terriedirewolf

[terriedirewolf]

Some draws I've been up to. Idk. I've not been verybproductive. Trying to get used to color more.

[terriedirewolf]

Wasteland 3 was on sale a little while back and I've been wanting to play that since I saw it existed. Most people don't know this game series existed. Those who do, know it from fallout, and probably never touched the games before. Those who know it from fallout know it from old fallout. Back when they was 2d and played like a point and click that threw the simple item puzzles into the sun and decided to dungeon master a dnd game but with guns and robots. Plus, the original game is archaic and has graphics that more resemble a board game than a video game, and the second game came out like 20 years later. I mean I'm all over ancient and archaic games, and I only have managed to ever scrape my way through half of that thing. I even used a guide. I beat zelda nes without pulling a guide out until that teleport maze in the final dungeon.

So anyway, wasteland 3 is now my favorite rpg, and I've been reevaluating a few of my projects because of it. I have a number of games that can be loosely crammed into the definitions of RPG. And I missed something crutial with my party based one: specialization. Now I missed wasteland 2, but my previous favorite rpg was fallout 1. And that game only let you directly control and stat manage one character. You could get companions, but they didn't factor into things the same way. Wasteland, having always been a game where you control a team of post nuclear idealists with government issued integrity, does not let you make a god teir character like in fallout. The third game makes you make a team. This team can and will be more effective than any single player rpg protagonist for a number of reasons, and it is very hard to fuck it up. I love the shit out of how well they get this across. Like, I could go into depth about how wasteland 3's opening bit is one of the best tutorials ever crafted. Rides a real nice balence of understanding what players might expect going into that, making them rethink their approach, and showing off just how fun and rewarding that all can be. Sort of un-hack-and-slashing the rpg system, while also making sure to be as brutal and rediculous as possible.

Funny thing is, I already kind of understood the importance of this kind of specialization when designing concepts for a real-time tactical third person shooter. Trying to lean into the mmo tank, healer, hitter trio that seems so inexcapable. Healers and tanks are tricky, if possible to do in wasteland 3 though, and that's what I think is really facinating. As far as I can tell, you can't do that without fundementally changing how these kinds of games function, but this does it pretty well, at least early on, and I'm trying to work out exactly how? Healers are somewhat negated by the fact that it's hard to play that kind of support role. Meaning every character that would be put in risky situations frequently, has to be capable of healing themselves. Tanks are less viable cause the combat relies a lot on cover and damage mitigation by default, meaning everyone again, kind of has to do all of that themselves. I think what's going on is what happens outside of combat.

Wasteland stats are funny, cause they were a fucking mess in the 80s game. You had to roll the damn characters, then tag a number of skills. And it was not clear what all of them did. And half of them might not actually do anything. Fallout used a similar system, with atributes and skills, but in a much more coherent way. The details of the SPECIAL system has been praised before, just know it used to be significantly more in depth than the nonsense in fallout 3 and onwards. Wasteland 3, and from what I can tell, 2 as well, uses a similar system, this time spelling CLASSIC cause tradition at this point. Comes complete with perks and backgrounds to further customize your rangers with little tweeks like doing more damage in exchange for getting hit for more damage, or getting more action points when you kill an enemy. The long winded point I was getting to is that the vast majority of skills are not combat skills, but exploration skills. Arguably, the only reason combat skills are seperated out so much is to keep everyone using different ammo pools. If you want a good balenced squad, you want one, maybe two combat skills per char, and the rest going into stuff like the speech and trading skills, repair and computers. Maybe some weapons experts or power armor mechanics. Cause these let you avoid fights. Or at least help getting better gear and the jump on things you have to fight.

Game isn't perfect, but it's by far one of the best designed crpg's I've ever touched, and very fun in a lot of ways. Almost makes me actually enjoy math. That's hard to do. I only math when I need to, and it takes all the energy my two brain cells can squeeze out.

And like, drawings here later maybe. I keep not drawing as much as I want to. There's a ton of cool stuff I'd like to show off, but I didn't get around to sketching the mf's out yet. Hopefully I get around to doing that and whoever's here can look at more than my badly structured ramblings.

[terriedirewolf]

Robots. Ight so I been able to play Armored Core VI: Fires Of Rubicon, and damns this series cleaned up nice. The only other games I've managed to play are the original, Project Phantasma, and Master Of Arena. Which are PSX games commonly refered to as first gen. I loved those games after messing with them and figuring out what they were going for. A lot of people complain about the controls, but honestly, nah, those are fine. I played enough megaman legends to where it felt normal and responsive.the first game came out before duel sticks, and they kind of just stuck with an all digital scheme well into the seventh console generation. Which is a bit long tbh, but i'm fine with it.

Anyhow, point is, it's like kitbashing your own robot to murder, explore, and job hunt your way through the war scarred future of planet earth. And it does some really cool stuff with narritive in the first game. Missions come and go, failing them can end with you not getting payed, but still needing to pay for the car sized bullets you wasted. And on top of that, the missions you accept and complete, tips the tides of the rivalries of the factions that fuel this merc economy.

The next two are more typically structured, which is fine, but it do be a little less interesting from a design perspective to me. Armored Core 6 does an interesting middleground. You can infinitely replay missions, and it's actually pretty hard to get into any kind of dept, but the branching paths and optional missions are still there. It's a very accessable and nice system. And being able to replay any beaten mission at any time is just, fantastic.

Another cool thing is the characters. Easily the most charismatic group of people ever put in an ac game. I love it. I do have problems with the game. I think a lot of the gameplay being focused into burst damage feels weird, and I don't like some stuff like reloading and being able to turn independent of the camera. Plus, the manual aim feature sucks with charge shots and back weapons. But man, the characters make up for it. There's a ton of art already, but I hope to add to this post regularly to try and display my impressions of these people. Cause there's some really great dynamics you can set up in this.

