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imagitory · 5 months

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Review: Wish (2023) [SPOILERS]

Evening, everyone! Tonight my mother and I went to go see Disney's most recent film, Wish, which fortunately came to theaters in my area right before its formal American release date. I'd been very curious to see how this tribute to Disney's last 100 years of filmmaking would turn out, and now that I've seen it...well, I have to be honest, I was a little disappointed. I want to be very clear both that I was going into this with a rather sunny outlook and that there are things I really liked in this film...but overall, it felt like a lot of the good ideas it had were only half-baked, and I found myself -- forgive me -- "wishing for something more" than what we got.

For a more comprehensive deep-dive...a cut!

The Good!

+The single best element in this film for me was Chris Pine's performance as our villain, Magnifico. There are definitely some things I can critique about Magnifico's overall storyline and "character arc" further down, but Chris was clearly having a grand old time being an egotistical, sassy jerkwad, and it totally showed. Even in his villain song This is The Thanks I Get?, which just screamed "passive-aggressive abusive parent," you can hear how much fun Chris was having in the studio, recording it. I just about always enjoyed when Magnifico was on screen, and I actually did really like the idea that a lot of his villainy is rooted in him being obsessed with control over everyone and everything. In a weird way, Magnifico's turn to the Dark Side parallels Anakin Skywalker's in the sense that he lost so much in the past that he's determined to never lose anything important to him again -- especially the power he's accrued to make himself feel strong, after having felt so powerless. I find that very interesting, and I kind of wish that aspect was really highlighted more in the story, but we'll talk about that later.

+Asha was a likable enough heroine, even if I found her to be a lot like a two-way fusion of Mulan and Anna placed in a vaguely Snow-White-ish role in her clearly Seven-Dwarf-inspired friend group. Ariana DeBose portrayed her rather well, both acting and singing-wise. I also liked the "social justice" bent to Asha's character where she wants better things not just for herself and her family, but also Rosas overall -- in the French translation of her main song "This Wish," they even push this further by having Asha wish "to see the world happy again someday." We haven't seen a heroine really express this kind of desire for a positive change in the world since Esmeralda in The Hunchback of Notre Dame, and that's cool! Plus representation in mainstream media for previously underrepresented groups is always nice. ^.^

+As much as I don't think they all got enough focus as individuals, I liked Asha's friend group! Especially the fact that it is a friend group made up of people that are around the same age as our protagonist, which -- let's be honest -- isn't that common for Disney heroines. Often with "sidekick groups," you're more likely to have situations like Cinderella with the mice (who are more like cutesy sidekicks than equals) or Snow White with the Dwarfs (who are all quite a bit older than our heroine)...so a friend group made up of peers with their own personalities and motivations was kind of fun.

+The setting of Rosas itself could be pretty. I liked a lot of the Mediterranean-inspired architecture, especially inside Magnifico's tower.

+The combination of 3D and 2D-esque animation was also interesting! It really served to give the film its own distinctive visual style that sets it apart from other Disney projects, which I always appreciate.

+Star was...cute. Obviously just designed to sell plushies and definitely reminded me way too much of Kirby, but cute enough. I do think it's kind of cool that they're never gendered at all in the entire movie, because it'd be silly to think of a sweet little androgynous ball of stardust as being specifically male or female.

+I liked the idea of Simon "betraying" Asha, only to be turned into a pawn by Magnifico in the process, but not being treated unsympathetically by the story for it. Didn't love the full execution of the idea, but hey, that's what the negative section is for.

+The idea of everyone finding the power inside of themselves to stand up against Magnifico (because they're "all stars," and presumably all have the magic needed to make their wishes come true) was a little predictable, but still sweet. I have problems with how the film wrote it (which we'll get to), but the idea itself was wholesome and fitting.

+I like several of the songs, just on their own -- I added This Wish and Knowing What I Know Now on my ITunes as soon as I first heard them prior to the film's release, and now I've added At All Costs too: it's a really pretty duet! (Gorgeous work, Chris and Ariana!) I'll leave my praise here, though, because sadly the soundtrack is going to get a lot of discussion in the less positive section.

The Not-So-Good...

+This film being "Disney's 100th anniversary film" really got in the way of this movie telling a compelling and unique story sometimes. The whole movie really twisted itself into a pretzel trying to check off all the usual Disney tropes, and there were points that certain choices made the story seem incredibly stilted. For instance, one common Disney trope is a dead parent, so of course Asha has lost her father -- but we learn so little about him and he ends up playing such a small role in Asha's arc and story that it seems like an unnecessary detail. Asha's grandfather honestly plays more of a role in Asha's motivation throughout most of the film, so it would've made just as much sense to have Asha's grandfather be the one who believed in stars having power, rather than her father. Another example is the concept of the cute animal sidekick who's just there to make jokes -- as much as Valentino the goat didn't annoy me personally, he added just about nothing of value to the story whatsoever aside from comic relief, in contrast to other funny sidekicks like Sebastian from The Little Mermaid or Olaf from Frozen, who also serve a plot purpose and have a developed relationship with the protagonists. Then there's Asha being cut from the same "naive, awkward, wide-eyed idealist" cloth as many of our Disney Revival heroines like Anna, Rapunzel, and up to a certain point even Mirabel are; Star being in a similar vein to cutesy, innocent sidekicks like Pua, Crikee, and Baymax while Valentino is more akin to sassier, comic ones like Mushu and Sisu; her friends literally being based on the Seven Dwarfs from Snow White; our heroine getting a pretty standard "I Want" song and the villain getting his own solo number that doesn't really take any risks...oh yes, and we mustn't forget the trope of the Storybook opening, which (I'm sorry) I know was supposed to be a reference to Snow White, Cinderella, and Enchanted, but just gave me Shrek vibes the entire time. I was waiting for Shrek to rip out the page and use it for toilet paper any minute. It just felt a lot of the time like the movie was very paint-by-numbers, rather than throwing in much that was surprising or different.

+This isn't even touching all of the pointless meta references to other Disney movies. Asha wearing the Fairy Godmother's cloak and getting a wand like hers at the end -- the mushrooms crowing "we love crazy!" the way Hans did in Love is an Open Door -- Asha riding the reindeer the way Kristoff did in Frozen 2 -- Magnifico using green smoke hands a la Ursula -- the ending with those obvious Wendy and Peter Pan look-alikes, come on, really??? That was just painful.

+As much as Magnifico was an awesome idea for a character and Chris Pine's performance was beyond entertaining, the movie did not always write him as well as they could've. From the very start, we see this guy is an egotistical control freak -- obsessed with his own image, incredibly hard-to-please, arrogant, vain, desperate for attention and unwavering praise and adoration from all of his subjects, and determined to keep an iron grip on everyone else's wishes because of the power it gives him. He's ALREADY a terrible person, from the start -- and yet the film tries to introduce this dark magic book that gets no explanation or backstory whatsoever and has no real characterization or presence, so it leaves no real impact on the audience corrupting him and making him a bad person, when it didn't need to! Magnifico was already the villain this film needed! Just let him fall head-first into madness without the book prompting anything! Even if Magnifico "lost everything" in the past, that doesn't make him a good person, if he takes everyone's wishes away from them and hoards them all to himself, only to grant a few now and again when it would make him look good.

+This above point actually leads nicely into one change I really, really wish the film had been ballsy enough to make -- have Asha already be Magnifico's apprentice, not trying to become it at the start of the story. Give our villain and hero a real relationship, with history that started before the events of this film! Asha lost her father at the age of 12...how interesting would it have been -- whether to make Magnifico more of an anti-villain or show how manipulative he really is -- if he'd tried to fill that fatherly role for our main character and twist her to serve his ends? What if At All Costs was rewritten to be about Magnifico not just being determined to hold onto all of the kingdom's wishes, but also this apprentice he sees as an extension of him and his legacy, while Asha is determined to protect this Star she's accidentally summoned and the suppressed wish of hers it represents? This change would've made Asha's break with Magnifico so much more powerful for both of them -- it would've both justified Magnifico's descent into madness and given Asha more reason to feel like it was her responsibility to stop Magnifico. You even could've then played more with Asha's relationship with Queen Amaya too, in this kind of a scenario.

+Oh yeah, and on that note, Queen Amaya. OOH, this really annoyed me -- okay. So this woman is supposed to be a good guy, in this story. But as I touched on earlier, Magnifico was already a pretty awful person, hoarding people's wishes away in order to make himself powerful. Was Amaya truly so blind to that? Did she truly never question anything, ever? But no, really, she only turns on Magnifico after he starts using the dark magic book and actively threatens her. Only that makes her turn from him, and it's pretty damn immediate. Now okay, I hear you saying, it's like Amaya sings in Knowing What I Know Now, right? "The good in him, I've watched it melt // I was blinded by the love I felt"? Excuse me, lady -- but Magnifico wasn't a good person, before. He was just playing a part so as to stay powerful and adored by the masses. And if the story wants to claim otherwise, and act like that dark magic book was responsible for Magnifico going bad, then why would our Queen decide to keep him locked up in his staff's crystal forever? If the book was responsible, then Magnifico would be the Frodo or Golum to the book's One Ring -- he'd be a victim, in such a scenario: one in need of help and pity, not punishment. So either Amaya is a selfish person who only cared about her husband's mistreatment of others when it affected her, or she's a needlessly cruel person who decides to punish her husband for a vice that anyone could fall prey to. Either way, I don't want this woman ruling anyone! Make this woman a straight-up villain, same as her husband, and have the whole monarchy come crashing down after she and Magnifico both go down in flames! VIVE LA RESISTANCE! (Playing into my idea with Asha being Magnifico's apprentice all along, maybe there could even be a twist on the Evil Stepmother trope with Amaya, where she's jealous of how much Magnifico has tried to groom Asha as his apprentice, rather than spending time and/or starting a family with her or something.)

+As I touched on earlier, there wasn't even close to enough time to develop all of these characters properly. Since our heroine and friends are most similar to Snow White and her friends the Seven Dwarfs, let's compare cast size. Snow White is 83 minutes long and has a cast of ten (Snow, the Prince, the Queen, and the Dwarfs) -- Wish is 95 minutes long and has a cast of fourteen (Asha, Magnifico, Star, Valentino, Amaya, Asha's mum and grandpa, and our seven Friends). This results in us getting the vague idea that "Grumpy" role Gabo is sweet on our "Bashful" role Bazeema, but no time to develop their relationship or give it any kind of conclusion; the others saying "Sneezy" role Safi apparently loves the castle chickens with no sympathetic explanation why, to the point that he gets super excited about a chicken growing to a giant size for no real reason; "Doc" role Dahlia having a crush on Magnifico that is then dropped immediately after Asha turns against him; oldest kid and "Sleepy" role Simon feeling incomplete without the dream he gave Magnifico and "betraying" Asha as a result in an attempt to get it back, only to get stabbed in the back by Magnifico, and then have no time for a proper redemption after he's unhypnotized; Asha's grandfather turning on a dime about whether or not he wants to know what his wish was if Magnifico thought it was dangerous; Magnifico getting some justification in his backstory for his bad behavior, but Amaya's backstory being a complete black hole before she married Magnifico when you'd think it'd explain all the more why she stuck with him so long; and Asha's mum having her wish crushed to dust by Magnifico and then given back without us EVER LEARNING WHAT IT EVEN WAS IN THE FIRST PLACE, even after we see just about everyone else's wishes as soon as somebody picks it up and Asha's mum's wish gets picked up multiple times!! Come on, if you're going to set up NOT showing it, you may as well have a pay-off for it!! At least give us some moment where Asha's mum hugs her in relief and acknowledges that her daughter was her wish! That would've been a nice "aww" moment for everyone!

+Okay, I said I was going to talk about my problem with the songs, so here goes. As I said before, I listened to the soundtrack before watching the movie, and even when I did, I could immediately sense a problem: these songs did not tell me much of anything about the movie, just on their own. Welcome to Rosas, which is pretty much just an exposition dump about the kingdom and how Magnifico founded it, didn't really paint a picture of our setting or characters much at all, the way opening songs like Belle or The Family Madrigal do. This Wish, although pretty, was something I could hear just as easily on the radio -- it didn't feel as tied or necessary to understanding our heroine the way something like Part of That World does. I'm a Star, quite frankly, felt like a lot of inspirational word salad, rather than anything particularly memorable or revelatory -- why else wouldn't it even be worthy of a musical salute in the reprise, where Asha remembers that she and everyone else are stars during the climax? Even after reading summaries of the plot and spoilers from the storybook for this film, I could not figure out for the life of me how At All Costs would fit organically into such a story, being sung by our villain and hero. It wasn't until I saw the film that I saw how the filmmakers decided to fit it in and honestly...the song didn't help tell that particular scene at all. It's a really pretty song and I like it a lot -- but it lacked any of the irony or contrast that kind of a scene that introduces the difference in focus between our hero and villain required. If the scene itself is needed to understand what's supposed to be going on while the song is playing, then the song is not effectively telling the story and is therefore unnecessary. There wasn't even a particularly Spanish or Mediterranean flair to the soundtrack to help set the stage, aside from the occasional flourish of castanets -- instead it sounded very contemporary, which I guess is appropriate, since it was largely written by pop composers rather than any musical theater talent.

