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thatonealise · 3 years

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On Worlds.

We inhabit them. We've christened ours Earth, but there are some who call Middle-Earth their home. I've heard many dashing tales from the Borderlands, and on all too many occasions guested in Azeroth. All these faraway lands are unique in their own right, sporting flora and fauna so diverse it really does make one wonder how such things came to be, whether out of nothing, or out of the wilds of human imagination.

I've always been under the impression that it would take a person too much blood, sweat and tears to fashion one. But here I stand, alone, and I need a place to set my latest overambitious and never-ending enterprise. It's a habit I'd always detested deep down, but came to respect over time, and now I say it is the prospect of making something grand, chipping away at it day and again, that gives me one more reason (among many, mind you) to get up early in the morning, and wonder what aspect of it am I going to work on next.

So it is, that I've been pondering on the sort of a world I would want you, the Player, to quench your wanderlust, and perhaps take your subconscious somewhere it has never travelled.

My research -- that hunt for inspiration, artistically speaking -- took me to media I have and have never ever witnessed, or heard, or read, or seen. I've browsed art, played this game and that; I've watched film and series, and I've brushed the dust off some of my forlorn literature. I've even dared to show up in the local library for once in an embarrassingly long (by a reader's standards) while, and borrow a "manuscript" or two I thought had a few interesting ideas. But, I have to admit, Stack Exchange remains my personal favourite. There are so many great minds there, with an equal knack for world-building, and even more thought-provoking questions granted inspiring answers. I can't recommend it enough.

On to the point, though, and it is that I've compiled a list of "archetypes" to take into consideration building my own world:

Earth-likes

What a surprise, huh? I believe it to be the most widespread archetype, and it is rather self-explanatory. An Earth-like world is more often than not a carbon copy of the blue planet (or our rather milky galaxy), with oceans and continents shuffled a notch to dodge the cosmic copyright, so to speak. It is again most common, and for a good reason: we know plenty about the science that keeps such worlds (and, by extension, our own) spinning, and the life living the way it does. It is a solid point of reference, backed with facts and studies so easy to look up on the web, or anywhere bookish, and it is always oh so tempting to use.

A few notorious examples taken from modern authors include...

...a continent under the influence of Celtic and Germanic myths; known as Middle-Earth of J. R. R. Tolkien.

...the super-continent of Stillness by Nora K. Jemisin.

...the Present World, to some extent a mirror of ours, and found in Kentaro Miura's Berserk.

...or the unforgiving deserts of Arrakis, credited to Frank Herbert.

...or Faerun, the iconic setting of Forgotten Realms.

...or even the Journey, courtesy of thatgamecompany, and the dunes one has to slide down rushing to the mountain's peak.

If at least two of the above ring a bell, you may have an idea of what brings all these worlds together, and by extension, what I think constitutes an Earth-like world. If not, then let me illustrate my point instead:

Go on, draw a comparison! It wouldn't take a particularly perceptive eye to notice that even a seemingly outlandish example, the desert planet of Arrakis, shines features not too unlike those we may find here on Earth, albeit "turned up to eleven," for the lack of a better expression. They are planets filled with oceans, and continents in between the oceans, most of them, and in general they follow the same rules we follow in our universe: desert storms rise as the wind blows, plates collide to erect mountains, and sentient life is soon to usher in an age of civilisation. Physics and passage of time progress the world as you would expect them to.

Naturally, there will be a degree of variation between Earth-likes. George Martin's Westeros, for one, is an otherwise conventional continent subject to unconventional seasons, some so abnormal they shape entire cultures -- consider the Long Night, for instance, and the impact it had on the Westerosi folklore.

Let's touch on Arrakis again: it is too an Earth-like world at the core, that suffered from a speculated misfortune of a near-miss encounter with a comet, and what once might have been an arid and bountiful world has now been left a scorching desert inhabited by massive sandworms that have evolved to swim through the sands as though they were oceans, and gobble up the teeny-tiny human wanderers crossing their "soil." A few similar worlds come to mind: Kharak, just as extreme and featured in the Homeworld series, and the much more famous Tatooine, the brainchild of George Lucas.

This big quirk -- extreme weather, unpredictable seasons, or morphed geology, or fictional species -- I prefer to dub "the Twist." It is something, a phenomenon or fact of life, that sets this world apart from ours -- something you can use to suggest that the world at hand is its own, and not Earth put in an alternate reality. Extreme biomes of Arrakis or Kharak, and bizarre seasons of Westeros, are just two examples of the Twist. Magic and magical beings found on Azeroth, or in Faerun, is another.

While the Twist is found in all archetypes, I'm of the opinion that Earth-likes depend on it more than others. Take away the Twist, and you will be left with yet another exoplanet, abiding by the rules we all know and, to be frank, find them too mundane to entertain us, or to leave a lasting memory.

As you'd expect, this was the first archetype I visited and considered for my game. The Twist I wish to feature, to go hand in hand with game mechanics I have devised, is the marriage (or clash, depending on your point of view) of science and magic, and the many ways cultures practicing either-or-both would balance them out, or tip the scales in one's favour if they so desire. I'm also very keen on endangering the Player on their journey, which I want to be perilous, and for it to matter more than the destination. Think of it as a world of vagabonds and gallivants, travelling from one bizarre place to a place twice as otherworldly, and embarking on life-threatening quests.

I've considered several worlds, most notably Kharak -- whose native species, the Kushan, traverse it on trucks and jeeps and other sand-crawling machinery. Cities on that scorched planet exist as only safe havens around, surrounded with lifeless sands, and to make it from one city to another is a dangerous affair indeed. The theme resonated with me quite a bit, but I did not find desert planets a good choice for my game, for many reasons:

It is, as the name suggests, a giant desert. There aren't that many biomes (just two, in fact, if you count largely mechanical cities as one) for the Player to explore, and there is little challenge in generating them on the fly, as opposed to a more varied world.

Throwing in arid biomes we discover in worlds like Middle-Earth or Narnia, or Faerun, felt far too conventional to me, and in my mind there would not be much room for an apocalyptic event so crippling as to make exploring this world nigh fatal.

Even if I dodged the desert altogether and rolled with a different biome or biomes, I'd still have to balance between two problems I doubt are easy to solve: featuring more biodiversity in a fundamentally monolithic environment, or more extremes in an Earth-like world that would not fit in very well.

Banality. Banality was a major concern for me, as there are oh so, so many Earth-likes out there in the industry, and the last thing I wish for my little side project is to offer yet another one. No sir!

Scope was the last but nevertheless just as important. It is difficult to fill up a giant continent, or continentS, with enough quests and points of interest to keep the Player invested. It is hard enough to produce enough scripted content, a la World of Warcraft, and it is harder still to delegate the creative matters to an automaton (Talking about you, Left 4 Dead!). Earth-likes, to my understanding, necessitate imposing scale, that I can not hope to achieve neither alone nor in company.

So I scratched this archetype off my list, and again I went searching every nook and cranny of the game industry and beyond for patterns and clues to make into archetype...

Otherlands

Perhaps not the best title to describe a world so otherworldly as to defy all laws native to our universe, but I nonetheless thought it described what I had in mind for such worlds best. Exotics, Otherlands, Alternate Realities, you name it: they spit on the natural laws we've always known, and turn what we consider to be natural upside down, from a relative point of view (I'd image they'd think we earthlings bend their ideas of what is natural, vice versa). They more often than not have so little in common with a conventional; continental world, that as a Player, you ought to be born anew, in a sense, as you have to come to terms with the new reality, and learn the rules alien to your human brain-box.

While not so abundant in fiction or film, there is an unexpected plethora of otherworldly examples found in video games. I suspect, as little more than a humble writer and not at all a qualified game designer, that the blame (the reason, rather) is at least in part to be pinned on the freedom of mechanics worlds detached from all physical boundaries allow. You're no longer on Earth; seldom even in our universe, and more often in a dimension forged by game designers to fulfill a very blunt purpose: to serve the gameplay, in full. I'd imagine it is times easier to set a game built on mechanics hostile to laws of physics somewhere abstract; mallable, in a way, to the designer's whim.

Thinking of examples took me to these fine pieces of digital entertainment:

William Chyr's Manifold Garden is, to me, a quintessential Otherland. It is set in an abstract world wrapping on itself, juxtaposing impossible geometry against Euclidean space. About the only link to our reality it maintains is the presence of gravity. Look up and down, try interacting with the objects or solving the puzzles, and you will very soon understand this is NOT the realm accomodative of your earthly instincts.