I might also sketch up some old gen stuff too, idk. Apologies for the very rough first couple posts.

[terriedirewolf]

So like, risk of rain is one of the first indie games I got. This was in the 2010s at some point. Was just learning about steam cause I was real late to all that stuff. Anyhow, saw this thing and fkn loved it.

Most people who know about ut know more about the flashy 3D sequel up until recently. Cause 1 is getting remade and released some time this year. But I didn't touch that until, idk, about a year ago? It's really interesting to see, cause a lot of items are similar but got moved around and put in completely different catagories. And some new items work like old items with a new name and look. But on top of that you don't think about how much a third dimention adds to a game until you can compare something this directly.

The devs actually had a bit of a ride doing this it sounded like. And I need to look at 2's early access as a whole now that I'm more familier with the final product tbh. Cause they changed a lot of how you interact with the same systems that were in the first game. Most of which help you have more consistant and fair runs. It's a facinating and valuable lesson in how to make games for anyone interested I think.

But shipping! We have a buncha survivors, and they all need to be paired up. Same with bosses. We also have a criminally low amount of artwork with survivors outside of their combat uniform I want to draw some ror1 survivors interacting with ror2 survivors too a bit, as most of them are different in personality, and toolset. Which shoul lead to some interesting stuffs.

[terriedirewolf]

You gonna put your ROR stuff on here? Hi im capable of acting normal I think, im one of the Loader Simps from the discord. Your style is delightful!

Sure here. I want to try and do more bloggy stuff here, but tbh, ror could be a very fun blog topic. I could slap some stuff down.

(railgunner x loader and captain x mercinary)

[terriedirewolf]

Ight, lets get a post in here

So metroid dread came out not too long ago. I'm very pleased with it. Samus returns was a little shaky imho, and i was only slightly concerned that it was the same people. But I think they surpassed expectations. Issues from the 3DS game didn't make it in, the art design is phenomenal, and the world and story are very cool and fitting for the universe. I'm a particular fan of this sort of rebuilt power suit that totally still has fusion suit elements all over it still. And the chozo boss who's face rips open is quite pretty. Good game. 10.

But anyhow, it's definitely not supermetroid levels of non linear. And this is the tie breaker. Metroid 1 was about as open as possible. Kind of a rough expereince even by the standards of the era honestly, I'm kind of amazed the series didn't die then and there. But the sequel did wonders for the series. It is also however, much more linear. Now, you can backtrack if you want, and honestly, the map is small enough where it's not that much of a pain in the ass. But it's not open design really.

Supermetroid was a mix of the two. Metroid 1 with the sensabilities of metroid 2, and like five times the tech to make it all work. And it did work. But it's also not nearly as open as people think it is. It just does a real good job at hiding it, and it is kind of nonlinear as it has four distinct paths to travel down once you get through the intro exploration. The hidden movement tech also did wonders for it. People suck this games cock all the time though, so I won't dwell on it's acomplishments.

Fusion is way more linear. It does open up in places, but for the most part, you're stuck following orders and being a shadow of your former self, and fighting your own ghosts. Ibreally like the game though, and it feels and plays just like how I want metroid to feel and play.

I guess what I'm trying to get across is that dread not being a hand free "wander this vast cavern and good luck" kind of game isn't really that weird, and metroid hasn't been about open ended exploration for most of it's lifespan. Much like many games, it's a puzzle room. The keys are just very fun to play with, and it likes to hide secrets. I think metroid has always been about the lonly atmosphere, as well as the idea that something sinister is watching at the same time.

Now it's worth noting that I never played the prime games, but the only 2d game I haven't beaten is samus returns, and that's cause my 2DS has been lost. But I think that this is that thing about the series that no one ever mentions cause of how the genre the series helped create has formed over the years. Metroid has never been interested in being a metroidvenia. Which is kind of weird to think about.

Anyhow, visually, it's always bugged me that samus is supposed to be this powerful woman who takes no shit, got bird hrt, and can brave situations that few others can get out of alive, but is built like a barbie doll. People have pointed out the shoulders before. It's weird, and never has been addressed in canon. It's always obscured too when she changes in and out of her power suit, so, if her arms are even in there is a bit of a debate.

My solution is buff samus. Niklas Arne Jansson did the concept a bit better, and I think there's a handfull of other people who drew her stacked like a truck, but not enough imho. I also wish she'd wear anything but the zero suit once in a while. Cause it's cool and all, but pockets are dope as shit.

The arm canon is another issue. Seeing as she has like, an arm in there. Anyone even slightly savy with ballistics can tell you that a snub nosed thing like that is gonna be aweful. The crazy bit is that the barrel opens up instead of the rockets just using folding fins or something. How 250 rockets fit in that thing is another question entirely, but I guess, there's like, borderlands digitalization or something, so it's workable I guess. Recoil will be harder to handle without a wrist, and aiming is kind of impossible without a heads up display I expect. The fusion arm canon has more issues, and I seriouy doubt you could get a forearm in it and still have room for any of the cool foldy stuffs.

I really do not have a lot of solutions here, but there are two ways I figure. The easiest is to just remove the arm. Which is always cool. Robot arms that transform into guns is like, peak design. The other way is to extend the cannon, or make it offset from the actual arm. Maybe even a combination. That way there's room forbthe big arm gun to be like, actually big and gun, and still let samus have all the thumbs to fly a spaceship. Also, I feel like she should be able to drop the thing. Like take it off and set it down, piloting the ship with a partially armored forearm and hand, with exposed internals and hardpoints to mount the blaster.

But yeah.

Rough sketches

[terriedirewolf]

old and new art. nothing specific. I'll ramble about stuff when I throw concept pieces up. which tend to be lower quality.