a lot nicer than naming it ourselves. It's unique. I just hope he won't pick a weird name like Reginald, or Archibald."

Jinyi let out a little squeak of a giggle as the mental image of the quite literal perfect man naming himself something of the likes of Archibald.

"Well I hope not either. That'd be um, not good." She laughed.

"Yeah. Well, I can't seem to find my appetite so I'm going to head back to the lab, okay? See you!" You waved her off as you sprinted back to lab. There was nothing more you wanted to then to finish it quickly and show everyone the capable scientist you were. But once you entered your laboratory, it looked like you'd have another obstacle to overcome.

Jihoon. Little, grumpy, Jihoon.

He was your rival of sorts. You never considered him or anyone competition, but not because you thought you were the best, you just weren't petty enough to put yourself up against your coworkers.

As soon as the door opened, the small man in front of you jumped back, distancing himself from your computer with the coding screen pulled up.

"What are you doing?" You asked, slightly panicked because you weren't sure of the last time you'd saved and if he had deleted anything, who knows how long you'd be set back.

"O-Oh, nothing! I was just looking over your progress. The boss told me to." He lied. There was no way the CEO asked him to do it when he had stressed to you just how mum he wanted to keep the whole operation.

"Mhm, now that you've looked it over, you can leave, right?" You didn't want to deal with Jihoon today. Not after your pity fest at lunch you were still recovering from.

"Well, n-not just yet! I need to run over the mechanics and quality of the machines you'll be using as well. Even though, from the looks of it, it'll be a while before you even use them." He sneered, his face twisting into the look of an ugly fox.

You winced at his comment, but you weren't going to let it bother you. You promised yourself that. Jihoon was the biggest mastermind behind the Perfect Girlfriend line, but had a team to work with unlike you. They could code and bang out bots within days, so of course this was something he'd throw in your face just to ruffle your feathers any way he could.

"Just check it over and leave. I have things to do."

"Yeah, a lot of things." He hummed under his breath, but you heard it anyways.

As he did a sweep of your lab, you returned to the computer, going over everything quickly to make sure he didn't touch anything or change anything. Thankfully, he didn't.

"Okay, it seems everything is in good shape. I'll show my way out then, ___," He chided, "Oh and B.T.W... if you want to make the boss happy, I'd suggest working a little faster. Maybe you should start sleeping here in the office?" But before you could retaliate, he was gone. You wanted to scream because he frustrated you so much. You couldn't believe so much hate could fill that little body of his.

In private, You and Jinyi called him the Little Devil. He was nasty, but he was smart, so it made him seem as if he were just trying to help, but his silver tongue was always present.

Anyways, you had better things to do than dwell. Your reputation was on the line, and you weren't going to let that crumble. Especially to some demon man. You wanted so show him up the most.

The night left as quickly as it came and suddenly the blare of your alarm was awaking you, 7:00am sharp.

You groaned as the loud beeping interrupted your deep slumber and soft dreams of cotton clouds and milky candies. To why you were dreaming of that; you had no idea.

Rowoon groaned, reaching over to the clock and pressing the snooze button. He entwined his arms around your waist, pulling himself closer to you and nuzzling into your bedhead.

"Mm, you smell good." He hushed, pressing gentle kisses near your earlobe and neck. But, you weren't feeling it. You had Taeh-work... Work to get to. Now wasn't the time to fool around.

"R-Rowoon, dear," You squeaked, pushing his arms away from you to no avail, "I smell like body sweat, probably. It was hot last night. Plus, I haven't even brushed my teeth."

But, Rowoon snuggled harder, now sucking a small black and purple patch right near the sensitive spot at the base of your neck.

"I don't care," He mumbled, moving on to a different location a bit further south, "I like you best like this. Au Natural, if you'd say? Pheromones? C'mon, baby. It's been so long..."

His tone was attempting to be seductive, but came out in more of a whine which failed to turn you on; not that you were in any way beforehand.

It had been a while, though. Before your big project with your company, Rowoon was taking later shifts at his lab for some project of his. Your jobs were almost always opposite from each other's it'd seemed. If he worked nights, you were working days, if you worked weekends, he had it off. It was really amazing how you'd made it last between the two of you. Part of you thought it was just habit at this point, neither of you willing to quit the routine of being together. But, the other part, the one who liked to ignore that side, thought it was because the two of you were still in love. After five years together, the two of you just as in love as the first time you'd met, or at least, something like that. It was easy being with him, and you liked easy.

"I-I know, but I'm really just swamped at work and all I can think about is getting it done. It's not really putting me in the mood, ya know?"

Rowoon looked at you deeply before sighing, definitely let down and discouraged.

"You're right, dear. You must be dealing with a lot since you can't even talk about it," He frowned, his tone almost bitter, "Just one kiss and I'll let you go get ready."