Alice: Madness Returns, too, features an Otherland (not Otherlands, fellow Alice fans!), a level set among the clouds, far above in the sky -- none other than Cardbridge! Playing cards dwell there, and glide along the windy streams to form marvellous paper castles in the sky, and bridges, and gates for Alice to cross on her way to the evil (is she really?) Queen's heartful (quite literally) domain. Like in Manifold Garden, physics still permeates this world, but the only "actor" it appears to affect is Alice herself. All that surrounds her, on the other hand, behaves in a way we would think odd.

Oddly enough, Valve's Ricochet is one more example of an Otherland, the way I see it. It's set in a pitch black void, a pocket dimension of a sort, and constricts its gunslinging inhabitants to a small archipelago of quasi-futuristic-looking platforms. It is in many ways abstract and disconnected from what we would brand a "real" world; akin more to a simulation than something even an advanced civilisation would be able to orchestrate in the vacuum of deep space. It instead serves a solitary purpose: to be an open and clear arena for the Players to pull off dextereous ricochets and physics-bending leaps from one spot to the next. There are no other earthly rules to govern this world, and beyond the dark arena is the thrice as dark abyss.

Of course, by this logic, one could consider more abstract games along the lines of Tetris Effect or even Pinball Dreams, to also fit under the same umbrella of otherworldness, and I reckon they would be right. Both games take place in places foreign to our expectation for a, dare I say, traditional setting. This is not to say, oh no, that Otherlands belong to just the games -- far from it! Otherlands are to be found in many other media.

Off the top of my head, I'd count that one scene from the cult-classic 2001: A Space Odyssey, as a "classic" Otherland in a mind-boggling nutshell:

The message I'm trying to convey, if not clear, is that Otherlands are very stubborn, and insistent on breaking you as an earthly thinker; to augment your mind and let it comprehend and utilise the new reality and the rules it enforces, like one would use the laws of our universe. "When in Rome," is the mantra they will have you etch into memory, until you think and interact with it as though you had never known another home.

The entire world, in other words, is one big Twist, standing in stark contrast to the little twists applied here and there to an Earth-like dimension. Furthermore, one could even assert that the Twist in an Otherland is turned on its head -- whereas in an Earth-like Twists were other-landish phenomena many in number but little in scope -- the Twists in an Otherland are instead few and far between, and grounded in reality. They are the links linking an Otherland to the Earth-like law. Say, physics would be very much expected in an Earth-like world, but treated as an exotic Twist in an Otherland.

To be a little more precise, an Otherland does not bother to stay true to the mechanics we think mundane and natural. It instead moulds or kills them outright, and throws itself at the mercy of the designer's wants and wishes.

Otherlands were an option, but not the option, that I'd choose for my world. I cherish the freedom they bestow upon you as a designer, but it alone did not convince me to opt for this archetype. Simply put, the downs outweighed the ups:

The world I wish to create will host fantasy far too Tolkien-esque to distance so much from Earth and earthly law. There is, in my view, a strong pull among many dungeon-crawling aficionados towards fantasy, and fantasy I will deliver. My own strain of fantasy, to be clear, but it will nevertheless mandate a degree of reality deemed by me too Earth-like to belong in an Otherland. I just can not see, at this time, a world of fantasy that is also an Otherland, not if I want my world to radiate welcoming familiarity.

This game being an open-ended RPG, it is difficult for me to envision it in an abstract environment. It calls, as I see it, for landmarks sensible to someone never ever "tainted" by the quirks of Otherlands, familiar and homely in a way, based in laws of physics and around points of interest grounded in our reality. Elevating it to be the Twist of an Otherland, brings the latter much closer to an Earth-like, but not quite. Neither this nor that, if you will, and that in turn leads me to the next and last archetype...

Near-Earths

Should you ever run into the same predicament as yours truly did in the paragraph above, I'd strongly advise you to consider Near-Earths. Not entirely Earth-like, but also too Earth-like to fit as an Otherland, a Near-Earth world is based to some considerable extent in the laws and traits of an Earth-like. It takes the best of both worlds -- mind-boggling Twists of an Otherland and experiential familiarity of an Earth-like -- and mixes them up to shape up something in-between.

Near-Earth remains ultimately an extension of an Earth-like world at its core, but to set itself apart it puts an emphasis on large-scale Twists -- that would be considered too outlandish for an Earth-like. One popular trope among Near-Earths is to feature earthly topology, strewn around the universe in the form of isles or even whole continents. Fundamental laws that define an Earth-like it bends to a fictional degree, but preserves the essentials, such as planets or stars or faimiliar dimensions, that make up our universe. Thus the link between our universe and that lives on, and it's easy for a newcomer to the world to find their way around with little to no hand-holding required.

I can't help but conjure up a few shots from Treasure Planet, which I gather needs no introduction, to illustrate my line of thought. Take one of the more iconic stills from this flawed masterpiece, R.L.S. Legacy docked at the spaceport of Crescentia:

It is in many ways familiar, I think, to anyone who has ever been to any run-of-the-mill harbour, except that ginormous frigate appears to stay suspended mid-air, not even ropes to hold it in place, and not at all swaying side to side on the high seas as one would assume. No, in this universe carpenters and shipwrigts build 18th century vessels propelled by internal combustion engines to fly through the breathable expanse that they call Ethereum. Indeed, there it is possible to breathe in space, so long as one stays careful not to lean too much on the taffrail and fall into the Ethereum proper, doomed forever to be a cosmic castaway.

Treasure Planet is very representative of a Near-Earth world, as I reckon the aforementioned scene proves. While grounded in culture and (partly) science of our universe, it strays a lot from what our scientists would deem feasible, to the point that it is fundamentally different from our universe in some respect, such as there existing a breatheable atmosphere everywhere in their universe, but not so fundamental as to defy every law of science we know in our world. Physics, and planets, and other celestial bodies and phenomena still exist there, albeit altered in a variety of ways.

Another such example would the High Wilderness, that we're told to travel aboard a literal locomotive, in the brilliant game and one of my many favourites -- Sunless Skies:

It, too, features all the same biomes and structures and many laws with a basis in our universe, and like Treasure Planet, it introduces a major twist: the space beyond the confines of Earth (which does exist in Sunless Skies, and generally follows our history with significant deviations perpetrated by Masters of the Bazaar) is an intricate maze of seldom interlocked and often overlapping topology, stacked on top of one another, and filled with an atmosphere reminiscent of Ethereum, breathable but named a different name.

It is still familiar enough to us as earthlings, and it would not take a seasoned Otherlander to pick the thing up and know the rules of play by instinct. Sure, we are driving a locomotive through time and space, and pass by living stars that govern all, called the Judgements, but the spaces we traverse and people we meet and phenomena we witness are not confusing in the slightest. Shrouded in mystery, maybe, but ultimately sensisble if given enough thought. There is not another dimension for us to consider, and impossible geometry wrapping on itself to comprehend, as seen in Manifold Garden. Nay.

On the Judgements, as a side note, I've found them to be an interesting twist in and of themselves: they are intended to be the law-makers that decide what is real in this world, and what is not. Kill, or posses them, and the world will return to a chaotic state, easily a contender for the quintessential Otherland.

One last sample for you to taste would be the city-state of Sigil, the center of all planes in the planar world of Planescape (pardon the tautology!). Also an earthly world in many ways, it departs from tradition by dabbling in the ideas of interplanar travel, and whole planes of existence drifting from place to place depending on the belief of its denizens. Name me a single spiral-shaped medieval town suspended miles in the air:

I hope my criteria is now clear, or clear-er, better still if as a day. A Near-Earth has some of its fundamental laws thrown away, or meddled with, but there is always at least some foundation identical to that of an Earth-like.

Enter the Wild

In the end, I had a choice to make; a choice of three options, all of which bore pros and posed cons. Weighing all of them took me several restless nights, about a week in total, and some creative encouragement from a colleague, who suggested I turn to Sunless Skies-esque worlds for inspiration: islands floating in the sky, nurturing islanders and their peculiar settlements. I fell in love with the idea in a heartbeat, and on and on I went searching for references. It implied to me a Near-Earth, and all the marks of distinguishment I outlined before for other archetypes pointed to Near-Earths as the perfect fit for my world.

I settled for a few points of reference, among them...

Variably-sized islands and quasi-continents of Dragon Hungers, complete with pocket cultures and hosts of creatures that dwell there:

"Outdated" and outlandish means of transportation between the islands, like airships or fire-breathing dragons, a la Sunless Skies:

Celestial bodies of Treasure Planet, like black holes or nebulas, making an appearance, though toned down a bit to ditch some of their more destructive and lethal properties. A black hole wouldn't spaghettify you in the blink of an eye, but falling into one will nonetheless bring a swift (albeit not quite so fast and unavoidable) end to your career:

What they amounted to, ultimately, is an amalgamation of varied islands, some as big as a continent, others as small as my balcony, and all sporting ecosystems never-before-seen on most other islands. They are suspended in the sky, fortunate to have a man-friendly atmosphere, with a devilish twist I'd rather keep a secret for the time being.

