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A Celebration of Interactive Experience, with yeucc

By Staff Editor flyday (D3tectiveBailey)

This article is part of the “Cut the Cameras” review series where newsroom staff critique interactive experiences and creative esoterica. CtC reviews are handled with care, seriousness, and consideration.

(Caption: A thumbnail video for “NOKORi 残り” one of the yeuc_c’s main games.)

ROBLOX—As far as exciting and engaging Roblox experiences go, yeucc’s (yeuc_c) games astounded me in ways I never thought possible. With a sci-fi angle, unique storytelling devices and a distinct aesthetic, the sheer joy of creative expression bleeds through in every project. There’s a distinct narrative being told through yeucc’s games, which I am predisposed to enjoying even before beginning to revisit the mysterious laboratories and bunkers that litter yeucc’s narrative universe. A surface skim of the type of content yeucc had to showcase may evoke general expectations, but when you engage with yeucc’s experiences, you get something better than you could ever imagine.

From the beginning stages of waking up in mysterious, foreign, subterranean laboratories and hidden bunkers away from the mistakes of humanity to the very ends of each experience, yeucc’s games stand strong. An exploration game can be better planned than executed. At NOKORi, exploration and interactivity are the focus—and these focuses are executed well. The goal is to navigate—and eventually escape from—a mysterious, foreign, subterranean laboratory filled with various dangers, a plethora of mysteries, and an exciting array of puzzles. At its core, each of the yeucc games—while incorporating engaging puzzles and investigative design—are surreal, unforgettable, and novel exploration experiences. A tone of dread, mystery, and an ominous foreboding feeling that something is truly wrong permeates deep into the player experience. The lighting design (and lack of lighting in dark corridors) in the NOKORi and Bunker games speak to this intent.

You are a player, and the task at hand? Survive. Other priorities vary between NOKORi and Bunker.

The attention to detail, the focus on interactivity, and the visual environments created are nothing short of stunning. The diversity in architecture, interior design, and visual layout in each game speaks to the dedication to design that the developer and his team had towards creating a truly immersive experience. The games ease players into various mechanics and introduce them to a diverse array of spatial reasoning puzzles that exercise the players’ problem-solving mind. Finding solutions to progress through these games require an explorative mind and an analytical attitude. From cramped office spaces to expansive testing chambers, the diversity and effectiveness of the yeucc design style is distinct and inspiring. 

I was particularly astounded by the engaging and interactive experience of playing yeucc’s newest game. Bunker is a masterclass in building an exploration game. Where I wanted to see hints at storytelling, Bunker pulled through. Where I wanted to see interactivity, puzzles, and problem-solving, Bunker showed up. I was continually amazed at how expansive the map of Bunker is—and I await in anticipation for what yeucc and co. have next for us players.

(Caption: A screencap for the MMIS recording of the joint investigation into Happy Country.)

I remember being new to the Myth Community and becoming an Inspector through the MMIS Inspectors & Analysts program for Advanced Investigators back in March, 2020. After being assigned my role, I was put on the yeucc beat. It’s without question that yeucc’s games are incredibly sentimental to me—having investigated and analyzed these games nearly three years ago—back when they were part of the “Happy Country” storyline. 

The experience of investigating Happy Country was incredibly exciting—one of the best entrances into the investigative community. In his former capacity as a myth, yeucc was incredibly welcoming and kind to the investigators assigned to his games. Happy Country was rich with storytelling—I remember back when our most pertinent concerns were regarding the NOKORi facility’s “Eccles Syndrome” bug and uncovering the conspiracies that make up the governance of yeuccsylvania.

Most of the yeucc games originated as myth games. Though the developer no longer identifies as a myth, the strong storytelling talent shines through the reimagined and remastered versions of his games.

The only place where some of the yeucc games falter is generally with fine-tuning errors like the occasional soft-locks, inconsistent textures or tangents, z-clipping, or other quality-control related aberrations. Despite all of this—and in comparison to other games of his style—yeucc’s games are confidently creative, powerfully maximalist, and detail oriented in a way that exceeds all expectations. The improvements that yeucc and the development team have made are no clearer than the spectacular transitions between NOKORi and Bunker—the latter of which is still in development. We would love to see more of the storytelling and lore bleed from the original storyline through yeucc’s newer games, and we believe the continued development of Bunker will showcase this to us. From bunker explorations to laboratory escapes, playing yeucc’s games is an engaging, exciting, and visually stunning experience and I can’t wait for what’s next.

Verdict

yeucc’s original games and storyline benefited from the quirkiness, mystique, and abstract narrative aided by mysterious games and horror elements. The new generation of yeucc games show up stronger, turning a quirky and mysterious storyline and its horror-filled games into a powerful and engaging experience of exploration, discovery, and problem-solving. Brought to life by vivid, maximalist visual design and brilliant scripting, the yeucc games of today leave you feeling intrigued, fulfilled, and fully hooked. The puzzles in the new games bring challenge without frustration, tied in with a healthy balance of expansiveness that never leaves a player feeling trapped or impeded. yeucc and his development team pull out all the stops to deliver an awe-inspiring experience. NOKORi put in place the mystery, mechanics, and style needed to launch a player into the Bunker experience. From underground laboratories to expansive subterranean bunkers to avoid the fate of humanity, yeucc’s games are an unforgettable marvel of creative expression.