His understanding for the most part, meant the world to you. He understood you were busy, that you couldn’t talk about your project, and he respected that. Even though you felt beyond guilty, you really appreciated his sentiment and once this whole ordeal was over, you had major plans to repay him, and make up for lost time.

However, your quick peck turned into another one, and then one more, until it was a full blown make out session, but after getting into the rhythm of it, you didn't really mind. Maybe even being a few minutes late to work wouldn't be such a bad thing anyways...

Your tongues meshed together as his heavy pants entered your mouth and you thought to yourself that he was way too turned on for how early it was. Rowoon tested his luck even further by climbing on top of you, his not so subtle hardness poking your thigh in the process. Your throat tightened at the thought of having sex with him. You were nervous for some odd reason. In the end, you pinned it down to the fact that it'd just been a while, because it had! That's exactly what it had to be, right? But, as his hand traveled down and under your pajama shorts, you ignored the little voice in the back of your head warning you just how alien and foreign his touch felt.

8:09. You were nine minutes late thanks to your short escapade just a bit earlier. And by short, did you mean just that. It gave a new meaning to the term 'quickie'. He'd lasted long enough to get about 4 or 5 good thrusts in and then he was coming, practically cross-eyed and red in the face. But why would something that short make you late for work? Well, it's not like you'd have been able to come in the 30 seconds he lasted, and he'd worked you up enough to the point where you'd like to get off too, so, your usual morning shower of 15 minutes turned into 30. In between the process of cleansing and rinsing, you'd taken some time to finish what he couldn't have and in that moment, you were just so grateful for certain items being waterproof.

You rushed into your lab, nearly breaking a sweat and began working as quick as possible just in case your boss had decided to pop in and check on you. You'd never been late before, and you weren't about to have the only time you were be the time you got caught.

That was something he was known for, your CEO; the random visits. He moved like a shadow, truly just popping up out of nowhere. Whether he was just curious, or asking for a project report, or even stopping in to say a quick 'Hello', it was always the most unusual, and more than likely awkward moments. Like the time you were riddled with seasonal allergies and had a booger far enough back that it just would not come out for the life of you, so you did what any normal person would do and started digging for gold; who walked in? You already know.

Thankfully, that was about as far as it got for you. Plus, you were good at following rules and directions so every other time he'd pop in, you were busy at your desk, typing away, doing exactly what you were supposed to be doing. But you'd heard rumors of him walking into places at just the right, well, wrong moments. Like, last year for example. A girl had just started working here but she quickly found herself in an office romance. So, one day, while her and her conspirator were getting it on in the closet, who walks in? You already know. None other than the CEO himself claiming he needed another roll of paper towel and waiting took too long so he'd gone to get it himself. Needless to say, the two ladies in the question were promptly fired.

So, as you set your belongings down and swung your white lab coat over your shoulders, praying today wouldn't be the day for a random inspection, you pulled up your black computer chair, booting up the machine in front of you and typed away.

You were already so overwhelmed with today that you just could not focus, so your body followed the usual routine as your subconscious was elsewhere. Your fingers typed and clicked open the coding you'd been working on for months; Taehyung's Code. But before you could add anything, which in turn would ruin the current flow of his mechanisms, someone came up behind you, speaking right into your ear.

"What are you doing?" They whispered.

You jumped up from your seat with a small yelp, grabbing your wireless keyboard as some form of protection as you held it back to swing at the stranger. But it was no stranger, not really. Just Taehyung.

His eyes widened before a loud cackle left his throat, "What are you doing, ___?! Did you forget I was here?" He wheezed, falling down to the couch dramatically in a fit of laughter.

"I-I didn't forget, I don't think?" You mumbled, setting down the keyboard and bringing a hand to your forehead, "Sorry I'm just really out of it or something."

Taehyung laughed again, "It does seem as so. I mean, you were nine minutes late this morning. Why was that?"

He looked at you knowingly, his eyebrows doing a little wiggle, but how could he have known? It's not like he was a mind reader or fortune teller, just... a robot?

"I got caught up in the shower... lost track of time." You dismissed, turning around back to your computer and studying the code, going over your notes from yesterday to fix any errors.

"Sure, but typically showering doesn't result in hickey's now does it, ___? Unless of course, that happened with someone in the shower?"

He was walking into uncharted territories and even though you could essentially wipe his memory, you didn't want to even bring up this morning to him. It was embarrassing and pathetic if you were being quite honest. Like, what would you even say to him? "Oh, it was from my fiancé, who ya know couldn't last long enough to pleasure me so I got off in the shower and that’s why I was late!" When did he even see that hickey? How could you have forgotten Rowoon even gave it to you! Of course, you could have lied, saying that Rowoon did do enough to satisfy you, but for some reason, you didn't like the thought of it. Taehyung was pure- okay scratch that. He's not pure, in the sense of sexuality and such, but the boy had never been lied to before, and you did not want to be the first person to do it.