Wannabe heroes make their living sailing through this sky aboard mighty airships or fire-breathing dragons (among many other means of transportation), from one island and on to the next, undertaking quests and accepting commissions from the locals to earn themselves some sustenance. It's a floating world of vagabonds, gallivanters, and legends-in-the-making.

OR! Those same gallivanters may find a particular island, or spot upon on the island, very tempting to settle on. Indeed, if they so desire, players would be able to adopt a sedentary lifestyle, and see what the wilds beyond the comfort of their heart might bring one treacherously blissful morning...

Us locals have entitled this universe the Wild. Enter at your own risk, traveller, for you may never return. This theme seemed to me like a good middle-ground between all the problems I've outlined reviewing archetypes:

Scope was confined to the typical bounds of an island. Some are bigger than others, no doubt, but all of them are a far cry from the usual dimensions of a continent. A narrow scope, as such, is a scope amiable to developers limited in number, or readiness to tackle an enormous landmass.

Narrowed scope in turn shortens the distance one must travel to leave one point of interest for another. We're feeding two birds with one scone -- there is no need for us, as developers, to fill up the lands betwixt with something for you to do, and you won't have to drag yourself through an overstretchesd piece of half-arsed (pardon my French) filler to finally reach the objective that caught your eye in the first place.

At last, as my colleague pointed out, islands in space are capital. Done before to be sure, that road has been travelled many times (and so were most others), but it is still the Earth-likes that proudly keep at the victorious spree as the dominant archetype among the developers. A Near-Earth to me felt like a fair and much-wanted change of scenery, for once in a blue moon.

A floating world shattered into many habitable pieces by far imposes so many more factors upon the cultures, languages, civilisation, technology, and nature of the wild, that to turn it down in favour of an all-too-researched Earth-like world seemed a lazy way out the massive creative problem, I think, many people of letters and pencil and other trades would be thrilled to approach.

P.S. I do realise all my scribbled judgements are arbitrary, and the lines separating Near-Earth from Earth-likes, from Otherlands, is apparently fine, and entirely subjective. These are little more than my five cents; my five thoughts on the subject, and I personally found grouping these worlds into archetypes a good "bookmark" that I've used and will likely come back to designing my own worlds. Peace.

#worldbuilding #devlog #gamedev

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the-roanoke-society · 5 years

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Where are the trust building, bonding, getting to know each other, agency camping trip/survival trial headcanons? 🌲🛶⛺

in the interest of not stepping on others’ canons, i tried to keep these somewhat brief, fairly vague (and easily contestable, just in case). i love hearing canon from the agents’ themselves best, but before you go, there are a few things i like to think about…

- survival skills outside of relying on tech is a part of every agents’ training. with how often we’re tasked with tramping around deserts, mountains, coasts, it’s important to learn how to adapt and improvise with whatever materials you’ve got on hand. that is, everyone except iuniore, whom wendigo’s pretty insistent is not sent on missions into super rural areas, especially not alone. (“lil’ are you serious? she’s like barely four-eleven, what are you thinking? look, i could punt her across the yard right now, okay, she needs to stay close to home.”)

- naturally, some agents take this all on a bit better than others. seraphim and succubus are two of those agents, but they have the absolute worst luck out of the entire cast. if anything can go wrong, it’s going to go wrong when they’re the ones out camping. (“oh shut the f—oh, forget it, you’re right.”)

- on the flip side, the dynamic duo of the #devil bois, that is, jd and chimera? things fall into place for them so well on their missions outdoors that even lilith is impressed.

- whiskey may not be able to change appearance like houdini can, but he’s exceptionally adaptable when it comes to urban vs. rural environments. houdini—from what i recall—didn’t have the usual rough-and-tumble roanoke trial because she was with statesman, initially. but she’s still capable, still knowledgeable—whiskey taught her everything he could.

- lycan, similarly, didn’t really need a lot of survival training, having experience with taking care of herself out in the wilds of the world (obviously). it’s a well-known fact (“do you mean rumor or something?” “absolutely not.”) that she’s a good luck charm if you’re going out into the boonies. she can smell and see everything a lot of things you can’t, after all.

- everyone also knows that if you’re heading out more to relax and less for work, you always always go to the scribe downstairs. she knows all of the classic campfire stories, even ones not belonging to this century. she credits lilith with half.

- sprite’s main specialty is weaponry and defense, but she invented a laser pointer essentially for starting fires wherever you aim it. this is a fantastic invention, but the downside is that they’re roughly the length of a nail polish bottle and nearly impossible to keep track of. we started off with like ten and we’re down to six. where the other four went, who the fuck knows.

- specter’s been on enough trips with seance and crowley that she can safely tell you “i don’t—i don’t think they process temperature quite like mundane beings do.” cold? what’s that? hot? never met her! it’s hella convenient when shit happens way up north but it can be a little—unsettling to newer recruits.

- ondine’s been trying to figure out a way to, somehow, have a campout on the ocean floor. underwater. she hasn’t quite fit the mechanics together but damnit, there’s got to be a way!

- i wouldn’t say that agency camping trips are really a thing across the organization, since we’ve got to keep so many agents and officers around (you never know what could happen). but i will whole-heartedly endorse the idea of ‘family’ trips in the context of groups of people collectively asking for a long weekend to go into the mountains, or down to the beach, or into the dunes. rougarou, elfin, annabelle, hood and thorn take the absolute best group pictures on those trips, and seraphim knows because she sees them framed on desks, hung on walls. cherished.

- arizona and phoenix are also fans of getting out of dodge for a bit, but their activities to venture towards the uh—explicit. (oh, you two adventurous devils!)

- cherub’s one of the medical officers that tends to stay back around the estate, mostly out of a sharp loyalty to the people in the bay who she needs to watch over. but zed and roxy always bring her back a flower crown. turns out roxy’s an expert on flower weaving, who knew? she always insists on making them for zed (“you—make it feel like the sun’s in my chest, when i see you wear them, z.”). cherub magically preserves them so they stay just as fresh as when she got them.

- sentinel’s another agent that likes to bring back gifts. pressed flowers, crystals, herbs—his presents are all over archivist’s quarters. they help her pull through when he’s got to be out for weeks at a time.

- nova and charlie honestly have the most bizarre camping stories that i’ve ever heard. what do you mean there was a sandworm? you mean like in beetlejuice? wait were you somewhere like where beetlejuice is? is anyone surprised? anyone? no? okay, moving on.

- princess tilde’s not… a huge outdoors person. and pru is physically sturdy enough to withstand a lot of natural forces. but her visual feeds are full of flower gardens, white-painted gazebos and images that judas would easily describe as ‘aesthetically idyllic’—along with tilde’s unabashed grin. and pru decides that yes. this is just as wonderful. just as important. just as good.

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emuftw · 5 years

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Dreamboy Fan theory (Part 1)

TW: mentions of physical abuse, animal abuse and depression

Quick intro! - So with the next episode being the season 1 finale, I thought it would be a good time to share my theory of what is going on at PepperHights. I wanted to share now before the finale comes around and totally proves me wrong but for once I oddly don’t mind. It also goes without saying it is just a fan-theory and it’s not meant to be taken too seriously. With that being said however, I do talk about the themes as tagged so be mindful whilst reading. One key note, going forward when I use “Dane” I will be referring to character Dane in the show. When talking about the real Dane, I will be referring to him as “Producer Dane” when talking about all things outside of the podcast.

Also, this is LONG! When I started this I was hoping for a post similar length to my transcription of the Instagram live. As I keep typing however I realise that to make this flow easier I have split this into two parts. Part 1 will talk about the general theme of “what’s going on” and my guess at how Season 1 will end. Part 2 will carry on with the key points that were mentioned before, but with focus on the characters and how it all links together along with their individual theory’s.

Dreamboy has been an amazing podcast from start to finish. From the music, Character Danes sex drive to the sheer horror which is woven in every episode, it is clear you can see why it was picked up but Night Vale Presents. However, after seven and a half episodes (and a holiday special) there is still a lot of mystery of “what” is going on in the show. As fans we know that there has been a build up to something big happening and with hints of Aliens, magic and the super natural taking place in most episodes. For me though, there seems to be one clear overriding theme that is taking place and that ISNT the idea of there being a giant fish, the fear of giant family corporations going to Jupiter and finding something, the dreams of death or even the sharing of dreams between two strangers.