+There were also points where the songs felt the urge to shove in a bunch of extra words just because, rather than have the words flow well and really mean something. I'm a Star is most guilty of this, of course, but even in This is the Thanks I Get?, we hear Magnifico gripe that "I let you live here for free and I don't even charge you rent" -- mate, THAT MEANS THE SAME THING! If you live somewhere for free, then you are NOT paying rent!

+Knowing What I Know Now is a bop and I like it (aside from Amaya's stupidity), but I'm sorry, all I can think when I hear it is "This is clearly trying to be Ready as I'll Ever Be from Tangled the Animated Series, but that song blows this out of the water." However fun the song can be, it would've been so much stronger if it actually addressed the contrast between the characters and revved us up for a big final battle, instead of it just being our eight underdeveloped characters psyching each other up.

+The idea of everyone being stars was a lovely idea, but the execution of Asha remembering this fact and using it to defeat Magnifico was terribly handled. First off, there was no revelatory phrase or action that prompted Asha to remember this fact, so her suddenly saying that "they're all stars" came out of nowhere. Second, even putting aside that there'd be no way any of her friends could hear Asha from all the way up on the tower if they're stuck in the courtyard below, there's no reason I can see for Asha's friends or family to know what the hell she was even TALKING about. They weren't there when the I'm a Star number happened! And the way that number made it seem, just based on the visuals, it looked like the "star" power came from a person's dream, since it's the same glow that returns to Asha's grandfather when he gets his dream back, but most of the town's dreams have been already yanked out by Magnifico at this point! I think the idea is that since everyone is a star, even with that big piece of them and the power accompanying it taken out, they still have enough stardust inside of them to be powerful enough to chase their heart's desires...but yeah, I'm sorry, for all the word salad I'm a Star threw around, this world-building aspect was really not made clear, and because of that and the lack of a proper callback to this plot turn, the climax didn't hit as strong as it should've.

Overall, this film felt a lot like a batch of unbaked chocolate chip cookies that someone decided to throw a bunch of brightly colored sprinkles on top of, just because they could. A lot of ideas just don't feel like they were fully developed, and there was a lot tossed in that didn't contribute to the overall taste or bring the disparate elements together in a cohesive whole, instead feeling more like a distraction than anything of actual substance. That doesn't mean I couldn't eat it -- I like eating cookie dough as much as the next person -- but that doesn't mean it felt like a complete, finished product worthy of great praise. Instead I'm left looking at the wasted potential and wishing the movie had carved out its own path more, one distinctive to itself, rather than just be a mashup of previous Disney concepts and tropes. I won't act like there's nothing to like here, nor that it's completely lacking in heart: I actually would love to see fandom for this movie re-imagine it in ways that could've improved the story and characters, because there were SO many good ideas here...but for me personally, this movie left me colder than it should've and -- like Asha after meeting Magnifico -- a bit disappointed.

So I make this wish...to have Disney make a film better than this.

Overall Grade: C-

#disney #disney wish #wish (2023)#wish #wish spoilers #spoilers #review #analysis #oh boy here i go

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haveyoueverplayed · 1 year

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GRANDIA 1: INITIAL IMPRESSIONS

Tex impressions: I liked it a lot! The English dub was dated and bad (and was, in fact, both of these things), but it was easy to switch off. I thought that the characters were fun and the dialogue was great. I like Justin and Sue a lot already, and we've only just gotten out of the Sult Ruins. I think they did a great job of bringing out the characters' personalities, and the Lunar-esque thing where characters respond to random NPCs' dialogue is fantastic.

I thought the combat system was fun, too. It doesn't have a lot of explanation, but the interactions with the turn order in quasi-real time -- and the ability to slow enemies' turns down and have yours slowed down or canceled -- made for fun fights, but not punishingly hard. I did a few more fights than I strictly had to.

I'm excited to see where it goes! Also, who the other party members are, and whether the Garlyle Forces are actually the bad guys or if they do a turn and become helpful down the line. I'm also excited to see what the world looks like, because the first dungeon (especially in the HD remake) was great. Jellybi impressions: After getting over the shock of the incredibly bad English dub (we ended up switching audio over to Japanese pretty quickly) I was surprised by the charm of this game! There's clearly a lot of love and extra effort that went into it. Portrait sprites look fantastic and have multiple expressions for different emotions, there's lots of little ways to interact with the environment, and we saw tons of bonus sprite animations even in the very early moments for minor things like searching around on the ground for an item. Things like that make the game feel more dynamic and full of possibility.

Another great point is that the characters talk back to NPCs during dialogue, making exploring towns an opportunity to see more of their personalities rather than just getting hints about worldbuilding or where to go next.

The characters so far seem cartoony in a good way, with memorable character designs and lively interactions. I'm curious to see more of the military organization, since it's not clear yet if they're meant to be villains or not. There's a trio of female commanders (that Tex dubbed Evil Magic Knight Rayearth) who definitely seem a bit villainous in presentation, but in a campy fun way, who I'd like to see more of.

Jellybi’s Impulsive Introductory Ratings:

Art rating: 4/5: Love the character portraits, and the isometric 3D look combined with 2D character sprites is charming and reminds me of Final Fantasy Tactics. The early 3D environments are occasionally a bit rough looking and there’s Something Deeply Wrong with the mascot character’s face, but there’s more I’m happy about than not.

Mechanics rating: 3/5: Occasionally a bit clonky. There’s a lot of exploration-based stuff in the beginning and it’s easy to wander to a new map accidentally because the exit areas aren’t well demarcated in the environment. I also found some of the menu navigation unintuitive (trying to equip items takes you to the trade menu instead if you’re not careful). Combat is still a bit mysterious to me, but fun, and some of the early character moves have unique and cute animations.

Dub rating: -5/5: Hilariously bad. Sounded like they rounded up random employees working on the localization script and made them do the voicework. Lines had this sort of low-energy, confused feeling. Were those actual professional voice actors? I’m afraid to know.

#grandia

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mi5017manuelasanchezmartinez · 7 months

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Class Exercises

Exercise 1 - In groups discuss the following:

What films did you look at?

What were the key things you noticed about the performance?

Which of your performance principles were used?

The films i looked at were Lilo and Stitch (2002) and Enchanted (2007)

In Lilo and Stitch, I looked at the relationship between Lilo and Nani (her big sister). In the chase scene between Lilo and Nani, Lilo uses a lot of animalistic language, like licking and growling, and she refuses to look Nani in the eyes. The use of exaggeration is to show Lilo putting up her walls as she and Nani were just given the news that Nani will no longer have custody of Lilo. Meanwhile, Nani is shown chasing Lilo and even climbing on top of the washing machine where Lilo is hiding to grab Lilo when she exits. This tells the audience multiple things, how well she knows Lilo but also how this isn't the first time that they have done this. This scene is all in their home and they are the only characters in this scene. This also tells the audience how this is their authentic selves. Nani is telling of Lilo and Lilo is just shouting one word answers. This shows that while Nani and Lilo want to be together they are also both still so young and immature, with Nani being only 19.

In Enchanted, I looked at the difference of performance between Gisele and Robert. Gisele is from a fairytale world, while Robert is from the real world in New York. Gisele holds a lot of her poses that are more fantastical, like clasping her hands together and sighing in wonder, and her movement is very exaggerated to emphasise how she doesn't belong in New York or in the real world. Meanwhile, Robert has a very muted performance in comparison which is to show that he has a more negative or realistic outlook to things. His mannerisms are also more closed off, while Gisele loves to open her arms to the world.

Exercise 2 - In groups discuss the following:

When you see a creature move, what about the way it moves makes it appealing or unappealing?

When i see a spider or millipede with multiple legs, i things its unappealing when they move very fast. And if i was to see a snake that moves very fluidly with no pauses that would also be unappealing to me.

However, if i was to see a spider move then stop and then move and then stop again, it would give the impression of being curious and i find that more appealing. Have pauses creates a personality and allows me to process whats happening.

2. Why is anthropomorphism needed or useful in animation? Think to all the examples we have looked at and list the purposes.

Its useful because it allows us to tell a message or create a character in a way that can make it easier for the audience to process. For example, the feeling of standing out shown with a blue umbrella who feels alone until he spots a red one. Audiences of any age can understand that message and even without speech. Or politically, using animals to show a clear divide allows animators to be a bit more graphic with their message since it is not humans.

Exercise 3 - In groups, devise a performance which anthropomorphises a desk lamp and plays out your given mini plot;

Lamp wakes up.

There is a book on the table.

Lamp has never seen a book before...

What happens next?

Try different movements to see how the scenario reads. Take it in turns to direct the movement / perform.

You should film your practice, process and performance.

I wasn't in for this exercise but i will try to do this independently and in my own time.

To Do:

Start coming up with ideas for your assessment brief - come up with many scenarios so that you can have these in mind when you begin to learn 2D / 3D techniques.

Create another object animation individually, it could be filmed or use animation techniques or combine the two.

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neoyi · 3 years

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So there were new indie game directs (Day of the Dev and Wholesome Games) and I was basically Foaming Mouth Guy from Avatar because I’m hyped for indie games.

Since I can’t ill afford to shut up about my opinions, here’s a big, fat blog on what particular games I’m either looking forward to, has piqued my interest, or at least curious enough for me to comment on it even if it’s not within my wheelhouse.

Axiom Verge 2: I have no horse in this race, I just think it’s nice of them to let players skip boss fights if they want to for ease of gameplay.

Toem: A Photo Adventure: Some evil genius combined photo snapping and meandering sidequests together into one game, knowing I’d be putty in their hands. There’s actually a few photograph games in these directs, but this one grabbed me because the list of quests you do looks so specific that it scratches a particular itch for me.

Garden Story: Incredibly lovely Mother 3-like graphics aside, this game hits all my buttons: quest-based gameplay to help numerous NPCs, managing the layout of your town, exploration, and RPG-like elements make this one a dream indie game for me.

Vokabulants: For some reason, this game’s setting isn’t doing it for me, but I’m awestruck with their decision to use stopmotion for the entire thing. Rarely utilized, always cool to see.

Death’s Door: I don’t care about birds, but I DO like grim reaper stuff, so color me piqued.

Elec Head: I already knew about this game thanks to Game Maker’s Toolkit’s Game Jam, and I think I have it bookmarked on itch.io, so it’s nice to see this will get fleshed out into a full game.

I haven’t played the Game Jam version, but the minimum coloring (yellow = electricity which is what you need to trigger to progress) compliments the concept well.

Walk: I am a wimpy baby chicken bitch, so I can’t do horror games, but developing the entirety of Walk’s environment to look as if they’re seen from grainy cameras is such a brilliant way to convey the terrifying unknown your player character has to face. I won’t play this, but I am definitely going to watch a Let’s Play of it.

Moonglow Bay: I’ve been excited for this one for a while. All those hours playing the fishing minigame in Ocarina of Time (and eventually Majora’s Mask) and lamenting for the existence of an entire game with an excuse plot to fill out a fish compendium will soon be fulfilled. I’m so ecstatic.

Loot River: What the fuck? What the living shit? How did they animate the water like that? What the shit? What the goddamn hell? It just looks so good!

Recolit: This game has potential to be atmospheric. It also feels like the kind of game that can deliver a Surprise Spooky or two. For some reason, the main character walking through the barely lit museum really spoke to me.

A Little to the Left: A game where you arrange objects until they’re are properly organized and/or structured? Oh-no, who made this game for me?

Yokai Inn: Sold just for the adorably whimsical graphics alone.

Mythic Ocean: Undersea exploration and sea creatures are my jam. Hope this game will fill a hole in my heart that Abzu sadly did not.

Beast of Maraville Island: I see this game and Donkey Kong Country share a continuity through their banana birds.

We are OFK: Tell you the truth, I don't really care about Band Origin stories (I'm not really a music buff kinda person), but I've been waiting for Teddy Dief and co's game for a while. Whether or not I take anything from this game by end, I know I’ll never stop listening to “Follow/Unfollow”, which I have been obsessively playing in the background non-stop the past two days. If they ever bring out the inevitable bandcamp soundtrack, I hope they also include THIS version of the song that played on the Day of the Dev pre-show because it’s just so *chef’s kiss*

Dordogne: The game's premise isn't really doing it for me, but I dig the watercolor approach.

The Gecko Gods: I remember playing the Gex 2 demo decades ago and being mesmerized by the titular character’s ability to crawl on top of walls and ceilings, and being particularly disappointed at how underutilized it was. The Gecko Gods looks to fill in that gap and I'm intrigued.

Tasomachi: It’s about an airship. I gotta. I gotta!

Bear and Breakfast: I like the art style, kind of like a webcomic if it was picked up by Cartoon Network or Netflix.