"Just, drop it. Please? My mind is already all screwy and thinking about that is just going to be another headache."

Taehyung watched you as your head fell into your arms on your desk. What was with today? Why were you suddenly so ridiculously stressed out? They say orgasms are a way to relieve stress but this seemed to have just caused the opposite! Maybe your body wasn't used to the influx of oxytocin and was having some weird reaction to it. You'd definitely need to have them more often because if this is what it's like after not having one for so long, you wouldn't be able to deal.

All of a sudden, a pair of firm, warm arms; yes, warm, wrapped around your shoulders, along with a head snuggling into the back of yours and resting there.

"It's okay, darling," Taehyung spoke, his voice so gentle, and fluid and melodic that it nearly gave you goosebumps, "it's okay to be stressed out. Not to mention having a fiancé that can't even pleasure you properly."

"If you were mine," He continued, "I'd treat you like a Goddess. All of my attention would be put to you and you'd be so satisfied, that you couldn't walk anymore, and if you could, well... I'd make sure that wouldn't be the case." His tone turned from soft to hard in a split second and you couldn't stop your mouth from watering. Normally, dirty talk didn't do anything for you, but now, you couldn't help but feel the warmth pool in the pit of your stomach. He was barely even talking dirty! Maybe that orgasm this morning really did do more harm than good.

"T-Taehyung," You tried to speak, your voice nearly failing you, "L-et go of me, p-please." But he just held on tighter, his left-hand snaking down a bit further than you'd like right now, but if he continued his talking... you didn't know what could happen.

"But why? I know you like when I'm near you. When I'm touching you. Look, I haven't even touched you proper and your heart rate has already jumped. You're swallowing often, your cheeks are flushed, you haven't even pushed me away."

He was right, some sick part of you liked it. You were fucking engaged to another man yet here you were enjoying some robots touch more than his. This had to stop. You could not let it go any further. Taehyung had to go offline, at least until you cooled off. But, as you reached to hit the button, he grabbed your wrist, bringing your hand to his mouth as he kissed each knuckle gingerly. You didn't dare look up to him, if you did, you'd know it'd be game over. It would be whatever goes, and you really, really couldn't let that happen.

As if reading your mind once again, Taehyung untangled his other arm from around you, never letting go of the hand he already had, and spun your chair around. You kept your head down, your hair falling into your eyes and you promptly shut them. Anything to keep yourself from looking at the man before you. Suddenly though, Taehyung lifted your chin up, beckoning you to look at him. He laughed at the sight.

"Look at you..." He teased, "Don't fight it so hard. I want this, I know you want this. Just let it happen." His voice sounded so close, you just knew his face was directly in front of yours. And out of morbid curiosity, you looked. Your eyes peeping open to view the beautiful man known as Taehyung, just as you'd expected him. And fuck, was that a mistake.

His eyes were blown out, his lips wet as if he'd recently licked them, even his own cheeks tinted a darker shade of crimson. He was the definition of sex, and you craved him. But what he uttered next, was what pushed you over the edge.

"There you are... My pretty doll," He smiled, his hand moving from your chin to grace your flushed cheeks, his eyes softening but never losing their luster,

"Let me worship you."

AN: sajkldjals I can’t believe this is finally out lol. I’m sorry for being so inactive but I’m really trying to change that! I hope you all enjoyed the first part though! Please leave some sort of feedback <3 it is much appreciated!

#noonanet #bts scenarios #bts #kpop scenarios #kpop #v bts #kim taehyung #taehyung bts #taehyung scenarios #v scenarios #YOU GUYS #i posted something I'M SO HAPPY JASKDJSLA

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operationrainfall · 6 years

Text

This is Part Three of a Three Part Interview.

If you missed either prior part, you can check out Part One here and Part Two here.

Rami Ismail is the co-founder (along with Jan Willem “JW” Nijman) of Vlambeer, a Dutch indie studio that erupted onto the indie development scene in 2010. Since that time, he has not only helped create games such as Super Crate Box, Ridiculous Fishing, and (most recently) Nuclear Throne, but he won the GDC 2018 Ambassador Award for his work in supporting independent game development.

On New Year’s Day 2019, he announced on Twitter a new video game project called Meditations. He explained that every day for a year, a new game would appear in the Meditations launcher that would take just a few minutes to complete and would only be available for that day. Once that day passed, a new game by a different creator would take its place in the Meditations launcher.

I reached out to Rami just after the project went live to set up an interview with him, and he agreed to delay the interview for a few days so I could experience several of the different Meditations games available. This interview occurred on January 10, 2019 – or, in other words, after the first ten Meditations games were made available to play. During our time together, we spoke about the origins of Meditations and how he envisioned it to be, the controversy that arose about how the developers were being credited and his reactions to it, if there will be a February 29th game for when Meditations repeats over again next year, and more.