It’s the horror that comes with mundane life and everyday people itself. For more clarity, I don’t think there is anything supernatural, Syfi or horror going on. Instead, I think this is a tale of people and the hardships of life and how it is perceived via tone which I am hoping to break down in this fan theory! Key themes here are things I have picked up though my own life experiences, what has been said on and off podcast, livestreams, and assumptions from what took place in the original off Broadway production/BTS episode and people who work on the podcast.

At the start of the podcast we are introduced to a morbid way of thinking with Dane’s idea of a supermarket is just one giant morgue of animals and dead plants. This creepy tone is continued throughout the whole story. It’s captivating, it’s engaging and its part of what makes the podcast great but there isn’t something that would count as a big “horror” or “bad guy”. Instead, it’s how Character Dane talks about the supermarket which makes it scary.

This use of Tone and description is used a lot to make us the listener gripped in the moment along with how we imagine and perceive what is being described to us, however, we havn’t yet seem to encounter one key thing which is actually “evidence” of something paranormal. Instead, a lot of what is happening can be put down as as the struggles of life and its affect on ones own personal mental health and personal life experiences that come with getting older as well as how we cope with the events around us. These can be seen in all our “main” characters Dane talks to such as Dane himself, Luke and Critch, all of whom I will talk about more in Part 2. (Note: I don’t include Characters such as Carol and Dan in this as whilst our leads have spoken to them, unfortunately they don’t seem to have a big impact on the story outside of the episodes they are featured in.)

A good example however, of how Danes descriptions of characters and tone can be seen as “something supernatural is going on” is how we perceive Jennifer and the Non-Girl Scouts. When we first meet Jennifer, Dane describes her as a “child who looks like she has been raised by her grandparents”. She is also later described as a “girl scout” and is frequently referred to as a “child”/ “kid”. In a cultural context, when talking about girl scouts, being from England I associated them with our equivalent, who are ages from 7-10 and when she mentions that she and the other two had a “slumber party” it furthers this idea of a young girl. This tone/description sets us up to believe she is very young, which is even more jarring once she opens her mouth and speaks about complex issues such as feminism and equality in their complexity but sophisticated manor. All these Ideas, and Tone, leads us to think that she is “creepy” and “up to something big” in a supernatural sence. However in episode 7 our perception of how we view Jenifer changes.

In the episode Dane asks “what is she twelve?” to which she corrects him and tell us she is actually 13. This greatly surprised me when she told us this, and yet at the same time, for the first time made her human. At 13, we instantly gain between 3-7 years of life experience, meaning by now she is starting to form her own personality and ideology, which is something we expect from a teenager. A teenager talking about toxic masculinity is less jarring than a child talking about it. Whilst people would perceive her as a “child” still, there is a big difference in maturity level and complexity thinking, which means we no longer have a “creepy child girl scout” on our hands, but rather a “young teenager who is making their own choices though understanding social situations”. In this episode have a very human moment of a teenager asking for help as well as frustration break down when Dane won’t give her the keys as he “knows” they won’t open the door. I get the impression this is not easy to do for her, and from the live stream we know she doesn’t like to be messed around. For the first time we have a very human moment where we see her struggles and vulnerability, rather than the creepy tone which has been set by Dane and his narrative.

So with the Idea set that we are dealing with real life instead of a big horror taking place, I would like to also address one of the key areas this applies to as well as what I believe is taking place. I would like to talk about Zoe the Zebra and what has actually happened.

For me personally, I believe that Zoe is already dead, but not for the reason you believe. Early on, in the first episode, we are told that Zoe is an old Zebra who is the Zoos start attraction. A bit of Basic googling shows us that in the wildlife, a zebra can realistically live for 10 years whilst in captivity they can live up to 40 years on record. If we assume that Zoe has never seen the wildlife and was bred in captivity, we can assume she was born into the Zoo around 1990 at the EARLIEST, meaning she’s a pretty old Zebra nearing 30 if Dreamboy is set in 2019. With the Zoo being popular but struggling for funds, and based off the other animals such as the monkey who needs to listen to opera to sleep, we can assume that Zoe did not have a suitable enclosure for her. An unsuitable environment along with being the “star” of the Zoo, it means she was also frequently surrounded by load noises, no enrichments/toys and could have been alone despite being a heard animal. These factors are all key contributors to animals developing some form of Stereotypical behaviour during her time at PepperHights.

(Quick definition break: Stereotypic behaviour is defined as a repetitive, invariant behaviour pattern with no obvious goal or function. Stereotypic behaviour is not seen in animals in the wild and is understood to be abnormal and is therefore a negative factor in conservation captive breeding. Common Stereotypical behaviour includes habits of repartition such as noise making, pacing in the same location and self-mutilation as a result of over grooming AKA not nice!).

Based on what I learned in my time working with animals, this behaviour can also lead to aggression when behaviour patterns are interrupted or the animal is dealing with something they are not familiar with (such as someone breaking into their cage late at night). This sadly what is likely lead to the death of Ian. Whilst in the story it has been said that Zoe’s fate is still to be decided via the judge later in the week, I believe Zoe is actually already dead due to Zoo’s protocol’s that occur in these situations. It is very common when there is an active risk of the safety of the members of public in regards to wild animals, whether they have activity hurt a member of public or not, is too shoot the animal dead on the scene.

I have seen this happen when animals have killed members of staff in Zoo’s, to just lynx’s escaping from enclosures and going into the country side with no interactions with the public at all. If we are to assume that the person who reported Ian’s death also knew the Zoo’s procedures, we can assume that Zoe, who in in a scare fit killed Ian on accident, was shot on the scene to prevent anyone else being harmed. It is also worth noting that currently we do not know if we have seen Zoe since the incident, only that we have heard her cries which could have easily been recorded and played over the speaker system. It is also easy to believe as since Critch has requested no one to be present at her death, Zoe is already dead but Critch wishes to hide that so that people still visits the Zoo to see Zoe one last time before she goes as so many people love’s her. As well as this, it would also explain why there is such a big push for the lost ocean, as their main attraction is already dead.

Going back to the original discussion of theme, This idea of an animal who is kept in a poor enclosure, driven crazy by the noise and consistent lack of respect to then only be added on with her death on the scene is obvious a lot more realistic than the “murderous Zebra” or even the “drag Queen Zebra” which is frequently used to describe the situation. Its sadness of the situation, from an animal never being kept in its natural environment which lead to a young persons death, to the fact that there is no formal closure for this animals death, which leads to the finale being less of a supernatural horror to more of a real life situation which we as society become numb to as we exist day to day.

---

For now, this is all I have for part 1. The idea of nothing supernatural going on is something which seems to be something which is only slightly touched on with the “plot” of Dreamboy. In Part 2, the idea of personal hardships, challenges and how these can link to a more telling story is what I am hoping to cover as well as my own personal theories.

Will hopefully get part 2 up within the next couple of days but till then stay groovy!

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classlesstulip · 5 years

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So I have a question about writing. How in the diddly heck do you come up with an interesting plot and everything in between? My dream is to write my own novel but I have no clue where to start plot wise

Tbh, I honestly have no idea where most of this shit comes from. TLMA was just supposed to be a pornographic one-shot about Julian being rawed to hell and back.

Then Plot happened.

Granted, it took a few chapters for a plot to form. After deciding to make TLMA a string of interconnected smut scenes, things started to coalesce around chapter 5, and things really got going with the first Worm appearance.

An appearance that wasn't planned. At all. In any way, shape, or form.

Once that happened, I took it an ran. Around that same time, I was nerding-out about Tolkien and decided that hey, why not, let's make TLMA a epic.

Now, I have a very loose outline of events that I wanted to happen. I wanted the Idiot Duo to go on an Adventure™. I wanted them to have both happiness and stife, so that they would have the foundations to build a relationship on trust and respect, but I also didn't want it to be a super angstfest. I still have an arc where they get captured, overthrow the government, go thru a mountain chase (where yes, there WILL be a character death: I'll post a warning in the notes for that chapter.), a run-in with Morga, and then something related to Ty's Tragic Backstory™ will cause them to split for a few chapters before they get reunited. Then they overthrow ANOTHER corrupt government (I'm starting to see a trend...), before journeying back.

Which will have it's own set of fuckery, but not nearly as angsty.

Oh, and Ty's Ma, Ionith, will literally bitchslap the horns off the Devil after a bit of angst regarding that whole Masquerade thing.

And the whole Worm thing is going to cumulate in a big kaiju battle with help from Vlastomil. Not saying who he's helping, though :)

I will say, most of this stuff just popped up into my head. BUT! I also read a lot of various sci-fi and fantasy series. A lot of HOW I try to dream, create, and balance my story is influenced by a number of authors and specific books:

Phillip Pullman, "His Dark Materials". Idc that it's technically YA. The amount of sheer imagination and world CREATING this man does is far beyond what most "adult" sci-fi/fantasy novels has. Yes, I'm also pitting it against GOT/ASOIAF. Suck it, Martin.