Sally: MORE airships? Well, this is the indie direct that just keeps on giving, now isn’t it?

Rainbow Billy: Repaint a black-and-white world into color is becoming A Thing in indie games, but the animation and style is just bursting with charm.

Unpacking: I played the demo for this one and it did a decent job hitting my button. There wasn’t anything more to it other than unpacking and just putting stuff in its appropriate place (it didn’t feel like there was much wiggle room - books go on bookshelves and maybe on top of a drawer, shoes goes in closet and nothing but the closet, etc), but it beats real packing/unpacking any day.

Cloud Jumper: THREE games with or about airships? Now you’re just spoiling me.

Teacup: This one just looks delightful. It feels like playing through a children’s book.

Muttropolis: You take pictures of dogs!

Amber Isle: You know, I don’t think I see enough towns and villages in games inhabited by dinosaur folks.

Moonshell Island: Apparently I’m easy to please. I see indie games look this vibrant and colorful (almost pastel, but not quite) and I’m Phillip J. “Shut up and Take My Money” Fry. I don’t even know what this game is about, but I want it.

Lego Builder’s Journey: Okay, this looks nice and the graphics are mind-blowing, but does anything made and owned by the LEGO company actually count as an indie game?

Powerwash Simulator: who made this game for me?

Toodee and Topdee: Oh, this is clever. Perspective games in my head seem to have been relegated mostly to whatever Nintendo did with their 3DS games, but this looks like it captures the spirit of it without the 3D or the eye-strain that came with it.

Apico: I’m getting a 2D open world exploration vibe from this game and I’m down for that.

#indie games #video games #day of the dev #wholesome games #neoyi talks

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mononokehunters · 3 years

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henlo! i have started watching mononoke recently and i find the visuals stunning! in a recent ask you answered you said that it had a "visual style which used a lot of technology that was groundbreaking at the time". may i ask, do you know more about this style they used? if it's easier, i's also appreciate if you can istead tell me where i can read/see more about it. thank you in advance!

Hi there! I'm going to preface this answer by saying that I studied Computer Graphics Technology and Animation in college so I may use terms that are common in the industry but are otherwise gibberish for everybody else so please don't be afraid to ask me to clarify (◠‿・)—☆ Continuing under the cut cause this is A Lot

Fortunately, there's THIS video on youtube, I suspect ripped from the Japanese DVD (which I would absolutely kill for, it looks incredible) which, tho it doesn't say anything, shows the process they used.

Basically what it's showing they did is use a combination of CG and traditional animation techniques. So most of the backgrounds were created in a program like Autodesk Maya or Google Sketchup (I don't know what actual software they used) and then supplemented with traditionally drawn details (still probably using a drawing program like Photoshop but). You can see the bg characters were rendered in sort of the same way with 3D modeled stand-ins that would have either been drawn over in earlier episodes (like the hotel patrons in Zashiki Warashi) or just given a flat toon render (as in the second Bakeneko arc) with main characters being given a rigged stand-in that could be posed and then animated over traditionally.

This gave them a lot of freedom to go absolutely nuts on the details and camera angles, which is why everything is so opulent, they didn't have to draw every change in the frame by hand, and how they were able to do things like have a million scales come out of Kusu's box or have a wall of floating paper fuda charms that open their eyes in a wave.

The downside of these techniques tho is that they look very unnatural in comparison to traditional animation. For example, if you've ever seen The Dragon Prince (or any anime produced by Netflix actually), it's animated with 3D models that have a 2D toon render put over them and the difference compared to something like... Idk Bleach (do people watch Bleach anymore?) is pretty obvious. Which isn't to say crappy traditional animation doesn't exist or is any better (Bleach still fits into this category pretty frequently) but it's hard to bridge that gap if you want to make a show that looks really good.

Which is why I suspect you see that neat paper texture over everything. It makes everything look like an ukiyo-e print AND hides that weird uncanny valley thing going on with the 3D elements. Win-win! I suspect that's also why there's that weird... Idk how to describe it but it's the thing that happens when Mao and her family are walking down the hall to send her to get married.

To be fair, this came out around the same time as Finding Nemo. It's not like they were creating something totally new (as far as I can tell) but what was impressive was that this sort of animation was unusual to see coming out of such a small studio. The tech needed to make it was (still is) very costly so they were investing a lot of money into a very expensive experiment.

Personally the neat thing about Mononoke is that the animators used what was available to them and instead of being restricted by the stylistic limitations, found a way to work around them. There's a lot I could say about having a clear artistic vision and using your tools creatively but that's something else (*﹏*;)

The irony of it is that you'd be hard pressed to find a show that doesn't use these techniques now. Toon renders, 3D modeled vehicles, sets and characters, CGI special effects. They've all become the industry standard since the technology has advanced because they can streamline the process when you want to produce a show quickly. In the case of a studio like Netflix it also means you can create a set of stock character models that you can dress up as necessary for production and focus your resources on set design and other unique elements.

Personally I'm not a fan of it as a practice now. It means everything looks the same across the board and takes the soul out of the creative process, turning animation into a factory assembly line. It's not like it's something new in the industry, cheap shortcuts have always been a part of the process but idk. There's a difference between Mononoke and Pretty Magical Girl Show #57 and my eyes and heart know the difference.

But yeah, that's more or less what's going on behind the scenes of Mononoke. If you're curious about learning more, check out a few guides about 3D modeling and animation and programs like Maya, Sketchup, Z-Brush and compositing programs like Adobe After Effects or Sony Vegas. Keep in mind, these are by no means the only programs that do these types of things out there, I know there's quite a few good quality free ones available if you're interested in doing something similar yourself. I've just not been involved in the biz for a while so I'm not super up to date on what's out there. There's tons of awesome indy animators out there (I'm a big fan of WorthiKids) who are more than happy to talk about their process and tools so give them a look too. Safe travels and good luck with your research!

#Bicozyes #Mononoke #:(: tegami #Bless you for letting me gush about this <3

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mi6021huwfenny · 4 years

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Inspirations and Influences

vimeo

I really enjoyed the conceptual integrity of Boom is Life. It was transcendent, the sheer workmanship and the execution of the production. The combination of both stop motion and 2D elements was a great influence for the concept of my own work. The poetic monologue over the unique visual stimuli, the neon yellows and greens mixed with the contrasting darkness, made the film feel like it had heightened production quality and impeccable idea development on the creators part. It was very idiosyncratic and I was passionate about replicating this into my own work. I am really just curious about multi-media expressionism. placing a 2D character into a home-made 3D environment was an incredibly inspired choice by all accounts and I would like to do something similar by using both 2D and stop motion together in unison for my final project.

vimeo

Hanging by a Thread was also a strong influence on my work. I liked the incorporation of mental health and the manic state of mind within the short video. I found the inclusion of self exploration and mental health stigma really enriched the concept and I found in most of my work I like to explore mental health and using animation, and other forms of art, as a way to explore self expression and visually show ones struggles and mental health. It uses less complex story telling and narrative, focusing on primarily visual stimuli. And the fact that the film was made by hand using stop motion really interests me.

youtube

I found this film a few years ago, because as a child I was always interested in Peter and the Wolf - especially the Disney version which I had on video cassette. I think it was a Merrie Melodies episode, in the same vein as Silly Symphonies but I cannot be sure. From what I can remember, the wolf in the animation was lumbering but lithe, a being of power and as a child, very traumatic. This may have influenced my dreams and influenced me to find fear and horror interesting as a concept.

This version of the classic story was recreated in 2006, by a team of animators from Poland, the UK, Norway, Mexico and Switzerland. It is a 30 minutes short film set in Russia and was created using stop motion animation. There is an uncanny realism to it that is reminiscent of Laika productions and films, it is also similar to Wes Anderson’s Fantastic Mr Fox with the use of real fur. The environments are so rich with atmosphere and add so much to the film.

Above, Disney’s Peter and the Wolf (1946)

Above, “Piotruś i wilk” [Peter and the Wolf], (2006)

Fantastic Mr Fox (2009)

Fantastic Mr Fox, directed by Wes Anderson, is a poignant influence for my work. The wolf has only a few seconds of screen time but it is powerful and commands a powerful screen presence. It is used as a metaphor for the wild side of Mr Fox, as is shown visually by having the animals all anthropomorphic and bipedal, except the character of the wolf. It has no lines of dialogue and simply stares at the characters curiously.

“Chirin’s Bell” or “Ringing Bell” (1978)

To a lesser extent, the underrated 1978 anime Chirin’s Bell influenced the idea development of my work. Following a lamb who’s family is slaughtered by a wolf, travels to the wolfs lair to become the wolfs apprentice so he would never feel as powerless as he did when he was unable to protect his family. As the lamb grows he becomes a formidable creature and joins the wolf on his hunts. They attack the farm where Chirin lived as a lamb. Chirin suffers PTSD and attacks the wolf before he can murder innocent sheep. Chirin kills the wolf and goes back to his flock, they reject him. He has become stronger but he is, much like the wolf, feared. He has become the thing he hated the most as a child and now the only person he had by his side, the wolf, was dead by Chirin’s own hand (hoof?). Chirin travels back to the cave alone, presumably to die.

I found the wolf both as a teacher and as an animal with urges and faults was an interesting narrative device. As if, although guided through life by a teacher, the outcome and flaws of such a thing can have dire consequences.

My Depression Is Like Having A Bad Dog https://www.buzzfeednews.com/article/kayeblegvad/dog-years

I read this article a few years ago and it always stuck with me. This is a major influence on my idea and work. I found it incredibly relatable at the time, and now, as I have grown and developed as an artist and a person, it still gets me in my soul. It was reflective of my mind state and allowed me to visualise my issues such as depression, anxiety, suicidal thought into more real, malleable things. The metaphorical extension of using an animal as a way to express your depressions behaviour really inspired me to create this project.

Mood boards

As a pseudo-cinephile, I wanted to encapsulate the mood and feeling into my work that resonates with myself and can properly convey a feeling towards an audience that can help them understand.

I love A Clockwork Orange and Trainspotting, and I find opening scene of A Clockwork Orange (referenced in Trainspotting) interesting as an image. I wanted to pay homage to it, as an outsider - not self proclaimed but scathingly honest - it shows the characters as both young and misguided, as well as something unsettling, something not quite right. As they are holding milk in the scene, this shows innocence and naivety. I wanted to have something similar in my own film.

8 Mile, Quadraphenia and Donnie Darko also focus on the outsider. People that are rejected from their societal groups and are neglected for being different. The use of white space, in Coroline (and to a lesser extent Mac Miller’s music video for Self Care) is something I am eager to experiment with. Its a beautiful way of exploring loneliness and separation of reality, akin to the dissociative effects of depression. This also allowed me to explore the use of black and white in film as an artistic tool. Sometimes it is uses as a flashback (American History X), and others it is used to create tone within a film (Raging Bull).

I was interested in stop motion since I started the course. And I find the works of Laika Studios. Will Vinton, the late founder of Laika Studios created fascinating character models

I thought the imagery of the berserker was an interesting motif to add to my work as I liked the notion of it. I was a man who wore an animal pelt to empower himself, however I wanted the juxtaposition of the narrator wearing a wolf pelt and being weak and vulnerable - the polar opposite of the berserker’s purpose.

With the addition of Peter and the Wolf for inspiration, I also referred to Grimm's Fairy Tales for inspiration. The image of the wolf has been moulded, in my opinion, through folklore and fairy tales for millennia. I thought that having the start of the animation as a quasi-Charlie and Lola-esuqe style would appeal to the thought of children's books and would give the beginning a strange, unnerving quality. The wolf from the Never Ending Story was also an influence, as it shares the overall appearance with my own designs as a black wolf with haunting yellow eyes and giant teeth.

Milt Kahl’s use of animation in old Disney films such as The Sword in the Stone and Robin Hood was interesting, the constant line movement and the inconsistencies in appearance of certain characters appealed to me greatly. Especially the different designs of wolves through out Disney’s 2D animated era.

Isle of Dogs and Fantastic Mr. Fox, both directed by Wes Anderson, were heavy influences on how I wanted the wolf to appear and move. Using real fur because I liked how it would move about when they were animated.

Hemlock Grove also deals with wolves, however they are more of the lycanthrope kind. I liked how in one scene the wolf appears from the jaws of one of the characters during a transformation and I wanted to pay homage to that in my animation.

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ocgear · 3 years

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Devlog #6 Writing, Music, and Art

Hey y’all! I wanted to give an update since I’m pretty sure everyone thinks I’m dead ^^;

For quick updates on the project: OCG is being produced in two parts now. Part 1 will contain the many mysteries that the world of OCG has to offer and part 2 will be a sort of answer arc. The first draft of OCG part 1 is written and I’ve been hard at work revising and editing the prologue and chapter 1 of the script. For part 1, there is roughly 6-7 chapters of planned content. I’m hoping that at the end of the day, Part 1 will resonate with you, the reader.