In Part Three, we talk about whether he prefers developing games or managing game development, what lessons he’s learned so far from Meditations, and what his plans are for when Meditations loops over in 2020 and runs into February 29th.

You can check out Rami Ismail at both his and Vlambeer‘s official websites. You can tweet him on Twitter, follow him on Facebook, and subscribe to him on Twitch.

You can download the Meditations launcher for Windows and OSX platforms for free on Meditations’ official website. The official Twitter hashtag for Meditations is #meditationgames.

This interview has been edited for clarity and content.

OR: You developed games in the past such as Nuclear Throne and Ridiculous Fishing, and now you’ve managed a development project called Meditations. Do you prefer developing or managing after having experienced both?

RI: Gosh, wow. I think they are very different. They’ve both been very interesting. Like, I said before, I think my life is very evenly split between making games and helping others make games. And we’re now at the point where my ability to facilitate things might exceed my ability to make games. But then, at the same time, its hard.

I’m still the six-year-old boy who just figured out that if you change letters in QBasic, this game about gorillas throwing bananas changes. I’m a programmer at heart. I love writing code and I love seeing code mess up, I love the challenge of figuring out how to write a piece of code, how to break a piece of code, how to fix a piece of code. I love the creative process of making a thing, extracting my thoughts, turning feelings into ideas, turning ideas into code, turning code into programs. All of that remains – it’s a huge part of who I am and how I look at the world. I want to see the systems behind things. I want to know how it works and why it works. Creating something of my own is sort of like the ultimate expression of that. I know exactly how this works, because I made it.

I think if I had to pick between one or the other, I would make games. I would go and make my own video games, if I had to give up one.

Not because I don’t love all the other work I do, but because I generally don’t think I could do the work I do without the excitement of knowing what it feels like to make these games. I want everybody that wants that feeling to have that feeling. That pride of having made a fully functional thing. But I can only share that because I know the excitement for that. And if I lost that, I would not be able to do anything for anybody, so yeah. I would be useless as an advocate if I didn’t have the ability to make games. So I would keep my game making.

“I would hate for you to think that Meditations is prescriptive. I would invite you to see it as something that is yours. That you choose to do this, you choose to participate in this ritual. And if you choose to do this once a week, that is fine too. If you decide to do it once a month, play one game a month, that’s fine too. If you just really want to play this one game for today, then that’s fine too.

But don’t see Meditations as a structure that is solid.”

OR: Do you have a particular Meditation game that is your favorite?

RI: I have some favorites. I actually have to admit that the January 10th one with the Ghost Dog, which I call ‘Ghost Dog’- it doesn’t actually have a title- by Cullen [Dwyer].

It was one of the first ones that was finished. Very early on in January 2018, I got that one. And in many ways, it was the reassurance that this project was going to work out. If only a tenth of games had that impact as this one, and again remember, this is way before I got most of the other games- if only a tenth of the games had this impact, this was going to be incredible. And it ended up way more.

The overwhelming majority of Meditations games, personally, did something. Had like, an effect on my day, gave me a feeling. Some of the games that didn’t have an effect on me, would have an effect on others. So I’m just very excited to see how this goes and what the community ends up thinking of a lot of things, instead of what I think of a lot of things. But, I think that today’s game, Cullen’s game, is just really a reminder that a lot of very complex feelings might be better expressed through a video game than through other ways of communicating. That games also don’t need to necessarily stand on their own. That games can have context and that they should have context. A game like today’s, with the description in front of it, is so much more of a gut punch than it would be as a game on it’s own, or as a text on its own.

And I think that that in many ways is kind of beautiful.

This slideshow requires JavaScript.

The Meditations game for January 3rd was by Lisa Brown (with assets from Jandre160108 and Jonathan Shaw). The player has to click the various limbs, body, or head of the person and drag them by the faerie-like icon as there is a bubbling of indistinct conversation just off screen. As the red line connecting the person and the faerie gets weaker, the red line will break, and you’ll have to draw another line. As the person moves across the ground, the person is faced with either falling down into a deep gap, or entering into the light where the conversations are coming from and that get louder as you get closer to it.

OR: It’s a bit early to do a GDC-style postmortem, but I am going to ask this anyway: What lessons have you learned so far from doing Meditations? What surprised you about it? What unexpected challenges or surprises did you experience? Is there anything you would change, besides the credits issue, if you were to go back to the beginning of the project to do it all over again?