Ursula K. LeGuinn, and everything related to Earthsea.

Madelein L'Engle (anything by her. Some of her stuff is incredibly surreal).

Deerskin by Robin McKinley. It does have some very disturbing imagery (rape, incest, and a miscarriage), but it is a very fine example of what I would consider a Modern Fairytail. It has a good balance between the mundane and magical, and turns a lot of the modern tropes onto their head. (Yes, it has a happy ending where the love interest's mutually love and respect one another.)

Ann Bishop's Black Jewels or Pillars of the World series. Both are also heavy on darker theams, but also do a good job of protraying the sheer, incadescent RAGE many of the wronged feel. It's really hard for me to describe just what about her writing satisfies me so, but it may be that yes, not everybody has a Happy Ending, but they have a Right Ending. It may not be a good ending, but it IS right.

And Tolkien. Because my Papa read the Lord of the Rings to me as a little child for my bedtime story. I will fight anyone who wants to denigrate him or find him problematic. Was the man born with a silverspoon up his ass? Yes. Did he benefit greatly from the labor of the women around him? Yes. Guess what, though? So did rich female writers of the time. If anyone's going to bash him for that, then bash the rich female writers as well.

I also watch(ed) a lot of sci-fi/fantasy movies. Star Wars (A New Hope) was my intro to Space Opera's when I was eight. Hayao Miyazaki is one of my favorite animation autor's. FF7 was my introduction to long-form storytelling via video games.

Because I have a literall treasure trove of influences, I really and honestly believe that it allows me to come up with the scenario's that I do. Thru the media I consumed, my writing is shaped.

All I can truly recommend is exposure. Read and watch EVERYTHING that you can get your hands on. Don't be afraid to push your boundries. You think "Oh, there's no way that THAT will be believable!" Who say's? Fuck it, just do it. Hell, "Nausaca of the Valley of the Wind" is fucking wild. "Oh, a toxic forest that grew after humanity set fire to itself using giants, and mutated rolly-pollies into literal moving mountains just isn't really plausable."

Bitch, fuck that. Do it. You want to add airships? Add some fucking airships. You want a female Jesus figure? Have her walk over a field of glowing tentacles. Fuck anyone who say's not to do something!

#ask tulip #tulip answers #sorry for rambling #i just have a lot of feelings #fuck the man #raise your freak flag high #write what you want #just fucking go for it babes

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managingmymuse · 6 years

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Thanks for the tag, @elarasterling! Sorry it took me so long to get around to answering it!

1. Would you mind sharing your best line or paragraph?

I’m not really the kind of writer who looks back at her own writing and goes “A+, that’s fab.” I honestly consider myself more of a storyteller, really, in that I don’t care about whether the words are pretty so long as they convey what I want them to say. That said, I’ll still post something. This was a big hit with my writing group.

“If the magic on the threshold had been a rainstorm, the magic inside was a flood. It filtered through the air like sunbeams through dust, ghosting along my skin with the touch of a lover, settling into my belly like the warmest meal. I stood by the doorway, shrouded in shadow, and just breathed.”

2. What’s the first food you’d try from your story?

A lot of the story I’m writing is set in our world, with not particularly novel foods. One food I created for it, though, was a beverage that I described as melted white chocolate. Frothy and smooth and warm. Yum.

3. If you had casting control, would you prefer a film or TV adaptation of your novel?

I actually wouldn’t want casting control? I am terrible with actors. And I’m one of those rare writers who isn’t actually wedded to their characters’ appearances. Whenever I envision a character, I don’t really ‘see’ their faces. I tend to get images only of the backs of heads.

But yeah, I could see a movie or a TV show for my book. A movie would allow the story to be more ‘complete’ (in that it would have one, overarching journey), but a TV show would let you explore lots of the day to day details that I tossed out the window when I sent Lori on a mad dash into worlds unknown.

4. Would you date one of your characters? If so, who, and where would you go together in their world?

I don’t think so. I mean, I’m 29, and I do a lot of writing about teenagers, so that’s kind of a pass. Even in my adult story, I don’t necessarily think of characters as datable for me? Love interests are designed with their ‘other half’ in mind, if you catch my drift.

5. Imagine meeting a villain from your story. They offer to take you away to their world under one condition: you must work for them. Do you accept?

Aww, man. So if we’re talking about the world(s) from Sentinel, I guess not? I designed Lori’s world to mirror our own, so it’s similar to ours in a lot of ways. And the world she visits isn’t that appealing to me? I mean, I’d like to visit, but I don’t think I’d want to be a permanent visitor. Not, you know, at the price of letting wild magic kill a bunch of people.

6. You are cursed to reincarnate as the protagonist from one of your favorite books. You will forget everything in the process so all events may play out. What book do you choose?

OMG, what a question. Hmm… I’m like super obsessed with Kate Daniels right now, but I’m not sure I’d want to be her. I’m not tough enough to survive her upbringing, you know? I like the Dorina Basarab series, too, though. I think I’d do that one. I’d get to be a badass, immortal dhampir with a hot boyfriend and a bunch of awesome, slightly troublesome friends. Yeah, let’s go with that one.

7. What if your protagonist was the one writing a novel and they were responsible for your life? Would you forgive them for putting you through everything that shaped who you are today?

Probably not, lol. I mean, I guess I haven’t really had it that bad, but I guess I’d tell them to get an imagination? The terrible things that happen to me aren’t dragons or curses, but the mundane, soul-crushing realities of getting up in the morning and going to work even though you know nothing is going to change. The loneliness of being passed by or left out. So on and so forth.

8. If you could trade writing in for any other talent, would you? If yes, what? If no, why?

Sometimes I get the urge to splash paint on things, and I wish I had the artistic talent to make that an appropriate outlet. Writing, as a physical activity, is so narrow and so confined. I really wish sometimes that I could fling my words out like paint, and just cover the walls with my emotions. I don’t know if I’d trade for it, though.

9. What’s your worst writing-related fear?

Lately, it’s been that my book is going to be overlooked because my protagonist is an enormous bigot. She’s majorly prejudiced against magic-using folk, and it definitely was meant as a metaphor for the real life hatred and fear that permeates our society. I know what I’m trying to do with the book (and the point, essentially, boils down to the fact that racism/sexism/homophobia are bad, even for the people who perpetuate those ideologies the most fervently) but I worry that in today’s political climate, the nuance of that message will be missed. It’s not that I want people to sympathize with racists (or sexists or whatever); rather it’s that I want to explore the way hateful ideologies perpetuate themselves through fear and distrust and turn living, breathing people into a terrible other. I think too often a lot of relatively privileged people view themselves as allies without really thinking about the mechanisms that underlie prejudice. (Or, to put it another way, without considering why they’re tolerant and their racist uncle is an ass.) My story sort of digs into it from the perspective of the ‘oppressors,’ to use the tumblr social justice speak, and I worry that large swaths of the internet will discount it for just that reason.

10. What message do you wish to convey through your story?

I guess I answered that one already. See above.

Ten more questions for y’all to answer! (If that’s your thing. This took me two weeks to do, so no pressure.) I’m going to pick some recent followers! @squeaky-floorboards, @contradicting, @halfbloodlycan @nobodywritesstuff @thebloodstainedquill, @adaughterofathena, @ladycalliopemoon and anyone who wants to do it! (Tag me!)

1. If you had to pick one genre, and only one genre, to read and write in for the rest of your life, what would it be? Why?

2. What’s the first story you ever remember hearing? Do you still love it as much as you did then?

3. You have to rob a bank with one of your OCs. Which one do you choose? Why?

4. Do you subscribe to the notion of plotters and pantsers when you’re writing? If you do, which one are you?

5. Do you have any favorite tropes, either when you’re reading or when you’re writing? What are they?

6. What’s the best piece of writing advice you’ve ever heard?

7. Where did the inspiration for your current WIP come from?

8. When you’re writing, do you usually start with characters, world, or plot? Something different?

9. If the protagonist of the story you’re working on right now ran for president (or prime minister or what have you), would they be elected? Would they be good at the job if they were elected?

10. If you could order a crossover with two of your favorite books, which books would you choose? Is there something about those books that will yield juicy conflicts when they collide?

#tag game #about me #writing #writeblr #my WIPs #my OCs #WIP: Sentinel #OC: Lori Marks

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chronotopes · 6 years

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i got memed by @pilferingapples

answers (and perhaps questions!) below the cut!