Covid has been extremely hard on my ability to complete the project. I won’t get too personal on a devblog, but my health and finances were impacted. I apologize for the delays and this account’s inactivity. I feel like I'm letting down the people who want to read OverClock Gear and I just want to let everyone know that I'm still committed to working on the project and that despite the inactivity, I'm still working hard to improve every aspect as much as possible.

I'd like to share some of the things I learned along the way so that maybe future devs can learn something from my struggles.

WRITING:

As a warning, I want to say that none of the following are hard rules of writing. These are just things that I've observed as a writer and as a consumer.

Probably the most challenging part of a Visual Novel is writing a script that works with the format. The rules for VN writing are different from traditional novels and screenplays as many elements will be shown on screen but usually not enough to get a full sense what's going on. This is more of an opinion, but I feel that the descriptions should supplement the action and we should pick and choose when to show with sprites instead of describing. This is especially true when considering dialogue and internal monologue will make up a majority of the script akin to a movie.

It's not to say you should ignore everything you know about writing, however. There's still things about structure and character arcs that are useful.

Speaking of characters, balancing your cast is also a challenge. Every character is fighting for enough screen time to develop enough for the reader to care. As I'm writing OCG, I am trimming down and trying to give each cast member enough time to breathe while keeping in mind the characters' backstories and motivations. There's also the delicate balance between backstory and current events to keep in mind. I think it's especially hard to figure out how to reveal backstory without dumping a history lesson on the player.

There's also the issue with paragraph length for display purposes. VNs have a unique format that breaks down text into easily digestible chunks. However, overutilizing the space can sometimes make the reading experience worse.

There are a lot of things to consider visually too when writing your script. I've had to think about the actual space that they occupy so that chain of events make sense. Since there will be visual elements to the story, I need to try to figure out how those elements fit in too as I'm writing. For instance, how characters will appear, do gestures, and different CGs that need to appear are crucial to the format and needs to be considered.

From a general storytelling perspective, I've been toying with the idea of including gameplay. However, I realized that in trying to do so, I'd have to create a bunch of excuses to play the minigame which would be:

1. Unsatisfying without enough stages to challenge the player

2. Disrupt the story to challenge the player

I think that if I wanted to have gameplay, I should plot out the game in a way such that the story fits the gameplay and not the other way around. Since I'm working on a primarily story driven experience, I won't be including any minigames that would take the player out of the experience. However, I have ideas for games that could take place in the world of OverClock Gear. Those are sitting in the vault until I release OCG part 1.

There's also something interesting I learned about twists and keeping people engaged in stories. Maybe this is something of a beginner's trap, but when people say a character isn't interesting it's usually because a character doesn't have anything meaningful to say or do, or they're simply floating through the story without influencing it. Giving a character powers and an award winning backstory isn't really enough to make someone interesting in a story. Giving a character flaws also doesn't make them automatically interesting. It's how you tie all these traits into story and their impact on other characters that make it interesting.

In today's day and age, readers have become more critical and perceiving than ever before, so it may seem like you'd need to hide more information to make your twists have impact. But I think it's better to show some of your hand. Twists also need room to breathe. They need to be logical but unexpected. A reader needs to convince themselves that it was possible through several minor clues leading up to the event. But balancing what to show and what to hide is a challenge in itself. Through showing off my script edits, I came to the conclusion that setting up expectations is a lot more satisfying than trying to make everything a mystery. Readers seem to get frustrated when the mystery leads nowhere in a story for an extended period of time. However, that's not to say every mystery should be revealed in a quick fashion. I think it's a balancing act, one in which we have to reveal what we can to keep the reader engaged while hiding the bigger stuff behind the curtains. In a way it's like slight of hand: We try to misdirect the audience with "true" events in the story and then blow them away with something they never saw coming.

An example of a bad twist from a scrapped project that I did several years ago: The main character meets a super secret organization who protects her from a military government. One of the people who protects her is a commander in that organization and seems to know a thing or two about the MC. However he is shot and killed before anything could be revealed.

There are elements that we can anticipate from the scenario: The MC is caught up in some crazy conspiracy with rogues and the military. However, the characters don't come off as interesting because they aren't given room to breathe. The organization became a device to set up the premise of the story. The commander doesn't impact the story and basically anybody else could've stepped in to save the MC. The MC isn't given time to bond with the commander and as such the twist at the end doesn't come across as earned.

These are just some thing that I've been thinking about as I've been consuming media and writing. There are too many games and fictional works that I've ruined for myself by being too critical. But through this, I'm hoping that the final script for OverClock Gear will be something I can be proud of.

Art:

I'm studying animation production to try to incorporate some of that knowledge into my VN. I want to be able to create a more immersive experience and make my VN more visually appealing. Some works that I really like are Muv Luv and Phoenix Wright. They're both unique in their presentation and utilize different parts of visual media that make them stand out.

The Muv Luv team are masters at using dynamic camera movement to craft visual spectacles. Despite the sprites being mostly non-moving, the way they are tweened and the few pose changes they have are combined with the camera in a way that almost makes them feel alive. Even in the first cutscene of Muv Luv Alternative, the parallax effects and strong camera angles help to sell that cinematic feel that isn't really found in any other VN's I've read.

Phoenix Wright's sprites are a joy to look at. The animations are done with such strong key poses that I sometimes forget the game's animations were meant to be limited. In the modern day, there are many tools that are used to create smooth looking animations with complex actions like 3D models or Live2D. I'm honestly not a huge fan of Live2D animations as it often looks as if a puppeteer is handling the rig. 3D also presents the issue of having to create specialized rigs that can handle weird scenarios like foreshortening. For example in Dragon Ball Fighter Z, there's a lot of model distortion in cinematics that is pretty complicated for someone with no 3D expertise. Facial expressions are also a huge part of making visual novel character appealing which can be difficult to do well on a 3D model. Not to mention, to emulate a 2D style, the frames need to be displayed at 24fps which means chopping frames in-between the interpolated keys. It can be a lot of work to create something that closely resembles "Anime". There is also a charm in a more traditional approach to animation that I think more visual novels should employ. Though I recognize that for complicated sprites, a traditionally drawn 2d animation isn't practical at all, I want to use the idea of strong key poses to create more lively sprites as well as play with depth to further immersion.

There are some more ideas that I have for creating a better visual experience, but I don't want to go into too much of a tangent ^^;

Music:

I went back to learn more about music theory and I came across some great videos that emulate the Japanese video game/Pop style. If you're curious, you can check out Gavin Leper's channel on YouTube. That being said, something I realized about music in Visual Novels and Film in particular is that sometimes the music should accompany the dialogue or actions in the work instead of overpowering it. There are moments when elevator music is important and when it's important to use a swelling emotional piece. Not everything in life "goes hard" and I think that also applies to music in stories as well. Music in games is also designed to loop in contrast to film where individual pieces can be created for specific scenes. This adds an entirely new thing to think about since it needs to be repeatable without getting annoying. I don't really have a clean answer to this, but to observe songs from games you like and see how they transition from the end to the part that loops.

This was a long post and there's so much more I want to talk about but I'm trying to stay productive and get the script done. For anyone else struggling with finishing their VN, "Finish the Script" by Scott King is an excellent book. Wishing everyone the best!

- OCGDev

#visual novel #gamedev #anime #writing #music #art

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sometipsygnostalgic · 7 years

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Hiveswap Review (Spoiler)

We’ve been waiting an awfully long time for the Homestuck Adventure Game. First kickstarted in 2012, it’s gone through a troubled development cycle between 3 studios and.... yeah, you get the drift. Even in its final form, Hiveswap has gone through numerous unexplained delays (most infamously the last minute January Launch Month delay), and the development team for it had been very tight-hush until the end of August when a final release date of September 14th was announced.

Now that Hiveswap is out, we’re able to see for ourselves what the development team has been working on. Does it hold up to expectations? Does it make up for the hard delays and extremely concerning lack of communication?

Those are answers you can only decide for yourselves. What I will say, however, is this: Hiveswap is a charming and visually stunning introduction to the Homestuck world, that combines only the best of Homestuck’s humor with a new calmer, more curious and coherent setting.

It’s a shame, then, that the content of Act 1 isn’t a little bit longer. However, the gimmick of combining any item with each other and getting a new description will draw out the length for any lore completionists.

Before I start gushing about my feelings on Hiveswap, I’d like to point out something that REALLY soured the game for me: The cutscenes have a processing power so high that most laptops - including my own - aren’t able to handle them. I don’t understand this, because a 2.20ghz processor can handle the game like a breeze. I’ve had no trouble running Hiveswap. But as soon as a cutscene plays, it ends up taking a processing power that would burn a computer which can play Overwatch. What’s going on here? Why are cutscenes like this? Is it something to do with the Unity engine? Surely another user has figured out how to compress scenes without losing their quality!

So, I had to watch the game be played in its entirety by @neproxrezi, only returning to my own game to test out as many combinations as possible.

To make this easier for myself, I’m going to split off Hiveswap into a few categories:

Story and Characters - Hiveswap Act 1 is extreeeemely short, like 27 minutes long if you do an ameteur speedrun. On the surface, not a lot happens, but it serves as a compelling introduction to the Hiveswap world. You start off as Joey Claire, a young dancer of multiple schools with a hatred for pogs, Bubsy, and her entire life circumstances. Joey works with her brother to hide from a bunch of monsters that have invaded their home. Shenanigans ensue, mostly pigeon-related, and using Jude’s cryptic advice Joey figures out how to retrieve the attic key. Once in the attic she uses a precious heirloom key, which looks suspiciously Cherub-like, to open a SNAKE PORTAL..... Joey is transported to the world of Alternia where she meets a self-loathing rustblood of the bottom rung of society called Xefros, and explores the house of his controlling and paranoid Revolutionary moirail Dammek. Then Joey gives Xefros some words of encouragement and saves him with the help of Dammek’s lusus, then they ride into the distance while dodgy heiress Trizza Tethis takes a selfie over the burning neighbourhood. It’s all pretty basic, but a natural stopping point and setup for act 2 that makes me devastated I can’t go and play it immediately.

When you dive deeper into the game, usually by clicking on everything you see and combining as many items as possible, you can learn a lot more about these 4 characters. Joey in particular gives the audience plenty to think about once you start messing around with her; combining the green Cherub key with items will often leave her reminiscing about her absent mother, and clicking on Jake’s items strewn all over the place will show how she resents his constant absence fom her and Jude’s lives. There’s plenty of information about Rose’s mom, too, who’s their drunken babysitter and.... even now, not the best stand-in for proper parenting. I’ll talk about these two more later but it makes me curious about their circumstances in Homestuck. Meanwhile Joey and her brother Jude aren’t as close as they could be. Joey’s alarmed by how cryptic and secretive Jude is, wrapped up in his conspiracy capers, and she has great difficulty undertstanding him or having a normal conversation. This is highlighted when she assumes he wouldn’t have any care for his mother’s heirlooms if they didn’t have anything to do with aliens, and when she unlocks the Cherub portal despite his warnings because he never told her of its dangers. Joey does think about this distance between her and Jude, especially when locked on the new world.

Xefros, meanwhile... everything you click while in Alternia - whether as Joey or as Xefros - will usually have information about Dammek. Xefros is clearly used to being messed with by Dammek’s "tests” and revolutionary spiel , which seem to be a more extreme and warped version of Jude’s conspiracy capers. Inspection of his house will paint a picture of Dammek as having a very cluttered mind, hyperfocused on his goal without seeing any of the world around him or understanding the needs of his puppydog moirail Xefros. Now, Xefros himself is extremely passive and will do whatever other people tell him, which is kinda Tavros-like but more extreme. He doesn’t have any care for what happens to himself so long as he’s impressed those around him, and it’s not until Joey tells him how cruddy this is that he gets slightly relaxed and more optimistic. It’s ironic to see how Dammek and the Alternian revolutionaries end up falling into the same heirarchy that they strongly oppose. It shows the Revolution might be a joke, one of many others the Highbloods have quashed before.

As for Jude..... I wonder what’s going through that boy’s head? We barely saw him and yet he made a strong impression of his personality.

Gameplay - Hiveswap doesn’t have any “gameplay” in the traditional sense, unless you count the snake game. Instead it has a series of puzzles. They aren’t very difficult, but it’s more the funny dialogue you can read while playing. I’m gonna talk more about the humor in a few seconds, but the way you can combine any item with any other item must have taken soooooo much time from the writers, especially Cohen Edenfield. I wonder if this was always going to be the case in the original game too?

There’s not really any failstates for hiveswap. You can get eaten by monsters if you dick around on your way to the attic after the big fight, but you’ll just respawn where you were before. It’s not a game I’d choose to “play”, exactly. It’s more of a visual novel.