RI: So the main takeaway from Meditations, for me at least, is that anything of scale is always more complicated than you think. Like, I’ve done a lot of projects with ten people. And I’m like ‘well, what is three-hundred-and-fifty people besides thirty-five times that?’ But it turns out that when you double the amount of people, you kind of triple the amount of work. In many ways, logically, that is the biggest lesson. Beyond that, I think that in terms of presentation, in terms of how the project works now in terms of launch and in terms of philosophy behind it, I’m actually very happy with how it turned out and I’m very proud of how it turned out. Obviously, the most obvious thing that I would go back and tell myself is ‘Hey, communicate clearly as to expectations for how people are credited, for what is going to come out at the other end.’

The thing that surprised me, honestly, again, is the shape that the structure of the project gives it. The fact that everyday is a game that will be gone for a year is fascinating but also the space it creates mentally for you, to think about each game on its own, surprised me. I think one of the things that surprised me -and I don’t want to say in a negative way- [that] I didn’t expect, and I should have probably expected a bit better, although I don’t know if I would have changed it- is that this project is meant to be almost like a sort of meditative ritual. It’s based around the idea of rituals, It’s based around Michael Brough’s VESPER.5, which was a game where you can take one move a day. It’s based around GLITCHHIKER, which is a project that ended in 2011 with a number of incredible people – that was a game which permanently deleted itself eventually [and] entirely from the internet as well. It’s around ideas of ritual, ephemeral media, but also, at the same time, of archiving, which is why it loops. For me, it was all these things, like, if I wake up and I decide to do a ‘meditation’, I do a Meditation. If I wake up and I don’t want to do a ‘meditation’, I don’t do the Meditation. If I wake up and it fits in my day, I’ll do it. But if I wake up and it doesn’t fit in my day, then I won’t do it.

And one of the things that in hindsight should be obvious, is that there are people who want to hundred-percent Meditations. They want to play every single game in there. That’s not quite what I expected. Because it also creates a pretty serious fear of ‘missing out’ in people. In a way, for some people, Meditations ends up being kind of stressful, which is the opposite goal. I want people to like have something chill to play when they are capable of playing it.

So that was a surprise. I don’t know how I would really fix it. I don’t think I would fix it. It’s just- the scale of the year changes things for people. I think that if Meditations had been like, a three-day project and credits were at the end, I think most people wouldn’t have had a problem with that. If Meditations was three days, and you missed a game, people would not have had a problem with that. But the fact that this is on the scale of a year- an eightieth of our life for a lot of people- I think that changes way more than you can abstractly imagine.

In hindsight, all of this is super obvious. When you’re thinking of it, you’re not thinking of it on the scale of a year- while I was collecting games for the span of a year, I never thought I was working for a year. When these two years are over, when the year of production and then the year of execution [is over]- I’ve spent a fortieth of my life on this, if I turn eighty.

Of my life as it is, it is one-fifteenth of my life, because I’m thirty now. Those are incredible, staggering numbers. I think that’s another thing that is interesting about this. There just isn’t much art on the scale of a year. It’s not a common thing, especially in games. There’s nothing- I don’t think there’s anything on this scale as an art project. There’s games as a service, a lot of indie games get made over a span of years- but its not often that we have to think about the experience of time as a continuous artistic expression. And I think that was one of things that was also very clear in the discussion about credits. And in the discussion of the project so far is just- the year is a surprisingly solid number of time in people’s life. So I don’t exactly know yet what that means, because we’re on day [ten]. And I don’t know exactly what it’ll do, because we’re on day [ten]. I don’t really have any ways or insight into how the project is doing. It’s not pinging for statistics, [because] we aren’t not keeping track of player counts.

But based on my server logs, a lot of people seem to be playing this. A lot of people seem to be still interacting with it, day-in-and-day-out. The hope is that instead of shrinking over the year, it grows over the year. We [hope to] find more people that will be interested in playing a game for a year, and [that] people will stop seeing it as something that goes from January 1st to January 1st. Eventually people will start seeing it as ‘Oh, I dropped in on May 22nd, and I’m just going to play until I hit May 22nd.’ It’s not about our year, it’s about your year. And I think a lot of people see Meditations as a thing that is very defined. And I think, I hope, that throughout the year, people will see it more as a thing of their own, like they do the meditation, not [that] Meditations tells you to meditate.

This slideshow requires JavaScript.

Day 4’s Meditations game was by Egor Dorichev, who developed a game in PICO-8. In this game, the player directs a red arrow across sixteen stages to navigate mazes and obstacles in order to hit the green box to move onto the next level. In the later stages, multiple arrows appear that are moved all at once, but only one has to get through to the end green box. There are also obstacle boxes that will appear only as you pass through their dash dotted outline, and solid white boxes that will disappear when you run into them. You cannot go back the way that you just went with the red arrow, but you can move diagonally.

See if/how Rami Ismail anticipated February 29 for when Meditations repeats itself in 2020, and what he has to say on Page 2 —->

OR: Last couple of questions. You mentioned that the games will be playable again next year. Next year is a leap year. Is there a game that will be set up for February 29th, 2020?