1. you can have any three superpowers you want, no unpleasant side effects, no pesky physics ruining things, standard comic-book-supers level full power. what are you picking?

it’s down to time travel, flight, or teleportation. uh.. time travel would be really sick but probably paradoxy in a kind of freaky way? so i’m saying flight so long as flight can get me places faster than walking which combines its benefits with that of teleportation. flight it is.

2. do you use your powers for Good or for Awesome?

honestly... mainly for mundane things. like, for hitting up audrey whenever i want and for getting places easily.

3. if you could wear whatever you wanted, with social judgement/practicality of any sort being a complete nonissue, what would you wear?

i’d be channeling terrible nineteenth century men literally all the time. from the “showing up at the door after a Wild Romanticism Party, in my shirtsleeves” look to something more polished. but still overall what i imagine the geneva ‘16 kind of aesthetique to be. that or armor of some sort.

4. what’s your favorite holiday?

new year’s eve or bust!!! but not like the boring american kind where you get drunk and stress out about who to kiss or whatever, rather the nice russian kind where you.. probably also get drunk, but ALSO just fucking. roll all important holidays into one and fucking throw down. and like give each other presents also with the whole “secular christmas” vibe.

5. what would your Ideal Home be like? (again, cost and physics and practicality not an issue)

i lack the imagination to come up with really wild things for these? every time i picture my Ideal Home it’s either a) an apartment in chicago and i live there with someone i love and it’s relatively spacious and well-lit and within walking distance of some nice exciting things, or b) a lighthouse on the wild coast of maine where nobody will ever find me or my future lesbian wife, and we have twenty cats which i’m NOT allergic to and an herb garden and we grow wild strawberries.

6. if you could cast yourself into any au setting and have any role you wanted, what would it/you be?

small child voice uh i want to be in starfleet. i have no starfleet-adjacent skills but nonetheless. i can be like. an expert in alien literature. in such a way that makes me a helpful consultant to alien sociologists. hey it’s probably helpful in certain hyperspecific contexts!!! (sideways look at 2x22 the wire). anyway i want to be in starfleet and all my friends are also there? except it’s not during the dominion war or whatever because i don’t want us all to be traumatized.

7. you get to make one law that will absolutely be implemented on a national level for at least ten years, full government support guaranteed. what is it?

uh... universal health care? not to be predictable but that’s the answer that came to mind. i can hit up People Who Know Shit for like, details on how to make it the most effective thing possible because i myself don’t know a damn thing but in concept that’s what it would be

8. is there a historical/cultural figure you think gets a bad rap? maligned, misrepresented, misrepresented, unfairly forgotten? what would you like to say about them?

aah i think . i think a.e. housman in most cases (i’m overlooking tumblr niches here!) is overlooked as one of the staples of Gay Edwardian Poetry and misrepresented as being Dry and Dull and Sad only even tho. surely that is not all he was! that’s what i’ve said about him, what i’d like to say TO him is don’t fuck with straight guys alfred it’s gonna be okay

9. how would you describe your Aesthetic if you absolutely had to?

rugged natural wildernesses that i’ve never been to, autumnal antics, vaguely historical things that don’t really commit to being historical, heavy-handed light imagery(tm) etc

10. what is your favorite monster? individual or kind, either way!

lord george gordon byron

11. you get one kind of magic - necromancy, cooking-related, etc - what would it be?

i want to be able to cross into alternate universes and i’d use it exclusively to watch all the au canonically gay versions that exist of things i like. and to hit up au versions of audrey all mysteriously like when julian “universe prime directive whom” bashir finds o’brien and is like “back in real life, we’re BEST FRIENDS” which is by the way a blatant lie at the time lmao.

anyway i don’t think i have eleven whole people i don’t have unfounded anxieties about tagging, but @themainannoyance @rileyball2 @zulubunsen @scary-faery @butchantigone @clownprophet @cryptyper and like @ anyone else who decides these questions speak to them spiritually

what’s a music album u think is a vital piece of art that u could write a paper about if you wanted to

a thing you like about the month of november

favorite theater experience

if you could travel to any time period where would you go and what would u see

who’s a historical figure you would physically fight given the chance

excluding technology, what physical possession of yours do you most value

if you had to spend a day in the life of your twelve-year-old self what would you do

if you could live literally anywhere where would you go

you can rescue one dead fictional character, fundamentally altering the canon of the established work but not altering the timeline of real life in any way. who do you pick

what songs would you use to describe your mood of the moment

rank the star trek captains from best to worst using whatever pre-existing information you have about star trek captains; if you need to, look them up and rank them based solely based on the vibe you get from them.

#information about myself #and some truly cursed questions

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a-weird-rusted-android · 7 years

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I have a bunch of those11 questions meme behind so I guess I’ll just mass post the answers here.Sorry I’m not actually putting in new questions but it took me 1 hour and a half just doing these and I kinda have to study

Tagged by @therandommeerkat

1) If someone wrote music about you, what genre do you think it would be in? Be as specific or as vague as you want. Not necessarily a style you favour, but one that would suit you (though these will probably align, but maybe not) Idk maybe I'd be some kind of folk song? I'm not even a big fan of folk but I feel like it would suit me somewhat

2) A place that, ideally, you'd be most at peace. Don't be afraid to be mundane A nice cozy room with a fire and me buried under a ton of blankets. The TV is on as almost background noise and I have a cat on my lap

3) Describe an artwork you'd like at your house. Maybe include a picture. And/or a story. Why that artwork? It doesn't have to be deep I'd like to have one of those Escher drawings that make your brain stop working like it's a room that expands forever but it also inside itself. I think they look really cool

4) If you could create your own social media site, what would it be about? Or your own webthing, more widely speaking Dunno. Maybe some sort of forum for people with common interests but I'm not sure what kind of mechanics I'd put in

5) A pet peeve, something that just gets on your nerves. The more pointless, the better I have this teacher who doesn't have any sort of accent at all, except for one word. The word “libro” (book). She says it like “libbro”. And doubling the b's is like a common accent in some areas of the South but she never does it on any other word than that. If she had an actual accent it wouldn't bother me but this is terrible. It's like if someone with a perfect English accent used y'all'd've

6) If you could spend a day somewhere in the past an no one would question your presence, where and when would you go, and what would you do? I could give a thought-out, serious answer to this but I'll just say I'd like to see a dinosaur

7) Describe a sensory feeling or memory of meaning to you I don't remember the name but there are these sort of cherries that are very bright red and they aren't sweet but kind of sour and my grandma used to have a tree of those and in spring me and sometimes a friend would try to take as many as possible of those while being too short to reach most of the branches and unable to climb up on the actual tree. Good times

8) Do you keep a diary? No. Never really seen the point

9) Do you have a collection of anything? If you had unlimited funds, would you start one? The only collection I have are the Pokemon cards I used to buy in elementary school and if I had unlimited funds I think that's what I'm most likely to start collecting again

10) If you could specializa in literally anything, like, on a college level, what would it be? ...but what about a degree in Pokemon

11) And last, and most morbid, how would you like to be remembered when you're gone? On a physical and an intellectual level There is a monumental tomb in an old cemetery. It is made of strange, black stone. Some being that could be an angel if angels were raffigured as they are in the Bible is on top of it, looking down on humanity with empty, eerie eyes, too many eyes. No one knows who let that thing be built. There is no picture of me, only my initials carved in a corner. No one is sure what my real name was. No one is sure who I was, or how I died. There are multiple legends going around, including that I was the spawn of an eldricht being that came from another reality and that the statue is in truth a representation of my real form, and that it comes to life every second Thursday of the month, to find those who blemish the existance of pizza with pineapple and turn all of their socks into sentient creatures

Tagged by @morganalefan

1) Post-apocalyptic universe, fantasy world, hyper technological future or anywhere and anytime you want in the past: which do you choose? Hyper technological future where we also developed magic and found aliens so it's some sort of futuristic fantasy instead

2) If you knew a ghost was haunting your home, what would you do? I would be terrified but also not enough to be bothered to do something about it

3) Whitches: do you think they are valid, do you not share their beliefs but still respect them, or are they just some delusional airheads? (answer sincerely. Don't worry, I'm bound not to harm anyone with my craft ;3 ) Oh well I don't really believe a lot in this kind of things but I see no reason to not respect other's beliefs

4) Let's talk about food: does it make you happy? Is it just a mean to survive? Do you have an unhealthy relationship with it? Food is fucking important to me ok

5) What's your plan for the zombie apocalypse? Do you even HAVE a plan?? ...I'll figure it out when the zombie apocalypse comes. I'm shit at sticking to plans anyway

6) Think any given race an any given class of any given rpg you have ever heard of. Which do you choose? You must stick with it forever! Well Pokemon is an rpg too so yeah I'm going to be a Pokemon trainer. You have awesome pets and travel around and get paid a fuckton of money for everything you do