Humor - Oh boy. This is where Hiveswap wanted to nail it so, so bad. And its effort was valient to say the least. Joey’s dancing was some visual feel-good humor, all the 90s gimmicks in her room (especially the not-so-subtle videogame posters) had me clicking on them with every item i could find in the house, xefros in his entirety was a well of dark humor that pushed the game’s atmosphere back to its homestuck roots, and Byers - so true, so brave - he is the best item in the game. The funniest scenes for me were the Pigeon sequence with Jude, and Joey’s acrobatic pirouhettes away from Dammek’s terrifying lusus :P

I do have some criticisms for the humor. While combining everything with everything is a lot of fun, it’s not necessarily... funny. Like I didn’t get a lot of laugh-out-loud moments with the combinations. Often I found jokes were either too long-winded beyond their expiration or the punchline was just very awkward. This is a small criticism considering no other games bother to do this, but considering hiveswap act 1 is just an hour long if you DON’T do this, the game’s padding could have been more entertaining to say the least. counting on this gimmick when the humor isnt the best in the world, it’s a veeery risky move.

Graphics - okay, let’s put this out there: hiveswap without a doubt is one of the most visually stunning indie games out there. It recruited the help of many artists from the fandom itself, like adrienne garcia, angela sham, dammek the tumblr user, rah-bop, shelby cragg... For the most part the game looks great. The drawings on the short panel-based animations look wonky sometimes especially when compared to the beautiful opening animation, but it’s a small criticism.

This has convinced me that the move from 3d to 2d has seriously benefitted Hiveswap. I mean, look at this:

then look at this:

it’s a whole WORLD of difference. I seriously do not think Hiveswap would have made a good impression if it had released in the crappy-looking state the 3D studio had produced it in. The game would have not looked like homestuck, and not been able to pull off any of the animated feats in the final product. Why were they going with that art style in the first place??? It was a waste of time money and effort. I guess that the 2D team was slowly constructed over years of producing homestuck flashes and paradox space content? Many people key to the current team were in high school in 2012.

Music - Led by James Roach, he worked closely with Toby Fox to really nail Hiveswap’s soundtrack. It’s short and loops an awful lot but I never found it boring or annoying to hear. It’s quieter and more subtle than Homestuck’s loud, rambunctious music, but each character has their own theme and leitmotif. The music changes to create a good atmosphere for each room. It’s not the best work from either artist, but it’s very good as a videogame soundtrack.

Dedication to the source material - While Hiveswap has adapted away from Homestuck’s crude humor, I feel it keeps the best and throws away the worst. Hiveswap being E10 rated made some people suspicious because of how sweary and dark Homestuck is, but Hiveswap has already shown its guts and some very effective dark humor. I wonder if Act 2 will have the same rating?

While the atmosphere in Half-Harley Mansion isn’t the most Homestuck in the world, Joey’s introduction is a nice homage to how all homestuck characters are introduced. And.... you can’t ignore the insight it gives into Jake and Roxy. More specifically, Grandpa and Mom.

So, it’s revealed in Hiveswap that Jade’s Grandpa had a wife and two kids before encountering her. What does this say for Jude and Joey’s situation post-hiveswap? Did he lose his two kids, and decide to build a new life in the pacific with Jade? Did he see her as his second chance? It sort of puts a damper on John’s comment that Jade’s ‘pa seemed happy living alone, and Dave’s comment that Jade’s ‘pa was a clearly loving father. As it turned out, ‘pa severely neglected his own kids after the death of his wife, probably because they reminded him of her. But maybe Jake lost his two children and decided not to make the same mistakes with Jade? That’s why he took her to the island with him instead of siccing her on Roxy again, although Roxy had her own hands full. Yeah, talking of B1 Roxy, it’s quite interesting to see how she had changed between Hiveswap and Homestuck. Joey saw Roxy in a very different light to Rose; she saw Roxy as very kid-like and sincere, but extremely negligible due to her drinking. Most notable difference is how Roxy here obviously hates cleaning, but by the time she mothers Rose, she takes perfect care of their house. I wonder if this is another effect of Jude and Joey’s theoretical departure from the mansion? If, like Jake, she saw Rose as a sort of second chance? It’s a shame how that turned out. Yknow, im gonna laugh and cry if it turned out Jude or Joey killed Ana Claire with guns as a baby, like Jade and Jake before them

As for Alternia it was chocablocked with references to Homestuck, from the hierarchy to the Condesce to Doc Scratch to FLARP. Yeah, this is when Hiveswap went from an adventure game to a Homestuck game. I haven’t got much else to say here other than that I’m excited to see how Alternia differs from our impressions of it, and how the infrastructure of the peter pan society works.

and, of course, it had the best possible refrance:

CONCLUSION: Hiveswap has shown its guts to the world, and made a positive impression. I’m disappointed by how short it is, but that’s only because I want more.

Idk what’s going on with all the bugs such as the resolution glitch or the cutscene processing, especially cos Hiveswap went through an extra 9 months of “bug testing”.... wouldnt most people have gotten this bug the first time they launched the game??? wouldnt they have noticed the cutscene fuckery? these glitches have resulted in many people getting refunds. the only reason i didnt do the same is because i want to support this game, and i want to play it again in the future when the bugs are fixed or i have better hardware.

hopefully hiveswap act 2 won’t be followed around by the same issues, same lack of communication, same lengthy development that act 1 has suffered. if it comes swiftly, and if hiveswap act 2 makes as good an impression as act 1, then I feel we’ll have something truly special on our hands.

Story and characters: 4 hats outta 5 - short but sweet

Gameplay: 2.5 hats outta 5 - glitchy and contentless with no fail state, but this isnt necessarily a bad thing Humor : 4 hats outta 5 - sometimes missed the mark but a great chuckle for any player, fan or noob Graphics: 5 hats outta 5 - e c s t a s y Music: 4 hats outta 5 - does the job, does it well Dedication to source material: 4 hats outta 5 - best of the old, best of the new.

FINAL SCORE: 8/10. All it needs is to finish, then it’s already better than Homestuck...

#hiveswap #homestuck #gaming #adventure games #steam

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playstation-mods · 5 years

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Top 5 Must-Buy Games for Playstation 3

August didn’t have a lot of games that interest me, except Siren: Blood Curse. But the end of this month, we can expect two good games being released and at least three more next month (based on my preference of course, you might find these games boring).

With all these great games, for sure I will be broke in the next few months. I will now briefly write about each one.

Disgaea 3: Absence of Justice

I have never heard of the Disgaea series before, apparently its a Japanese anime style with 2d sprite characters turn base SRPG game. I’m a big fan of this type of RPG, aside from the sprites, the environments are in 3D, the special effects are amazing as well. And I’m always attracted to number games and this game definitely caught my attention with its million point damage!

From the trailers, it has many different combo attacks, 100+ hours of play–time (not sure if that is actually a good thing though, unless it is really that fun) and over 270 customizable characters! Expect a review once I get my hands on this.

Mercenaries 2: World in Flames

Ever since Call of Duty 4: Modern Warfare, I haven’t really paid attention to other first person/third person shooter game, well of course except Metal Gear Solid 4. Mercenaries 2 lets you play the main campaign with your friends. It offers a wide range of vehicles to take control and you can earn money to purchase gears as well.

I’ve also checked out some trailers but I found the computer constantly calling for backup and saying the same thing over and over again which was annoying. But overall this game should be fun for those that enjoy blowing up stuff!

Star Wars: The Force Unleashed

One of the most anticipated games this year; Star Wars: The Force Unleashed. A lot of trailers have shown what the impressive Havok Physics system can do when Darth Vader’s Secret Apprentice, your character, uses the “force” on enemies or on non-living objects like boxes or even a large ship.

Graphics are impressive as well and makes the gameplay even more enjoyable in combination with the physics engine and other new technologies that are introduced for the first time. Demo will be available on August 21st. I can’t wait till get my hands on this one.

LEGO Batman

Ahh need I say more? LEGO Batman. You can never get enough of LEGO, anything with LEGO is almost a instant win. LEGO Star Wars and LEGO Indiana Jones were/are pretty popular. There is a lot of replay value in all the LEGO games because you can unlock characters each with his/her own unique ability which will allow you to go to places you previously couldn’t.

And don’t ever think the audio and graphics are childish either, they are amazing as I’ve seen from the LEGO Indiana Jones demo. I’m actually curious why the demo was released after the full version.

Silent Hill Homecoming

I’m a big fan of survival horror games like Resident Evil, Fatal Frame and Siren. I feel that every new series gets nastier and each with a more twisted storyline. If you are a fan of past Silent Hill, you should not miss this one. And this game isn’t for everyone, if you can’t handle the “sickness” and the “twistedness” from the movie, (I think I just introduced a new word there) then this game isn’t suitable for you. For those that are a fan of the deadly but sexy nurses, they are back!

I would like to hear your must-buy list!

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from PS Mods https://www.playstation-mods.com/games/top-5-must-buy-games-for-playstation-3/

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operationrainfall · 5 years

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Title Death Mark Developer Experience Publisher Aksys Games Release Date October 31st, 2018 Genre Visual Novel, Horror Platform PC, PS4, Switch Age Rating M for Mature – Blood and Gore, Partial Nudity, Strong Language, Suggestive Themes, Violence Official Website

Last year I had the opportunity to review another creepy game published by Aksys called Creeping Terror. I ended that review saying I hope the company isn’t done bringing over creepy games stateside, which brings us to today’s review of Death Mark. Though developed by a different team than Creeping Terror, Death Mark instantly struck a similar chord with me. There are definite differences, such as this game taking place on PC, Switch and PS4 and the other taking place on 3DS and PC, as well as this one being a horror visual novel while the other was more of an action game. I didn’t know exactly what to expect from it, but I was confident Aksys would make good on bringing over another Halloween horror. Was this a white-knuckled ride into terror? Or was it just a simple jump scare?

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Death Mark starts with two unnamed female students discussing a horrible rumor about a teacher who had disappeared after finding herself with a strange mark on her skin. This mark supposedly also causes amnesia for the bearer, followed by horrible death soon thereafter. Cut to a curious man wandering around with no idea who he is. He finds a card in his pocket from a Saya Kujou inviting him to her mansion to get help. Thus the man wanders towards a menacing abode where he is quickly drawn into a dark mystery.

Looks totally safe…

Upon entering the mansion, things quickly start to get weird. Not surprisingly, the man has the same strange mark on his wrist, but that’s not the worst of it. Once he’s in the mansion he discovers a grisly scene as he stumbles upon the corpse of Saya Kujou, who seems to have been murdered by the wild plant growth protruding from her chest. As if that wasn’t enough, the man then comes upon what appears to be a marionette on a couch. When the marionette opens her eyes and begins to talk, it becomes very clear this game is full of supernatural mysteries. Once you have been introduced to the marionette, who is fittingly called Mary, you’re given the option to name your character and alter his outward appearance from a few pre-set options. I stuck with the name the game provided, Yashiki, and gave him some grizzled facial hair.

Mary continues by telling you that the strange mark on your wrist is the cause of your amnesia, and that the source of the marks themselves are unholy spirits born from humans who died in a horrible fashion. Their grudge towards the source of their demise brings them back to life, and only by defeating them can you remove the mark. Enter a motley crew of others afflicted by the mark, and things get rolling. Each of the game’s five chapters introduces new compatriots, as well as a menacing spirit you’ll have to overcome. You might be wondering how you kill a ghost, and you wouldn’t be alone. Mary quickly clarifies you can’t kill them per se, but you can manipulate their grudge to banish them. Essentially, it’s like a Scooby-Doo episode, but with real murderous consequences if you fail. Your job is to research what caused the human that birthed the spirit to perish, and using that knowledge, put them to rest. It’s a lot like being a police profiler. Your understanding of the subject directly affects how you contend with them. Better yet, there’s a good and bad way to beat each spirit, and depending on which you inadvertently pick, you might get the good or bad ending for the game. Essentially, the wrong choice will give you victory at the cost of your partner, while the good ending requires everybody to survive each chapter.

As for the flow of the gameplay, it’s pretty easy to understand. You discover a new spirit, investigate an area to find clues and items, and use them to defeat the spirit before you succumb to the mark. It’s a bit more complicated than it sounds, though, since these spirits don’t just wait for you to defeat them. There are segments you’ll encounter each chapter where you are presented with life-or-death scenarios, such as being assaulted by a ghostly hound. Depending on your choice of actions, you will either survive or perish. Luckily, you have a bit of a defense against harm. Each chapter you start with something called Soul Power, which is essentially your timer for making life and death decisions. If you continue to make the right choice during these sections, you’ll get through with Soul Power to spare, but answering incorrectly depletes it dangerously. If it goes to zero, you die. Thankfully, when this happens you’re allowed to try again or restart from your previous save, which makes them not quite as frustrating. Better yet, by finding worn-out talismans, you’ll be rewarded with a Soul Power boost. These dangerous segments start out pretty easy to figure out, but tend to get more and more complicated later on, often requiring great intuition on your part. Thankfully, by carefully reading any clues you come upon and referencing a handy feature called the Spirit File (essentially a recap of the chapter’s events that is constantly updated) you’ll have a good chance to succeed. You might even find some hints if you read all the material carefully.