RI: I mean, that’s a very good question. Let’s just say that a few [days] before Meditations came out, I did a tweet lamenting the existence of leap years, because they are really hard to program around. That’s all I’m going to say about that. Like the rest of Meditations, I want those things to be questions, not answers.

This slideshow requires JavaScript.

Adriel Wallick (with assets from distillerystudio and grunz) created the Meditations game for January 2nd (above), and Mattias Ditto Dittrich created the Meditations title for January 7th (below).

In January 2nd’s game, the player has to repeatedly click to enlarge the circle to fill out the circular frame. As the player clicks, the color changes from green to a dark brown/red. If the color completely changes, a ‘dong’ sound occurs and the orb shrinks back down and you’re unable to make it grow again. If you fill out the circle entirely, the game is completed.

For January 7th’s title, it is a bit different. As the purple circle/gray square bounces back and forth across the screen, the line in the middle grows larger each time the small object intersects with it. The mouse cursor can be pressed anywhere within the game to help direct the purple circle/grey square in a particular direction. When the line is long enough, the game automatically ends.

This slideshow requires JavaScript.

OR: Finally, to those people who are seeing Meditations for the first time and are thinking about starting it up, what do you have to say to them?

RI: Make it something that is theirs.

This is – every Meditation is a small moment of thought about how somebody else’s life relates to your life. A moment of empathy for a person, a moment of consideration. It’s not something you have to do every day, it’s not something that must be a part of your day. And if you miss a game, it’s not a crime, you didn’t fail anybody. It’s not upsetting. This is your thing. I would hate for you to think that Meditations is prescriptive. I would invite you to see it as something that is yours. That you choose to do this, you choose to participate in this ritual. And if you choose to do this once a week, that is fine too. If you decide to do it once a month, play one game a month, that’s fine too. If you just really want to play this one game for today, then that’s fine too.

But don’t see Meditations as a structure that is solid.

If you decide to participate, it’s your thing. And if you decide to make this ritual a daily ritual, it’s your thing as well. If you decide to participate and you enjoy one of the games, if you enjoy what it is and you would like to thank the creator, that will be super awesome, and I think a lot of the creators have been very thankful for a lot of the responses they’ve gotten.

A lot of the creators have obviously put a lot of themselves in these games, and knowing that there are people having this conversation about this topic that is dear to them through their game would mean a lot to them. So please do reach out to those developers. Please do follow them on Twitter or whatever they linked in their credits. And go have these little conversations either with the game or the creator.

Make it your own thing.

OR: Thank you.

The Meditations game images used herein were taken by me, but you can check out the individual Meditations developers at the links included beneath each image set. You can also check out a partial list of all the developers in the project here. The Meditations logo is owned by Rami Ismail.

You can download the Meditations launcher for Windows and OSX platforms for free on Meditations’ official website.

What do you think Rami Ismail has planned (if anything) for February 29th, 2020 when Meditations repeats? What would you put in your own Meditations game?

Let us know in the comments below!

INTERVIEW: Rami Ismail Discusses Meditations (Part Three) This is Part Three of a Three Part Interview. If you missed either prior part, you can check out Part One

#Adriel Wallick #distillerystudio #Egor Dorichev #glitchhiker #grunz #Jandre160108 #Jonathan Shaw #Lisa Brown #Mattias Ditto Dittrich #Meditation games #Meditations #Michael Brough #Pico-8 #Rami Ismail #Vesper.5 #Vlambeer

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symbianosgames · 8 years

Link

The following blog post, unless otherwise noted, was written by a member of Gamasutra’s community. The thoughts and opinions expressed are those of the writer and not Gamasutra or its parent company.

[Video Game Deep Cuts is a weekly newsletter from curator/video game industry veteran Simon Carless, rounding up the best longread & standout articles & videos about games, every weekend. This week's highlights include a mess of GDC talk goodness, plus Resident Evil 7/Biohazard's making-of, the role of mystery in games, & lots more.

So yep - Game Developers Conference is finally done & we're super happy with how it went. Thanks to any of you who made it out to San Francisco, or helped us with the event in ANY way! The good news for those who didn't is that GDC Vault recording was going on en masse, so we'll be rolling out LOTS of good content on our YouTube channel over the next few months. Now - time for a little rest?

Another reminder - if you dig Video Game Deep Cuts, please talk about it on social media and link to the sub page! That's how I get the bulk of my new subscribers, and it's much appreciated.

- Simon, curator.]

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

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Lessons learned by an 'art-house indie' who joined a F2P game studio (Alex Wawro / Gamasutra) "Veteran game designer Margaret Robertson opened her talk at GDC today on what she’s learned in her journey from a self-described “art-house indie” to someone who works at a free-to-play game studio."

alt.ctrl | Hands-On | GDC 2017 (Jess Conditt / Engadget) "[SIMON'S NOTE: this is the best video overview I've seen of the alternative controller exhibit (masterminded by John Polson & aided by me) that we run at Game Developers Conference every year. So much creativity here.]"