7) You are given an unlimited amount of money and no restrictions to create your own tv series! What is it about? Do you both write and direct it? Do you call famous actors you like to starr in it or do you cast some promising aspiring actors the world had never heard of? I was hearing a while ago this idea of making a tv series of the Silmarillion and yo. I would fund the fuck out of this. First season is all about the Valar and Melkor arguing and repeatedly fucking shit up and then we have like a lot of other seasons for the real thing. Because let's face it if we gonna do this we have to make things a lot less fast paced than that book because it would be a mess. Well I'm fine both with new and famous actors. I mean for Galadriel I'd still probably want Cate Blanchett because I can only see her that way now but maybe also another actor for when she's younger

8) What's comforting to you? Knowing this Friday and Sunday school's gonna be closed. Very comforting

9) Do you fear climatic change and natural disasters? Yes

10) I want you to feel good about yourself: tell me something you like about yourself. It could be a personality trait, a physical feature, a specific talent you have, something you did you are proud of... Aw thank you. Well the other day I was at my aunt's and she has this cat who is kinda shy around people and I managed to get close to it and pet it and I felt really accomplished

11) And now, tell me something about one of your passions! Anything! (I can't think of any other questions...) (kiddin', I care about you) I love writing. I really love it. It's beautiful how stories just come to life under your fingertips. I adore writing. I don't have about 50 word documents with maybe one sentence written absolutely not

Tagged by @thxstral

1) What TV/book/movie character do you think you're most similar to? What character to do you wish you were more like? Most similar to... I don't know. I'd like to be someone more like Clint Barton. Not the strongest person around and overall pretty chill but willing to lend my help when there's need for me

2) What was the first career you wanted as a kid? I'm not really sure... Maybe superhero or something

3) Would you rather have magic in an ordinary world, or be ordinary in a magical world? Ordinary in a magical world would also kinda imply I would still have some sort of magic so I'd go with the second one. On the other side, I could actually be a superhero if I went with the first one. Mmm

4) If you could live in the world of any music video for a day, what would it be and why? Do anime openings video count as music video for the song because I might just throw myself in a random YuGiOh opening

5) Who was your childhood enemy? (or frenemy) I wasn't cool enough to have an enemy tbh

6) If you could gain any skill with no effort on your part, what skill would you want and why? The skill of remembering things perfectly after having read them once. Why you ask? I'm a student that's why

7) Can you speak any languages besides your native language? Well my native language is Italian so. I mean. Yeah

8) What was the last book you read cover to cover? Ugh I haven't had time to read a lot of things recently. I can tell you what the last book I started was (Licia Troisi's new book) but I'm not sure I remember the last book I actually finished reading. I think I reread the first Harry Potter a while ago but

9) Would you rather be roommates with a ghost or an alien? Depends on the ghost, depends on the alien. Like if it's vendicative murderous ghost vs Spock I'd say Spock. If it's the ghost of Oscar Wilde vs Alien then I might prefer the ghost of Oscar Wilde a little

10) What do you think your superpower would be vs. what would you want them to be? I mean probably I'd have the power to turn invisible because of course I'd have something that can't actually be useful unless I do something like going around butt naked in the middle of winter. What I'd want is probably just some good old super strength. It seems damn useful both as a potential superhero and in my day to day life

11) Someone offers you a briefcase full of cash in exchange for you faking your death and going completely off the grid. Would you take it? GIVE ME THE MONEY

#thanks various people who tagged me

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hawk-in-a-jazzy-hat · 7 years

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Dual Anime Review: Flip Flappers, Magical Girl Raising Project, and the Post-Madoka Magical Girl

The Magical Girl Raising Project is a popular social network game allowing people all over Japan to create their own magical girl heroes, fight monsters and collect points and items. But what most people don’t know is the game’s secret; if you’re lucky enough to be chosen by the admins, you can actually become a real magical girl, complete with enhanced physical abilities and extraordinary magical powers. So it is for Snow White, who takes it upon herself to be a force for good, while getting to know the many other magical girls throughout her city, some of whom are friendlier than others. All’s well and good, until the game’s mascot, Fav-pon, suddenly announces that he’s cutting the number of magical girls down by half...

Meanwhile, in a different show...

Cocona is a middle-school girl with good grades but low self-esteem or ambition. While she struggles to figure out what to do with her life, the eccentric wild-child Papika literally flies into her life and whisks her off to a wondrous and magical dimension known as Pure Illusion. Cocona soon meets the people behind Papika’s journeys, the mysterious organisation FlipFlap, who wants the two of them to travel throughout Pure Illusion and gather the Amorphous fragments said to be able to grant wishes. As they encounter ever more dangerous worlds and even more dangerous organisations, Cocona ends up finding out more about herself, and her own wishes, desires and past, than she could ever imagine...

So, I’m gonna do something different. On the surface, these are two very different shows with very different styles and approaches, and for the longest time I was debating on how best to tackle them. But honestly, despite how different they are they are both magical girl shows. And while there are massive differences between them, both of their approaches can both be tracked back to a single show which, for better or for worse, has completely reshaped this genre for the foreseeable future.

That would be the 2011 show, and my personal favourite, Puella Magi Madoka Magica.

There have been loads of magical girl shows throughout the years, some of which have made their way over to our kid’s TV channels, and some which are lying on the back half of obscurity. Pani Poni Dash, Cardcaptor Sakura, Magical Knight Rayearth, Magical Girl Lyrical Nanoha, and of course, the many many incarnations of Sailor Moon. The main premise is often similar; an average Joe schoolgirl comes across a magical power and becomes a superhero, fighting for justice and looking pretty at the same time. She often gathers a series of friends with their own powers who support her and follow their own storylines, and the stories tend to focus on the power of friendship, positive attitudes and actions, and just generally being a nice person. Yeah, it sounds corny, but honestly as kids’ shows go they range from harmless to actually quite exciting; I remember really enjoying Cardcaptors back in the day (despite the questionable dubbing) and frankly the stories told could be just as epic or intense as your normal superhero show. The magical girl genre was no stranger to dark stuff, or complex stuff, as can be seen with Princess Tutu or Revolutionary Girl Utena. It is, after all, a genre like any other, and you can do what you like with it.

But then came along Madoka Magica, and suddenly, to the anime-creating masses, magical girls could suddenly be a new and unexplored territory.

Madoka Magica took the genre and flipped it on its head. Whimsical fantasy gave way to brutal reality, the power of friendship gave way to the flaws of human nature, and the bright, pastel worlds suddenly seemed far more dangerous and foreboding than they’d ever been before. Whether you like the show or not, there’s no doubt that it did for magical girls what Evangelion did for super robot shows. Madoka Magica has become an icon, and ever since, magical girl shows have and will be judged by that standard, whether unfairly or intentionally.

There’ve been a few definite attempts to cash in on Madoka’s popularity in the ensuing years. Day Break Illusion was one of the first, coming out in the summer of 2013 to the raucous sound of people not caring. Whereas Madoka was subtle in its approach, Day Break Illusion was a blatant attempt to be ‘dark and edgy’ just because Madoka did it. Of course, as I’ll explain later, that doesn’t necessarily make it a bad show. No, it’s the bad cliche characters, terrible plot twists, lack of focus, contemptible fanservice, 2deep4you attitude and general messy aesthetic that makes it a bad show. But I digress.

There have been other notable ‘post-Madoka’ works throughout the years as well, including Wixoss and Yuki Yuna is a Hero, both of which I’ve heard mixed things about but sadly have not seen yet. I daresay there have been others as well that have slipped under the radar. But the point is, magical girls have not gone anywhere, as is evident from the two shows that came out last season. But even though Madoka is over five years old now, its influence isn’t going anywhere either.

In some ways, this is utterly obvious, as can be seen with the first of these shows, Magical Girl Raising Project. Now, this is actually an adaptation of a light novel that was published in 2012, only a year after the release of Madoka. I can’t and won’t say whether the novel itself was directly inspired by the show; there may have been enough time but I daresay the idea was there before Madoka came out. What I can say though is that even if the novel is definitely not inspired, the anime certainly is.

Let’s take a break and mention the production, as I usually do at the beginning. The studio behind this is Lerche, probably most famous for Assassination Classroom and DanganRonpa the Animation. The look of the show pretty closely follows that formula; it’s...decent. Characters are always on model, but often look a little stilted and wooden. The animation is good but nothing spectacular. The direction is very by the books and straightforward, but at the very least it’s not bad. Just unambitious. The music is the same; the pieces do the jobs they’re supposed to, and are never particularly standout or particularly distracting. It’s weird how mundane the production feels considering how dark and brutal the subject matter gets, and honestly I think that works against the show; it’s one thing to pretend the show is all happy-clappy and jolly and then hit the Sudden Dark Turn button, but if the show’s already kinda muted and, let’s face it, bland, the brutal twists don’t hit as hard.