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Flyday (D3tectiveBailey) is a staff editor and game developer with the Unwanted Magazine. Flyday runs point on the magazine’s “Cut the Cameras” review project.

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Myth Community Pride is Reviving

By Staff Editor flyday (D3tectiveBailey)

(Caption: A discord screenshot of the announcement that Myth Community Pride is reviving.)

This morning, the founder and head of Myth Community Pride MoralArsonism announced the revival of the myth hunting group. Myth Community Pride is an LGBTQ+ focused myth hunting group founded to boost queer representation on the Roblox Myth Community and to create a welcoming environment for LGBTQ+ identifying hunters, myths, and developers.

The group, known for their fiery elections for Homophobic Ambassador, their creation of an independent blacklist, and promotion of LGBTQ+ esoterica, is set to undergo major restructuring as part of their revival. Major changes include the permanent closure of the MCP Blacklist, the temporary shut down of MCP programs, and a restructuring of leadership.

The Unwanted Magazine newsroom reached out to MoralArsonism for comment. Moral expressed excitement for re-entering the RMC and adoration for the community that MCP created. The head of MCP stressed that “it's so important to give voices to queer people and queer stories, both within the RMC and outside.”

“Queerness itself defies convention and I believe is the perfect embodiment of creativity and progression.” Moral expanded, noting that LGBTQ+ representation “is important to bringing new lenses to stories old and new and are important voices that are often not recognised.”

Right now it is unclear what direction this revival will take the Roblox Myth Community. However, several individuals are expressing optimism at the news of the revival, like LovelyFriendz who expressed that representation in media is “the most important thing to storytelling.”

You can join the MCP discord server at this link.

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Flyday (D3tectiveBailey) is a staff editor and game developer with the Unwanted Magazine. Flyday runs point on the magazine’s “Cut the Cameras” review project.

[unwantedmagazine]

The Modizzhend Myth: We're not impressed with Gay People

By the Unwanted Magazine Editorial Board

The Modizzhend Myth—also known as nostri structuram—aims to be an interactive experience that evokes mystery, engages hunters in adventure, and tells the story of longing and romance but ends up being an uninteresting story about ghosting a gay lover gone wrong. We have concerns about the execution, timing of the myth, and the harmful stereotypes displayed in the story.

We urge hunters to avoid the Modizzhend Myth and invest your investigative energy elsewhere besides this rainbow-washed display.

At a time where our society is recovering from the pandemic, more stories about gay lovers gone wrong is NOT what the Roblox Myth Community needs. The Modizzhend myth is a tone deaf, poorly timed story with an execution that would serve better 4 years earlier or 4 years later—not during a deadly pandemic.

(Caption: An in-game screenshot of the first area. In the photo is a very uninviting spawn area.)

Entering Modizzhend’s first game, structure, is an unpleasant experience. Hunters find themselves in a cramped, cold area with a glowing doorway in the distance. The ambiance is unwelcoming, and the smell is nearly unbearable. If the Modizzhend myth wanted to create a welcoming and wholesome environment for hunters, they should instead invest in creating an expansive, warm-tinted spawn area and play music that appeals to the new generation. The Editorial Board recommends songs from musicians like Katy Perry, Harry Styles, or other modern singers to bring more excitement to the spawn area. Beyonce should’ve gotten the Grammy.

A deep issue with the Modizzhend games is their use of older animation packages for hunters. For a myth that is supposedly “groundbreaking” and “underrated” the myth couldn’t even bother to update animations. This game still uses outdated R6, instead of R15 or even the anthropomorphic body packages for players—another glaring oversight.

Furthermore, the color palette didn’t leave much to savor. Dark, bold, unrelenting colors with barely any saturation was an unwelcome addition to our deck of initial observations. Not to mention an unsavory look for a game that’s supposed to be about the LGBTQ+. We hope that in future iterations of the Modizzhend myth that they take steps to make the games as colorful as their main characters.

(Caption: An in-game screenshot of the second area. In the photo is a shivering gay in a snowy location—a place gay people do not belong.)

Our lack of excitement with the myth continued with the second area—a desolate and frozen landscape of ruin and barely-functional machinery. In order to progress from this weathering and uncomfortable location, hunters are required to go through ridiculously complicated puzzles (clicking a button to name one) to open a locked door which would lead to the next area. 

The music and ambiance in this area had very little improvement compared to the spawn. At least this location had some sort of melody. But the nightcore version of a Macklemore song would have suited the theme of this myth better, and we were disappointed to not see anything like that here.

After spending hours solving the very complicated puzzles that bar the players from the third area, advancing forward leads you to a deep, dark, incredibly red segment of the myth.

(Caption: An in-game screenshot of the third area. In the photo are two gay people, Sercauti and Modizzhend.)