How Prompto's AI-driven selfie system in Final Fantasy XV was built (Alex Wawro / Gamasutra) "Prasert “Sun” Prasertvithyakarn served as lead designer on Final Fantasy XV’s buddy system and AI; at GDC this week he took the stage to talk a bit about how the AI-driven snapshot system was designed and built."

Developing Crashlands while facing a terminal cancer diagnosis (Simon Parkin / Gamasutra) "In 2013, the 23-year-old game artist and developer Samuel Coster hallucinated a dragon made of blood bursting from his chest. The hallucinations continued and soon increased in regularity. “I figured I was struck with a strange virus,” Coster recalled, in a session titled 'The Last Game I Make Before I Die' delivered at the Game Developers Conference this morning."

Writing Mafia 3: 'We had a lot of very uncomfortable conversations' (Alex Wawro / Gamasutra) "Today at GDC, Hangar 13 narrative director William Harms took the stage to break down how the studio pulled it off. Most notably, in the face of some praise for how Mafia 3’s pulpy revenge story effectively treats with themes of racism and discrimination, Harms pushed back against the notion that tackling racism was a core goal of the game’s narrative design."

Train Jam perfectly captures the magic of both traveling and game dev (Katherine Cross / Gamasutra) "Thus it was that Adriel Wallick, doyenne and major domo of the jam for the last four years, settled on “Unexpected Anticipation” as the theme for all of this year’s games. She spoke above the cheers of a 300-strong crowd in the newly refurbished Burlington Room of Chicago’s Union Station, christened by the opening ceremonies for this unique event."

Warren Spector traces Deus Ex's development back to a game of D&D (Alex Wawro / Gamasutra) "Shortly after the game shipped, game director Warren Spector wrote a broad postmortem of the project. Today at GDC, he revisited the subject after 17 years to offer some fresh insight into how the groundbreaking game came to be. 'People always ask me which of my games are my favorite; don’t ever ask a game designer that,' said Spector. 'The closest I ever get to answering is saying that the game I’m most proud of is Deus Ex.'"

For Tim Sweeney, advancing Epic means racing into AR and VR (Alex Wawro / Gamasutra) "What does it feel like to receive an award honoring a lifetime of achievement...before you're 50? "I feel like maybe I'm an old fogey and should be shopping for a cane!" Epic chief Tim Sweeney tells Gamasutra, with a laugh."

Lessons learned from over 15 years of of teaching a VR/AR design course (Chris Baker / Gamasutra) "Virtual reality and augmented reality may seem like new mediums, suddenly made viable by the emergence of the Rift and the Vive and Hololens. But Jesse Schell has watched hundreds of people build immersive VR and AR environments for the last several decades. And he has some general lessons to impart from his experience."

A dev's guide to ensuring studio conflict is healthy and productive (Alex Wawro / Gamasutra) "At GDC today, Finji CEO and cofounder Rebekah Saltsman shared some advice on cultivating the former and avoiding the latter, based on her own experience shipping multiple games at Finji alongside her husband (and Finji cofounder) Adam Saltsman."

[SIMON'S NOTE: There's all kinds of other good GDC 2017 coverage out there. But I mainly stuck to Gamasutra, since we spent a lot of time on detailed talk write-ups, which are all compiled here...]

Non GDC-Related

A Fresh Narrative in Gaming (Justin Porter / New York Times) "A mixed-race man comes home from the Vietnam War to more carnage: His adoptive father, the leader of the black mob, is betrayed and killed by the Italian mafia, the main criminal power in a fictional city based on New Orleans. So the veteran, Lincoln Clay, starts taking retribution, leaving hundreds dead in his wake. That’s the familiar revenge-as-motive storyline of the video game Mafia III, developed by Hangar 13 and published by 2K, but the twist is that Lincoln is also a victim."

Shigeru Miyamoto – 1989 Developer Interview (TV Game / Shmuplations) "This short but insightful interview with Shigeru Miyamoto first appeared in an early seminal book of video game history, “terebi game denshi yuugi taizen” from 1989. The interview captures Miyamoto in the early limelight: not yet the legend he is today, but more of a bright star among other contemporary developers."

How SteamWorld Heist brought skill into turn-based tactics (Alex Wiltshire / RockPaperShotgun) "SteamWorld Heist is a tactics game about boarding procedural spaceships with a squad of desperado robots and grabbing all the swag you can before they’re turned to scrap. It’s also a cross-genre oddity, a turn-based platformer, with presentation and polish that comes across a bit like a Nintendo fan fell in love with XCOM."