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Though the chapters are relatively linear, it’s still easy to get a little lost. To interact with your environment, you move around your flashlight beam with the left Joy-Con stick. When it reveals an item of interest, you’ll see a flicker of light on the screen. That indicates you can interact with something in the environment. If it’s something relevant, you’ll be able to feel it, examine it or tinker with it using an item in your inventory. You’ll come across a lot of items in your investigations, and the game requires some creative thinking. For example, I had to defeat a lock with my letter opener one chapter, and had to use chemicals to make light to scare away snakes another chapter. Thankfully, you’ll always have the items you need to succeed by being thorough and looking in every corner. What you might not find, however, are the key items required to progress to the good ending. That takes some extra sleuthing on your part.

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The writing for the game is pretty solid, and there’s a large cast of quirky characters. There’s an idol, a couple scientists, a mystic, a punk and even a massive anime nerd. That’s only some of the characters, and in total they add a lot to the emotional fabric of the game. While not every character gets the same amount of development, there were several I enjoyed interacting with. Perhaps my favorite was the by-the-book and totally not afraid of the supernatural Hiroo, but they all were pretty interesting. Thankfully, the cast isn’t just there as window dressing. Each of them suffers from the same mark, so they work with you to help remove it. They also can help with your investigation, and depending on your partner, you may find some options for investigation that are otherwise unavailable. Most important of all, your partners help you when you face off against the malevolent spirits.

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These spirit battles aren’t exactly fights per se. Despite the stats you’ll find on the character screen, Death Mark isn’t a RPG. It’s not even an adventure game, really. Each fight is more of a test of your understanding of the spirit you face. By truly comprehending their psyche, you’ll be that much better equipped to combat them. For example, the first spirit you face is afraid of blood, so by using a ghastly blood soaked umbrella against them, you can render their attacks useless. The goal in each fight is to defend against the spirit’s attacks and draw them closer. Once they’re right in your face, you can weaken them and then exorcise the spirit with the right combination of items. The game will indicate when you have a viable combo to use, though on occasion the right combination of items is not so apparent. Thankfully, most of the time it’s pretty clear through trial and error which items to use to succeed. You might think that makes the fights boring or not scary, but that couldn’t be farther from the truth. Each is a harrowing encounter, made even more so by the visual effects of the game.

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Visually speaking, this game is a horror masterpiece. The hand-drawn 2D art bursts with personality and menace, especially for the characters and spirits you face. Likewise, the environments you explore are all drowning in darkness, and makes you feel you can sense horrors waiting to attack from every corner. Perhaps the best visual effects are for the spirits themselves, which are all horrifying and deranged creatures that truly instill terror in you. But it’s not just the visual side; the sound effects are also fantastic. The music is somber and mysterious, with piano tunes, which pushes you to keep going. It gets very tense and frantic during the life-or-death sequences, and especially during the spirit encounters. I especially enjoyed the gotcha moments peppered throughout the chapters, such as your flashlight coming across a ghostly face who floats away laughing cruelly, or sound effects startling you like animals roaring or chainsaws revving. In conjunction, the visuals and sounds do a great job of keeping you constantly on edge, which is perfect for a horror game like this.

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There’s a lot I enjoyed about Death Mark, but I do need to spend some time talking about a few missteps. While it’s generally clear how to proceed through most parts of the game, it can occasionally be overly unclear. I said earlier that your partners can help you in unusual ways, but they can also be a hindrance. On occasion I came across parts of the game where my equipped partner was actually preventing me from proceeding, such as when I had to get past a ghost dog and was partnered with Eita, and every choice I made ended with death. I didn’t realize I needed a female partner to get past the beast until I found an online guide. This partner issue can also affect spirits. When facing the second spirit in the game, I needed to weaken it enough to deal the final blow. However, two out of my three partners wielded unique items only they could use, in this case a pistol and a baseball bat. Since my partner at the time had no specific weapon, I wasn’t able to do enough damage with the items in my inventory, and was unable to proceed until I switched partners.

Another less significant issue was the translation. For the most part it was okay, beside some misspelled words here and there. What was more galling to me was when the game used generic gender pronouns to refer to my partners. Instead of ‘his’ or ‘her’, it was always ‘they’ or ‘their’. It’s not the end of the world, but it hurt my immersion whenever that happened. And finally, though I do think you can beat the game without a guide, it’s much, much harder to get the good ending without one. I ended up using a guide to get the good ending for my playthrough, and I frankly doubt I would have been smart enough to figure out some of the solutions without it. Thankfully, there’s nothing stopping you from playing through the first time to get the bad ending and then using a guide afterwards for the good ending.

The DLC is a follow-up to the events of the main story with a new twist.

Despite my small issues with Death Mark, overall I was pretty pleased with it. Though it is a little pricey at $49.99, I feel it was a well-rounded and frightening adventure. You’ll get caught up with the plot and unraveling the mystery at the heart of the game, which will only fully reveal itself with the good ending. I spent about 10 hours beating the main game, and upon doing so with the good ending, you’ll unlock the final DLC chapter. For consoles, this DLC is absolutely free, which is even more added value. If you’re a fan of horror and want more scares on your Nintendo Switch, you really can’t go wrong with Death Mark. It satisfied this fan of Creeping Terror and was different enough to keep me interested. It’s good to know Aksys Games is still a great purveyor of quality horror.

[easyreview cat1title=”Overall” cat1detail=”” cat1rating=”4″]

Review Copy Provided by Publisher

REVIEW: Death Mark Title Death Mark

#Aksys Games #Death Mark #Experience #horror #PC #PS4 #Switch #visual novel

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recentanimenews · 6 years

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A Sneak Peek of Colorful Action in the World Premiere of TRIGGER's SSSS.GRIDMAN!

TRIGGER was at the top of their game at the 2018 Anime Expo, showing off some early concept artwork (pictures were prohibited) from DARLING in the FRANXX, a sneak peek at the opening animation collaboration with Titmouse for Indivisible and exclusive PV of Promare. They capped things off with the world premiere of episode one of their upcoming Fall anime SSSS.GRIDMAN, TRIGGER’s take on the 1993 tokusatsu classic which also references the American adaptation Superhuman Samurai Syber Squad. It’s TRIGGER and giant (not quite) robots so I couldn’t possibly pass it up.

youtube

A boy awakens on a couch in a strange apartment with no memory of where… or who.. he is. A nearby girl tells him that he collapsed and she took him to her place. She asks him if he remembers what happened between them and, together, the two discover he has amnesia. Her name is Rikka and she tells him his name is Yuta. Rikka’s family owns second-hand electronics store. In one of the old computers, Yuta sees a robotic face that tells him to remember his calling before Rikka takes him outside to visit the hospital and he spots the silhouette of a massive monster standing over the city.

Gridman is a strange combination of old and new, opening shots of barren, urban sprawl accompanied by the sound of cicadas reminiscent of ‘90s sci-fi like Neon Genesis Evangelion, likely an intentional decision given Yuta’s first perspective, staring at an unfamiliar ceiling with a square light. Meanwhile the characters are much more modern, with a primary cast of color-coded character designs. Amemiya stated the series will focus on kid’s relationship with technology and the focus seems to be between old and new as the cast uses news cell phones in an city that’s beginning to show its age.

Yuta discovers that, just like the robot, no one else seems to be able to see the giant monster. He reports back to Rikka that the hospital told him his amnesia isn’t dangerous and likely to resolve itself (really?) so she directs him back to his house where he discovers his parents are both abroad on business. On his way to school the next day he meets a boy who claims to be his friend named Utsumi. Yuta discovers during class that he and Rikka are basically strangers and finds some unexpected compassion from an unusual girl named Akane. His more mundane problems are put on hold when the monster that has, until now, remained immobile, has begun to rampage through the city.

Gridman doesn’t move much like we’ve come to expect from TRIGGER anime, sticking closer to the more organic character animation of Kiznaiver or DARLING in the FRANXX than Imaishi’s dynamic style. Although bits of personality come through with small moments like an argument between Yuta and Rikka where they jump from pose to pose with no in-between which I’m... pretty sure was a stylistic choice.

Remembering the words of the computer robot, Yuta returns and gets sucked into the computer at her shop to become a giant tokusatsu robot that does battle with the surprisingly cartoon looking monster. This is when the CG comes out. Amemiya discussed using a hybrid of 2D and 3D animation for the series and, while the fight was fine in its 3D animation form, the separation of hybrid from pure 3D might better show itself in later episodes. One really impressive visual I did notice was the hundreds of moving reflections of Gridman in every window of a building he was passing by which I honestly can’t think of ever spotting in a series before.

Yuta eventually defeats the monster, but only with the help of Rikka and Utsumi back in the shop figuring out the monsters weakness and that they can communicate with him by typing messages into the computer. The set-up with the old computer and the kids needing to put their heads together to beat the monster felt like a throwback, providing a nice sense of nostalgia with some modern elements that prevented it from feeling dated. As with the old computer, Gridman appears to be trying to have fun with old conventions.

The finale felt dramatic despite the campy elements with an added extra credit that said a lot about the tone. During the course of the battle the monster had destroyed their school where Rikka’s friend Bandai had stayed behind, but the next morning they discover it rebuilt, leaving you to wonder if Bandai was also saved from her tragic fate. I’m curious about what TRIGGER will be able to do with this unique space, a more grounded setting inspired by the tail end of the media that many of their heads draw from and likely not plunging as deeply into the social themes as their other more realistic works. If nothing else, TRIGGER is great at stirring up interest. I’m definitely looking forward to Gridman’s October premiere.

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Peter Fobian is an Associate Features Editor for Crunchyroll, author of Monthly Mangaka Spotlight, writer for Anime Academy, and contributor at Anime Feminist. You can follow him on Twitter @PeterFobian.

By: [email protected]

#Anime #News #Latest in Anime News by Crunchyroll!

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selfie-in-pixelated-mirror · 7 years

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response to HRI readings

This week’s readings for Humanoid Robotics involved the following four papers on Human Robot Interaction (HRI):

A Survey of Autonomous Human Affect Detection Methods for Social Robots Engaged in Natural HRI

ExpressionBot: An Emotive Lifelike Robotic Face for Face-to-Face Communication

Robot gains Social Intelligence through Multimodal Deep Reinforcement Learning

Recognition and Expression of Emotions by a Symbiotic Android Head

Mostly dealt with robots attempting to identify human beings, and how to empathetically respond to them. Oddly enough, the question of whether anyone else found this strangely disturbing (to have machines look and behave like us...is it just me?) came up only once and was brushed aside rather quickly.

Below, I’ll identify the main points of each paper and/or what stood out to me most and questions that arose after reading.

1. A rather long and comprehensive paper (as survey papers tend to be) that covers different types of robots in the field by breaking them down into three types of HRI: 1) collaborative HRI (working together), 2) assistive HRI (teaching or helping), 3) mimicry HRI (imitating). Went over the various models for Affect Categorization, which is just another way of reading the way someone is feeling (described as “a complex combination of emotions, moods, interpersonal stances, attitudes, and personality traits that influence his/her own behavior”). This is primarily done through extracting features from images of the human being’s face, although they also go into other traits that can factor in to a robot’s ability to perceive affect (such as body language- jerkiness or smoothness of motions). They mention several robots for each type of HRI, I liked iCat best (a cat designed to teach children how to play chess!)

https://www.researchgate.net/figure/220888708_fig1_Fig-1-Two-users-playing-chess-with-the-iCat-observing-the-game

2. This paper was concerned with making the robotic head more realistic, the two main parts that went into creating the head was the hardware and the facial animation projected onto the head. Their goal was to cover three aspects 1) facial expressions, 2) eye movement/gaze, and 3) accurate visual speech.

Interesting ideas they introduced was the “Uncanny Valley,” in which a robot’s appearance affects the way we interact with it and the Mona Lisa effect, which describes the phenomena that when image is on a 2D surface, the eyes seem to follow the viewer regardless of positioning (whereas projecting the face onto a 3D head would give a more realistic effect).

For visual speech, they grouped visually similar phonemes (termed visemes) with the corresponding face that would have to be made. However they had to come up with a formula to combine the face that had to be made to pronounce the phoneme with the face that would be made to express a certain emotion (weighing expression model and combining with current expression model). Side Note- there was an interesting phrasing they used “to blend the expressions with the lip movement”. Personally, I think this is the most interesting part of this paper, the eye movement conclusion does not seem as significant, they concluded that the animated face projected onto the physical form was better received than a 2D animation. I would say that if done well, I would prefer a physical 3D form rather than a flat screen, too. Although this does seem cool, because the other paper we read did not project a face onto a form, but rather had the face built in.

3. Using Multimodal Deep Q-Network (MDQN), the robot learned how to interact with human beings over the course of 14 days. They broke the process into data generation and training parts. This paper was the most technically challenging to read, and I have to go back and do a more careful, in-depth analysis of it and also learn what a deep Q-network is.The gist of it was that they were trying to identify when to shake hands with a user by taking in a grayscale image stream and also depth data and feeding 8 channels into a sort of network. Conclusion— revisit this and do a better reading of it!!!