At this point, the Unwanted Magazine team simply decided not to continue playing because we all got incredibly bored and simply couldn’t solve the incredibly complicated puzzle of trying to figure out how to progress past this point. Also, Sercauti following Modizzhend was incredibly annoying. Furthermore, the music was just depressing. The myth needed something exciting and fun to bring hunters in, like a TikTok remixed audio of a Rio or Rio 2 song.

A core and central theme of the story is the secondary individual, Sercauti, being missing. Another core and central theme is Sercauti being Modizzhend’s gay lover. The entire myth seems to revolve around pining, gayness, homosexuality, and ghosting.

“[Modizzhend]’s gay cause obviously the creator is gay and loves men.” Nicosela6, a hunter, spoke with the Unwanted Magazine about Modizzhend. He voiced concern about the Modizzhend myth being too gay and harmful to the Myth Community during a deadly pandemic. “I don’t see why it wouldn’t be [harmful].”

Nico went on to explain that Sercauti, being a harmful stereotype of gay men ghosting their lovers, is harmful to the LGBTQ+ community and is lazy storycraft. 

“[Modizzhend did that] because that’s the easiest story for gay myths.”

RMH retired HR Phosphyte, also known as Jay, agreed with Nico that this stereotype used by the Modizzhend myth is incredibly harmful, dumb, stupid, and dumb. “It's really prevalent in queer media.”

All of this is coming on the heels of a deadly pandemic. Not once have we seen any vaccines or masks in the Modizzhend myth—a clear sign that the myth is not taking the crisis our country is in seriously. So in order to get a holistic understanding of the Modizzhend myth and its lack of seriousness on the COVID crisis, the editorial board took an interview with Modizzhend, the homosexual attempting to find his lover that ghosted him. The results of the interview were shocking, to say the least.

We asked Modizzhend why players do not spawn with masks, and if he truly cares about the victims of COVID-19. He responded that he felt no urgency to protect people from a deadly virus, and responded that he’ll be adding bare minimum protections to the games in “200,000 years from now.”

When pressed about this Modizzhend caved, exposing serious radical COVID denying ideology. 

“Well, I don’t think such a virus exists.” He stated, despite clear evidence and countless deaths proving that COVID-19 exists. One of our board members got very emotional at this response, to which he responded in a threatening tone that “there will be a pipe bomb going to your location shortly.”

Modizzhend instead sees an opportunity within the death and desolation caused by the deadly pandemic to push rainbow ideology down people’s throats and use harmful LGBLT stereotypes against our most vulnerable communities. Avenues include using his games to push the harmful ideology, like the fog in his games, which are, according to him, representative of the lack of clarity to the heterosexual individuals.

“This is to target heterosexuals.” Modizzhend blatantly states about the choice to use lots of round objects instead of sharp, jagged edges. “I hate women.”

“Making [structure] a gay nightmare is reflective of my own identity,” Modizzhend claims, repeating extremist remarks and ideology.. “It’d make more tolerable individuals want to play the game.”

He goes on to state on the record that Heterosexuals are not tolerable people. But it gets even worse.

Being pressed about how slow walkspeeds represent the slow death of victims of COVID-19, Modizzhend admitted to just wanting people to suffer and die from deadly diseases, going on record to confirm that he wants people to die from COVID-19.

“Yes, certainly!” He exclaimed when a board member asked if he enjoyed seeing children die of organ failure. “This is very true.”

“COVID-19 is such a glass barrier and really shows which heterosexuals are worthy of crossing it.”

Of course, no heterosexuals are worthy in his eyes. And it seems neither are gay people.

“Sercauti didn’t ghost me.” He lied homosexually. “He’s just missing, I think.”

“I’m targeting those who are unable to have or create a balanced relationship with their significant other.” Modizzhend states, despite clearly being in the wrong, also having an unbalanced relationship with their significant other, since Sercauti ghosted him.

When asked if using first person POV to make an analogy to how society uses a single lens in order to ignore things such as racism, heterophobia, and gender privileges, Modizzhend emphatically agreed.

“Definitely racism, and all the other stuff, yea.” He said racistly.

In a shocking note, when the board pressed Modizzhend about not using any Beyoncé music in his games, he responded that he actually hates the talented singer and prefers white men and their mediocre music instead of Queen Bey.

“I actually [hate] Beyoncé.” Modizzhend stated without remorse. “I heavily focus on the classical old white German men's music because I’m racist and I hate singers of color.” 

It was clear after this interview that Modizzhend was not fit to be recognized as a myth.

After thoroughly investigating the Modizzhend Myth, the Unwanted Magazine team took a break to play some actual good myth games—Doors, Plates of Fate, Lab Experiment, Zach’s Service Station, and Witching Hour. We encourage Roblox Myths to learn from the Modizzhend mistakes and study the new age of Roblox games in order to know what truly matters to a new age of Myth hunters. Divest from stuck-in-the-past myths like Modizzhend, and invest in innovation.

The Unwanted Magazine editorial board members are Laura Lontihts & Bobby Buhtstufe