Rediscovering Mystery (feat. Jonathan Blow / Derek Yu / Jim Crawford) (Noclip / YouTube) "In this special feature about video game mysteries, we talk to Jonathan Blow (The Witness / Braid), Derek Yu (Spelunky) and Jim Crawford (Frog Fractions) about the games that inspired wonder in us as children."

What the game industry thinks of Nintendo’s Switch (Matt Leone / Polygon) "Yet more than most consoles, Switch remains a bit of a mystery at launch. Are motion controls going to be a big part of it? What type of player will Switch developers cater to? In an attempt to wrap our heads around it, we recently reached out to a group of developers and industry veterans to get a sense of where those in the game business see it going."

Eleven Essential Books that will help shape your Game City (Konstantinos Dimopoulos / Medium) "Designing an imaginary city is not an easy thing to do. Even less so when it’s a videogame city, the construction of which will also have to take a myriad of technical and cost constraints into consideration."

toco toco ep.47, Katsura Hashino, Game Creator (toco toco TV / YouTube) "In this episode, we follow Katsura Hashino, director of various RPG games including episodes of the world-renown Persona series, he will introduce us to philosophy and his work. Starting from Shibuya’s Center Gai, we will hop on the Den-en-Toshi line over to Sangenjaya, which was the inspiration to create the city of Yongenjaya, a key area in Hashino’s latest title: Persona 5."

Frog Fractions: inside the mind behind the world's strangest video game (Chris Priestman / The Guardian) "Jim Crawford is a self-confessed dilettante who moves from project to project in the blink of an eye. How did he create the most anarchic video game ever made?"

BIOHAZARD 7 INSIDE REPORT File 01: The Meaning of A Moment of Silence (Toru Shiwasu / Alex Aniel) "BIOHAZARD 7 resident evil INSIDE REPORT was included in the COMPLETE EDITION of the Japanese version of Resident Evil 7 Biohazard. It is only available officially in Japanese, and no official English translation has been announced. [SIMON'S NOTE: There's multiple parts to this translation on Alex's blog, and it's all excellent stuff.]"

A Torch in the Dark: Using Creative Direction to Light The Darkest Dungeon (Chris Bourassa / GDC / YouTube) "In this 2016 talk, Red Hook Studios' Chris Bourassa breaks down the creative philosophy of Darkest Dungeon - one that is characterized by a steadfast commitment to a clearly articulated, externalized creative core."

Populists Stage A Coup In Space (Alex Barron / Simon Parkin / New Yorker Radio Hour) "EVE Online is a massive multiplayer online videogame set in outer space, with tens of thousands of people playing at any given time. A few years ago, a faction of upstarts within the game’s community, who thumbed their nose at the rules, went to war against the alliance of skilled players they regarded as corrupt, elitist insiders. They won, in a shocking coup precipitated by espionage. Sound familiar?"

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symbianosgames · 8 years

Link

Another reminder - if you dig Video Game Deep Cuts, please talk about it on social media and link to the sub page! That's how I get the bulk of my new subscribers, and it's much appreciated.

- Simon, curator.]

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

GDC-Related

[SIMON'S NOTE: There's all kinds of other good GDC 2017 coverage out there. But I mainly stuck to Gamasutra, since we spent a lot of time on detailed talk write-ups, which are all compiled here...]

Non GDC-Related

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

#IFTTT #Blogger

0 notes

symbianosgames · 8 years

Link

Another reminder - if you dig Video Game Deep Cuts, please talk about it on social media and link to the sub page! That's how I get the bulk of my new subscribers, and it's much appreciated.

- Simon, curator.]

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

GDC-Related

[SIMON'S NOTE: There's all kinds of other good GDC 2017 coverage out there. But I mainly stuck to Gamasutra, since we spent a lot of time on detailed talk write-ups, which are all compiled here...]

Non GDC-Related

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

#IFTTT #Blogger

0 notes

symbianosgames · 8 years

Link

Another reminder - if you dig Video Game Deep Cuts, please talk about it on social media and link to the sub page! That's how I get the bulk of my new subscribers, and it's much appreciated.

- Simon, curator.]

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

GDC-Related

[SIMON'S NOTE: There's all kinds of other good GDC 2017 coverage out there. But I mainly stuck to Gamasutra, since we spent a lot of time on detailed talk write-ups, which are all compiled here...]

Non GDC-Related

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

#IFTTT #Blogger

0 notes

symbianosgames · 8 years

Link

Another reminder - if you dig Video Game Deep Cuts, please talk about it on social media and link to the sub page! That's how I get the bulk of my new subscribers, and it's much appreciated.

- Simon, curator.]

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

GDC-Related

[SIMON'S NOTE: There's all kinds of other good GDC 2017 coverage out there. But I mainly stuck to Gamasutra, since we spent a lot of time on detailed talk write-ups, which are all compiled here...]

Non GDC-Related

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

#IFTTT #Blogger

0 notes