4. The most eerily realistic robotic head was presented in this paper. Her name is the FACE android, and her skin is made out of Frubber (!!) It’s built by David Hanson, but that shouldn’t be a surprise since all the super-realistic robots seem to come from there. The description of how they put servos and wires behind the skin to act as tendons was very cool too! The goal of this project was to have an attention-based gaze that followed the person who seemed to demand the most attention (approaching human being in empty room, or new person joining an on-going conversation) and then interact with the human being appropriately. It is interesting to note that they modeled the Cognitive Architecture after Damasio’s idea that inputs turn into knowledge structure for reasoning, taken from his book “Descartes’ Error” and formalized by Bosse (something to look up, since I am curious what this is about!) Conclusion best summarized by this sentence, “…results demonstrated the promising social capabilities of the robot to perceive and convey emotions to humans which is essential starting point for the development of a real social agents.” Good starting point, more nuanced and sophisticated techniques still needed both for perceiving using more senses and reacting to different scenarios and with additional responses.

#robotics #readings #damasio #humanoids

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josephstoontown · 8 years

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We Want Jobs!

This one's a bit on the short side as it was originally written as a three-part post. It also got a minimal amount of revising, compared to the stuff that came before it. This is also the first time this story has been combined and posted as one whole unit. (That's a lot of "this-and-that," innit?)

Word count: 4,606 – Character count: 27,434 Originally written: May 10th, 2016* Slightly revised: January 12th, 2017 Further revised: August 18th, 2017 (* This is a guess since the original posts were queued exclusively to Tumblr and not posted the same day they were written.)

Joseph's second day in ToonTown becomes all-business as he tries to find a job… alongside an uninvited guest.

Woody Woodpecker, The Woody Woodpecker Show, and related characters and properties created by and © Walter Lantz Productions Bonkers D. Bobcat, Raw Toonage!, and related characters and properties created by and © The Walt Disney Company Bubsy Bobcat, Bubsy, and related characters and properties created by Michael Berlyn and © Accolade, Inc. Mona Lisa, Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles, and related characters and properties created by Fred Wolf Films/IDDH and © Mirage Studios "That's the Spirit Guy," Rocket Power, and related characters and properties created by Klasky Csupo, Inc. and © Viacom Media Networks Minerva Mink, Animaniacs, and related characters and properties created by Amblin Entertainment and © Warner Bros. Animation (Dang, that's a lot of credits, huh?)

[ ↶ Prev. Story | ← Prev. Chapter | Next Chapter → | Next Story ↷ ]

The sun was smiling above the eastern horizon as Joseph walked along the busy ToonTown blocks. There were a number of different types of cartoon characters out-and-about today – some 2D with varying degrees of animation fluidity… some 3D with seem-less motion. However, Joseph noticed that every single one of them seemed perfectly content to co-exist with one-another. Well, he thought, that’s good that there’s no real prejudice between animation styles… Just as he’d thought that, a 2D ‘toon on a ‘toon bike blew by him, almost knocking him over. “Watch where you’re walking, you bulbous fox geek!” Joseph debated throwing up a very rude gesture to the biker, but given what had happened the last time he did something like that, he decided against it and just continued walking.

Joe’s Diner had become something of a way-point for him as his second day started and his feet quickly lead him right back to where his ToonTown excursion started. As he walked up toward the door, however… “Howdy, stranger! Guess who!” The fox froze at the voice coming from behind him. Oh no… The annoying, repetitive laugh he heard a moment later confirmed it. Slowly, he turned around and saw… “Woody-Ash damn it-Woodpecker…” “Well, I sure ain’t Bugs Bunny!” the redheaded woodpecker laughed. “Boy, wouldn’t that be great, though…?” Woody turned around and Joseph looked as a third voice made itself known.

“Well well! If it isn’t Bubsy Bobcat!” the woodpecker cheerfully greeted. The orange bobcat standing there in the green turtleneck just narrowed his tired-looking eyes… “He’s Bonkers,” Joseph added, causing Woody to turn back toward him. “Yeah, totally nuts!” Woody laughed. The fox blinked at that. “Bonkers?” “No ifs, ands, or buts, but–” “Cut it out!” Woody and Joseph were startled as the bobcat interrupted their “conversation.” He looked fairly irritated with the two of them.

“What’s’a’madda, Bucko?” The woodpecker grinned. “Need more sleep?” Bonkers shook his head. “Listen, Woody… I’m sorry for the smart remark. I’m just here to find Fawn and apologize for last night.” “Weeell…” Woody rolled up his… feathers? He then looked at an oversized cartoon wristwatch on his bare wrist before looking back to Bonkers. “I think her shift’s over, Bonko!” “It is…?” Bonkers rolled back his own sweater sleeve and checked his watch before shaking it. Grape jelly dripped out of it, much to Joseph’s surprise. “Darn… This watch hasn’t worked right since I had The Hatter look at it…” “Why’d’ja let ol’ Hatty look at it?” the woodpecker asked. “Don’cha know what he does with watches?” “Well, I do now…”

“Anyway,” Woody continued, “third shift’s long over, Bonko! She’s probably home in bed by-now! Ya look plenty tired, yourself… Maybe you should go join her!” Joseph’s dirty mind picked up on something. He didn’t think Woody realized what he’d just suggested… until the bird turned around and threw a wink his way. The fox had to cover his muzzle and pretend to clear his throat to disguise the grin and chuckle he gave. “You’re probably right,” Bonkers replied, completely ignoring the underlying suggestion. “But I should probably go to my own house. I don’t wanna wake up poor Fawn.” “Well don’t let us keep ya!” The woodpecker gave Bonkers a bit of a push. “Go home an’ get some sleep!” “Um… okay. See ya later, Woody.”

As Bonkers headed across the street, Woody turned back to Joseph with a grin. “Now that he’s outta the way, how ‘bout we get some breakfast! Your treat!” “No.” Joseph narrowed his eyes. “Pay for your own da– arn breakfast.” “Suit yourself!” The woodpecker walked to the door, holding it open. “After you!” The fox was about to enter… when he remembered what happened last time Woody had him enter ahead. “No tricks this time, Woody…” he said, looking down at the woodpecker. “I need to look presentable.” “Yeeaaah??” Woody asked, tilting his head. “Why?” “I’m going to see if I can’t get a job here. My money isn’t going to last, and–” “Ooh! What a co-wink-key-dink!” He grinned. “I need a job, too!” “What? Really?” “Yeah! And since I know someone who can vouch for me… I figured I’m a shoe-in here at Joe’s Diner!” “Oh, Ash damn it…!” Joseph gave a huff and turned to walk away. “Hey!” The woodpecker grabbed his hand, giving him a tug. “Where ya goin’, pal?” “Away. To find a job somewhere else. Somewhere that doesn’t involve you.” Joseph gave a look back as he jerked his arm away from the woodpecker. What he saw, however, surprised him. Woody was slouching, a frown on his face and a hurt look in his eyes.

“I thought maybe we could work here together…” he said in a quiet voice. “You an’ I, new best buds, fightin’ off starvation and poverty! You got my back, I got yours! But if ya don’t wanna, I guess I understand…” The fox watched as Woody walked over to the curb of the road and sat down, arms on his knees and head in his hands. “It’s not easy for an old-timey ‘toon like me t’ make new friends. You’re the first friendly face that hasn’t told me to go away in a while, even after all the gags ‘n pranks!” He sighed. “Ever since ‘toons stopped bein’ so ‘toon-y, older folks like us either had to adapt or get left behind! Some folks like Bugs or Mickey adjusted no-prob! I tried, too… but no one wants t’ see Woody Woodpecker cartoons anymore. ‘cept maybe that bright-eyed ‘toon lady you were with… But you probably don’t care ‘bout the problems of a washed-up has-been like me anyway…” The woodpecker shooed the fox away with a hand. “G’wan, go get a job. I’ll find something else to do. If I’m lucky…”

Joseph grimaced a little. Seeing Woody act so serious was a little disturbing… He seemed genuinely downtrodden and upset. Joseph knew he had to make it right. “Woody, I–” “Don’t bother!” Joseph blinked as Woody stopped him. “It’s fine. I’ve survived this long, after all! Maybe I can find a part-time job digging graves or somethin’…” The fox’s ears fell hard at that. He knew that people sometimes said something about digging ditches as a – no pun intended – last-ditch resort… but Woody mentioning graves specifically… well, it was just too much for him.

“H-hey! What are you doing?!” The fox had walked over and grabbed Woody by his colorful arm, dragging him back to the door of Joe’s Diner. Despite Woody’s protests, the fox walked in, bringing him along. Without even waiting to be addressed, he walked over to the counter and slammed his fist down, getting the attention of everyone in the diner and then some.

“We want jobs and we want them now!”

Several people in the diner were entranced by what they saw… Some were staring at the anthropomorphic fox, wondering why he’d just made such a scene. Others were watching his captive, curious as to why he was dragging a little, blue woodpecker in his free arm. Either way, Joseph had certainly made a spectacle of them both.

“What the heck is going on out here??”

Joseph looked to the swinging doors separating the kitchen from the main area. A somewhat-familiar figure stepped out with an irritated look on her face. “Is it you making all that ruckus?” a brown-haired, green-skinned lizard in the apron asked. “You’re damn right it is,” Joseph replied before hauling his reluctant companion up and into view. “We want jobs!” The lizard crossed her arms over her chest, shifting to her left hip and giving the duo a look full of attitude. “You guys do know there’s a right way and a wrong way to do things, right?” “Listen…” Joseph paused to read the girl’s name tag. “Mona. We’re broke, we have nowhere to go but up, and we want to change that any way we can! Where’s your manager?” “Uuh…” The fox looked to Woody as he spoke. “Mona is the manager.” Joseph blinked before looking at the girl’s tag a second time. Right there, clear as day above her name, it read “Manager, 1st Shift”. “Y… yeah, I– I knew that!” he said, causing Mona to smirk in amusement. “She– uh– a-anyway!” Joseph dropped the woodpecker on the floor before leaning over the counter, a determined look on his face.

“We don’t care what we have to do!” he said. “No position is too humiliating! Just give us anything that pays any amount of money and we’ll gladly accept!” “Is that so?” The fox gave a nod. Mona tossed her head back and forth, causing her feathered, brown bouffant to sway. “I like your spirit, fox. Tell ya what… you guys come back here at the end of my shift and we’ll talk. Until then, though?” Joseph blinked as Mona drew inward. He then winced as she grabbed him by both ears, pressing her face against his. Her eyelids dimmed and she grinned as she calmly said… “Either buy something or get the hell outta my diner.”

The fox blinked again as Mona let him go, a dominant smile on her face. He was a little too stunned to react… After several moments, he looked down to the woodpecker sitting on the floor and said three words. “Mona is awesome.” “I’ve been told that, sweetie,” the lizard said with another grin. “Now… breakfast? Yes, or no?” “Uh… we’ll get back to you on that. C’mon, Woody. Let’s have a little chat outside.” Woody blinked a couple of times, watching Joseph leave. He then looked up at Mona, giving a nervous grin and shrugging before running out the door after him.

“What was all that about?!” was the first thing the woodpecker asked once he re-joined Joseph. “I… I don’t know.” The fox rubbed the back of his head as he sat on a bench some yards down the road from the diner. “Is that how you get all your jobs??” “N-no… I just–” “How did you even know that’d work??” “I-I did–” “And why’d you drag me into this?” Joseph shook his head before turning to Woody, his ears folded back and a stern look on his face.

“Look!” he said in a tone that caused Woody to jerk back. “We may be getting jobs of some kind there at Joe’s and that’s all that matters. Okay?” The woodpecker tilted his head, staring as the fox reached into his pocket. “Ash damn it, where’s my Vapo…?” “You smoke?” the bird asked. “I vape. There’s a world of difference.” “Well, I was gonna say, if ya wanna smoke…” Woody reached into his… feathers? He then withdrew a pack of distinctly photo-realistic cigarettes, tapping one loose before sticking it into his beak. “Wait… what?” “Want one?” The fox hesitated… then shook his head. “Sorry.”

“Suit yourself!” the woodpecker said for the second time that day, tucking the cigarettes into his… pocket? “How… does that even work…?” “Oh, it’s easy!” Woody stood up and stretched out his… feather pocket? “It’s elastic!” “No, not that!” Joseph’s muzzle twitched. “I mean, how the heck does a ‘toon smoke real cigarettes?” “The same way non-‘toons do, probably!” he said as he lit and puffed the white tobacco stick. A moment later, he emitted a perfectly round, perfectly realistic smoke ring from his beak. “But…!” The fox stopped in mid-thought, closing his eyes and shaking his head again. “Ya know what? I shouldn’t be asking. I mean, I ate ‘toon food yesterday and I’m fine, so why couldn’t a ‘toon use non-toon things, themselves?” “Whaddaya mean?” The woodpecker tilted his head. “Aren’t you a ‘toon, too?” “What?” Joseph blinked. “Of course I’m not a ‘toon. Why would you think–” Woody held his cigarette in two gloved fingers and pointed across the road. Joseph jolted as he watched what appeared to be a pair of perfectly normal-looking animal-people – not unlike himself – walk by. One was a strong-looking bear-man while the other was a deer in a short, blue dress. They seemed to be holding hands. “Huh. So I’m not the only Ragnarokian in this place.” Joseph smiled a little. Suddenly, his ears perked and fur bristled. “Wait…”

Joseph looked back to Woody, a look of fear in his eyes. “Are… are you trying to say that those aren’t Beings? Those are ‘toons?” Woody puffed on his cigarette, letting the smoke come out his nose. “They starred in a juice commercial together, I think…” The fox couldn’t believe it. He looked back over to the duo… then back to himself. “But… but… A… am I a ‘toon…? H-have I been this whole time…? N-no, no! I refuse to believe that! I can’t be…” Joseph looked at his companion. “C… can I…?” “Who knows? Does it really matter anyway?” Woody gave Joseph a little nudge. “Maybe humans are just someone else’s goofy drawings, too!” The fox had to blink at that. What Woody had just said was… rather insightful, to him. In a way, the little woodpecker had put things into a rather odd, but somehow comforting, perspective… “You know, you’re right,” the fox said as the smile returned to his face. “Who cares. ‘toon or Being, I’m me regardless! So… yeah.”

“So now that you’ve gotten that existential crisis outta the way…” Joseph tilted his head. Woody was looking right at him now, the half-smoked cigarette still hanging in his beak. “Care to explain why you made that big scene back there, pal?” “Oh, uh…” The fox rubbed the back of his head. “I… I still don’t know. I guess I was just… I dunno… angry? I didn’t exactly come here by-choice…”

“I see.” Woody looked up into the painted sky of ToonTown and leaned back against the bench. “And… why did’ja drag me along for it? I thought ya didn’t want anything t’ do with me.” Joseph winced, his ears folding. “That’s… not…” Woody jabbed his fingers in the fox’s face before he could finish his thought. “‘Somewhere that doesn’t involve you!’ Your exact words, n’est-ce pas?” He didn‘t understand that last bit, but had to agree… “That’s… that’s what I said, yes, but…” “So why!” The woodpecker stood up, getting his smoky face right up in Joseph’s. “Why didn’cha just leave me there to sulk if ya don’t wanna work with me?!” “Look!” Woody jerked back, fumbling with the cigarette that popped out of his mouth. He was genuinely surprised by that response… “I said… I mean…” Joseph looked away. “I didn’t mean what I said the way I said it, okay? I just… You’re very…” “Loud?” Woody replied. “Obnoxious? ‘toon-y? Annoying? Jerk-y? Uhh… stop me any time here, pal!” “Why?” The fox gave the bird a little grin. “You’re doing such a good job.” Woody grinned in return, shaking his head.

“But seriously…” Joseph looked to Woody. “I didn’t mean to hurt your feelings, Woody. Actually, I should be grateful for meeting you.” “Oh?” The woodpecker flicked his cigarette on the pavement. “Why’s that?” “This might sound familiar…” he said with a grin, “but you’re the first friendly face I’ve met since coming to this place. Even if you have a… funny way of being friendly.” “Well hey! If I didn’t tease ya,” Woody said with a smile of his own, “how would’ja know I liked ya?” “Hah! That sounds like me…” “Well then! ‘toons like us’ve gotta stick together! Am I right, pal?” Joseph blinked at being called a “‘toon” again, but gave a nod. “Put’er there,” Woody said, extending his hand. The fox gave him a suspicious look… “No zappy-hand-things, alright?” “Ya mean a joy buzzer? Naaah,” the woodpecker replied. “We’re havin’ a moment!” “Right. Well if that’s the case…” Joseph opened his arms, gesturing with his head. “Weeell…” The woodpecker debated before giving a nod. “Okay.”

Joseph chuckled slightly as he hugged the little woodpecker, the bird hugging right back. When he started purring, however… “Whoa whoa whoa, pal!” The fox blinked as Woody hopped back with an odd look on his face. “Let’s not get too cozy, huh? We’ve both got girlfriends, after all!” “What?” Joseph tilted his head. “The redheaded cutie!” Woody tilted his own head. “Or did’ja forget?” “Sh… she’s not my girlfriend…” Joseph said, his ears folding. The look on his face made Woody realize he’d touched on a sensitive topic…

“A-anyway…!” the bird said, tossing his cigarette butt into a nearby trash can, “What’s say we kill some time, huh? Mona gets off at 12 and I wanna be there to watch!” The fox blinked, his ears flicking. “W… Woody?” “Not at the moment!” The woodpecker wagged his eyebrow at the fox. “What the–” Joseph hid his face. “Woody, what the heck? Now I know you’re doing it on-purpose!” Woody laughed. “What’s a lil’ blue humor between friends? Right, pal? Besides!” The woodpecker hopped back on the bench and gave Joseph a nudge. “Aren’cha into scaly babes?” “I’m more into feathers, actually…”

Both froze on-the-spot – Joseph because he’d just realized how badly his knee-jerk, truthful comment could be taken, and Woody because… “Pal, I told’ja!” he nervously said, “I have a girlfriend!” Joseph suddenly grinned, his face turning predatory. “Threesome. Score…” “I really don’t think Winnie’d– ah-daaah– wait a minute!” Woody closed one eye, giving Joseph a dirty look. “Are you just messin’ with me??” The fox rolled his eyes upward and smiled. “Wouldn’t you like to know.” This caused the woodpecker to laugh. “Oh, I think we’re gonna get along juuust fine! But ah, pal? Just to let’cha know?” Joseph jerked as Woody jumped into his lap and grabbed him by the collar. The woodpecker got dangerously close to his face, the bird’s green eyes glaring into his golden ones. “If you ever talk that way about my Winnie again, I’ll peck your god damn face off. And trust me… I’d go for the eyes first! Got it… pal?” The fox swallowed hard, his body completely tense. He had no idea Woody could be so threatening… “Y-y-yeah…” he nervously replied. “I-I got it.” “Great!”

Woody hopped back down to the pavement and cheerfully looked up at Joseph with a smile. The fox was still recovering from the seemingly sincere threat the woodpecker had made, his ears half-folded and fur slightly bristled. “Let’s go have some fun before Mona gets off, huh?” Woody said. Joseph cleared his throat and gave a nod, standing up and letting Woody lead the way. Soon the duo was off on a short, but memorable little adventure together.

The two burned quite a lot of time exploring the Universal District of ToonTown. At one point, they’d hit a mini-mall and found an arcade full of retro video games Joseph had never heard of, but seemed fairly good at regardless. At another point, they hit the park and just relaxed, talking about this-and-that. When the topic turned to Joseph’s night again, though…

“So, how did things turn out with that redhead anyway?” The fox looked away, ears folding again. “That bad, huh?” “I kissed her,” he confessed. Woody perked. “Oh?” “She didn’t like it.” The woodpecker lowered. “Oh…” “Yeah…” Joseph shook his head. “I shouldn’t have pressured her… I should’ve known better!” “Sometimes, ya just gotta listen to your heart and hope for the best, pal!” “Yeah, well… it ended horribly. She couldn’t get the heck away from me fast enough…” Joseph looked down. “She must hate me…” “Do you know that she does?” The fox blinked. “What? Of course she–” “Do you know… that she does?” Woody repeated. He paused… “N… no.” “Well then you can probably fix it!” Woody smiled. “After we get done here, just go to her place and–” “No!” Woody jolted as Joseph loudly replied. He then listened as the fox started up…

“No. No… just no… I– I refuse. At least… at least until I’m in a better position… finance-wise… Maybe on my own two feet and living somewhere… I dunno… She… she’s having a hard time, herself, despite having a job. I just… I don’t want to face her, knowing she might make that same offer of letting me stay with her again… I don’t want that… I-I mean, I kinda do? But…” “Joseph!” It was the fox’s turn to jolt, then. He blinked, looking over to Woody. The bird had a compassionate smile on his face. “It’s okay. I understand. You don’t have t’ talk with her if you don’t want to! And besides, you’re right! Getting on your own two feet is waaay more important right now!” Joseph took a deep breath, giving a soft nod to the bird. “So let’s go see if Mona’ll take pity on two poor slobs who’re down on their luck, eh?” “Heh, yeah. Worst-case scenario, she says ‘no’ and we go somewhere else.” “That’s the spirit!” Woody said with a wink. “C’mon, pal! Let’s go!”

The two caught the next bus back to the crossroads of Lantz and King. Soon enough, they were outside the diner again. To their surprise, however, Mona was already standing outside waiting for them, still in her pink dress, scarf, and high-heeled shoes but lacking the apron. “Hey!” she greeted. “I was looking for you two! Where’d you go?” “Oh, you know…” Joseph said, rubbing his arm. “Places.” “So? What are you waiting for? Come in!” Joseph gave a nod and gestured for Woody to follow him. The two then followed Mona into Joe’s Diner.

“So…” Mona said as the trio had been found their way to the back-corner table of the diner. “Let’s talk turkey, fellas. What are you really looking to do here at Joe’s?” “Honestly speaking…” Joseph said with a hand gesture, “anything is perfectly fine.” “Can you cook?” said another figure that had joined them, sitting beside Mona. This second figure was a slightly-shorter, but very attractive mink. She had long, flowing blond hair and a blond tail, blue eyes, white fur, and a pink nose. She was also wearing an outfit very similar to Mona’s, but with an apron and hat. Her name tag read “Minerva” and also told Joseph and Woody that she was the second-shift manager.

At the question, the fox looked to Woody. The woodpecker gave a shrug and a grimace. “I’m guessing that’s a ‘no…’” Mona said. “We don’t need greeters or waiters right now, either… In fact, there’s not much room in the payroll for any normal position! We may have to get a little creative! Hmm…” The two could hear Mona tap her shoe on the floor as they watched her put a hand to her chin, a thoughtful look on her face. “Can you guys at least wash dishes?” Minerva asked. “Well, yeah,” Joseph said. “Of course!” Woody added. “Alright, then!” Mona smiled. “Everyone’s gotta start somewhere. So, how’s this sound? We’ll bring you guys in part-time to wash-up between first-and-second shifts.” “That’s when we’re at our busiest,” Minerva added. “Are you okay with working four-hour shifts right now?” “Like you said,” Joseph answered, “Everyone’s gotta start somewhere.” “And it’s better than livin’ penniless on the street!” Woody laughed. “That’s what we like to hear,” Minerva said in her soft, silky voice. She and Mona then held their hands out to the duo. Joseph gave Woody a look and he sheepishly grinned. The fox apparently remembered the last time hands were to be shaken… However, Woody behaved himself and shook Minerva’s hand while Joseph shook Mona’s.

“By the way,” the second-shift manager said. “My name is Minerva, like the name tag says. It’s nice to meet a couple of guys willing to do some manual labor.” “Honestly,” Woody said, “I was gonna see if my pal Wally could get me a job. But I guess Joe’s method worked just as well!” “And to think…” Mona grinned. “I was going to call the ToonTown P.D. on you!” “Kinda glad you didn’t, Miss Mona,” Joseph said with a nervous chuckle. “Please. Just ‘Mona’ is fine!”

With their situation sorted, the two ordered some celebratory lunch and spent some time with Mona, Minerva needing to get back to work after the impromptu interview. Mona then excused herself after tearing through her chicken sandwich, leaving the two newest employees of Joe’s Diner to sit and chat amongst themselves.

“So…” Joseph said between bites of his fish sandwich, “that was wild.” “Boy, I’ll say!” Woody grinned over his plate of nachos. “But thanks t’ you losin’ your temper, we’ve got work!” “Well… I probably wouldn’t have been so forward if it wasn’t for me being such a jerk to you earlier…” “Water under the bridge, pal! Put ‘er there!” Joseph chuckled, extending his hand to the bird. When he’d grabbed the bird’s hand, however… “Dgvzaglfglblk–!!” The fox’s fur poofed out and a little cartoon smoke fluttered from the tips of his ears. Woody brightly smiled, holding up his hand. “ACME-brand Jumpin’ Jupiter Joy Buzzer! Gets ‘em every time!”

As Woody did his trademark laugh, the diner erupted into applause. The bird then jumped on to the table and bowed. Meanwhile, Joseph just muttered and rubbed the bridge of his muzzle… “Trinity above, what have I gotten myself into…?”

#commercial characters #The Woody Woodpecker Show #Woody Woodpecker #Raw Toonage #Bonkers #Bonkers D. Bobcat #Bubsy #Bubsy Bobcat #Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles #Mona Lisa #Rocket Power #That's the Spirit Guy #Animaniacs #Minerva Mink #comedy #slice of life

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