And yes, this show is brutal. Whereas Madoka is sort of ambiguous until the infamous episode 3 (and even then, is nowhere near as dark as some people like to make out) MagiPro gives you only one episode of Shiny Happy Funtimes before it hits you with dark twist after dark twist after dark twist. The fights are brutal and bloody, the characters are pushed to their limits, and just when you think it can’t get any more messed up, you get proven wrong the very next episode. This show is utterly vicious.

Normally, this would put me right off. Vicious and brutal for the sake of vicious and brutal can very easily come off as tasteless and offensive if done even vaguely right (see: Elfen Lied), and utterly laughable if done wrong (see: Mirai Nikki). I was ready to go into this show and tear it a new one; I had virtually no expectations. But the funny thing is...it works. As much as the production is bland, the actual story itself has a heck of a lot of thought put into it. About four episodes in, I found myself really enjoying it, and wondering where it was going to go next. I was interested. I was excited. It was trash, but it was lovingly crafted trash, and such trash demands my attention.

There are a couple of reasons. Part of that is the characters, although not because any of them were particularly deep or complex or anything. They were just fun. Some very unique designs, and all of them had unique personalities, stories and interactions. It certainly helped that, although Koyuki was supposedly the main girl, the show actually gave sufficient screentime to...pretty much everyone now I think about it. The balance is just right, with the slightly more troubled characters staying around for longer and ‘leaving’ just at the right time. It wasn’t perfect (I’ll get into that in a minute) but it was far better handled than, say, Mirai Nikki, where half of the ‘contestants’ had barely any screentime, character, or both. And there were 16 magical girls (plus Fav-pon) mingling around here, and only 12 episodes to do it all in. I’ll admit, that’s impressive.

That’s the other thing though; the pacing was absolutely spot-on. Right from the get-go, the stakes were there, and you got to see what everyone was up to. It’s hard to describe how essential good pacing is to storytelling, but MagiPro is the show to bring up as evidence for why. Even at its trashiest, the handling of the story itself was really rather masterful. And that’s the other thing; the show was very self-aware. Not in the way that it was constantly turning to the camera and making 4th wall jokes, but rather that the tropes that usually come up in these things kinda did...but then got twisted around at the last second. If I were to give you all of the characters at the beginning of the show and ask you to guess what happened, chances are you’d make a few wrong guesses. As I said, the characters themselves aren’t particularly complex, but the way they’re used feels fresh and new. For the most part.

It’s easy to see the influence from Madoka Magica here, but does it actually work as a successor? In many ways, it gets a lot of things right. It takes the Dark Magical Girl tone and plays around with it, making a show that is actually entertaining, which is always a good start. And of course, it’s far darker and more brutal than Madoka ever was. So is this really the second coming? Eeeh....no. Not really.

For a start, MagiPro has problems. And when MagiPro shows its problems, it really goes downhill. Whereas most of the characters are handled well, one or two really miss the mark. There’s a character called Top Speed who, while a fun character in her own right, has one of the most predictable and hammered-in ‘stories’ I’ve ever seen. They try, lord knows they do, but it’s really difficult to feel any sort of emotional attachment when all she’s doing is spouting clumsy foreshadowing. And where she gets a bit too much, there are a few girls who really don’t get enough, especially with all the build-up some of them get. There’s an attempt there, and most of them get backstories or context (albeit often quite clumsily), but there gets to be a point when they really don’t have much reason to be there.

And that’s the biggest problem with MagiPro; for all of its clever writing and excellent plotting...it really doesn’t have a point. The story just starts, people die...and then it kind of stops. At a stopping point, yes, but it almost feels like a prologue. Maybe they’re waiting on a second season, I don’t know, but as it stands it definitely feels unfinished.

But you could say the same thing about Madoka Magica if you look at it objectively; that has quite an open end as well. But the thing is, the characters are rounded off. The themes reach a natural conclusion. MagiPro doesn’t really have any themes; it’s just pointless violence for the sake of pointless violence. It’s easy to see the influence from Madoka, and the good plotting from Madoka, but unlike that MagiPro just doesn’t really have anything to say. It’s like a bloody fireworks display; pretty and impressive at times, but nothing really substantial.

Despite what many people may think, Madoka Magica is not a great show just because ZOMG DARK SUBVERSION. That’s certainly an aspect it has, but it’s not what makes it special. It has a story to tell and a moral to show and characters and a world to explore while doing so. The problem with most so-called ‘ripoffs’, no matter how good they are, is that they fail to actually understand what makes the original so iconic in the first place. It’s just an attempt to cash in on the popularity, without the effort needed to actually understand them. It’s not just an anime thing either; look at the DC vs Marvel thing going on right now. The MCU, for all its problematic elements, has a definite direction, character arcs and subtle elements and foreshadowing to make everything feel that much more real. The DC cinematic universe is just trying to slam together as many things as they can, get the big events and the big villains and...it doesn’t work. Even if the film itself has good elements (Suicide Squad) it doesn’t feel natural, or real, or integrated in the way that it really should in the bigger picture.

Basically, Magical Girl Raising Project feels like the anime version of Suicide Squad; a decent flick with great elements that ultimately misses the mark on what it’s actually trying to be. And that’s almost a shame, because there’s obviously a lot of effort going in.

So that’s the obvious Madoka ripoff, but what about the other show? On the surface, Flip Flappers seems like something completely different and new. But I promise, the influence is still there; just implemented a little differently.

So how is Flip Flappers’ production? Well, the studio behind it is the relative newcomers 3Hz, who haven’t really got a lot on their backlog; I think the only major thing they’ve done is Dimension W from early 2016. That being said, it’s clear they pulled out all the stops with this show because it looks absolutely phenomenal. I’ve always preferred the rougher, sketchier animation style to the real smooth polished stuff that tends to come out nowadays; Flip Flappers kind of has the aesthetic of a studio Trigger show, but without the off-model characters and clear budget cuts, making it a feast for the eyes alone. Even the real-world stuff is pretty, with very unique and wide-eyed character designs, and once we actually get into Pure Illusion? Ooh boy...every world looks different and every one is a fireworks display of colour and sakuga, and the occasional batpoop insanity. If you want to get a taste of the show at its best looking, watch the third episode. Just the third one is fine; the backgrounds, locations, characters, and especially the fight scenes are glorious to behold. The music is also unique...ish. It definitely has a style all of its own but I’m struggling to think of any tracks that really stood out to me. I will say that there are one or two that I swear sound like something from Spyro: A Hero’s Tail, but that’s just me. The opening’s pretty, and the ending is just adorable, with a little bit of a sinister edge in the fairytale setting. Flip Flappers has a look and a sound all its own, so when it sneaks the slightly darker tones in (say, a living brain in a robot, or a creepy as all heck goop witch), you don’t quite realise the Madoka influences are there, but they are.

Because behind the bright colours and the whimsical adventures is actually quite a mature story, and one that might well have gone over a lot of people’s heads. The amount of fanservice (some of which is admittedly unnecessary, although also quite creatively symbolic), sexual themes and the interactions between the two mains might suggest this is nothing but crass yuri-baiting, but honestly there’s more to it than that. This isn’t just a fantasy adventure; it’s a coming-of-age story. It’s the development of a young relationship through the eyes of an adolescent, and how the worlds of children, adults and those inbetween collide. It’s really quite clever and I should really rewatch it to see if I can pick out some of the symbolism in the background. Certainly there are some great bits of direction and allusions to optical illusions (hehe) that are well-handled and, again, give the show its own style.

I’ve been talking about Madoka but the far clearer comparison to make is with a Kunihiko Ikuhara show, with the bizarre locations, character development done through symbolism and action rather than exposition and dialogue, and the general otherworldly, almost fairytale-esque nature. Also, lesbians. You can argue yuri-baiting all you want, but just like in those shows, the symbolism and intent is definitely on a gay relationship. It doesn’t have to be explicit like in Yuri!! On Ice to be effective or heartfelt, and the characters do not need to kiss in order to make the relationship ‘proper’. Yes, I’m looking at you Tumblr.

Is the show perfect though? Weeeeell...no. Apparently the head writer left halfway through and somebody else took up the reins, and it shows. The writing never gets bad but it suddenly leaves behind the clever symbolism and relationship building and instead focuses on a deep conspiracy plot that honestly comes out of nowhere. Ideas which were built up in the first half are kind of sidelined for a lot of really confusing backstory and some scenes which are just blatantly ripped from Evangelion, and as much as they try to tie everything together, there are big gaps in the final story. What is the deal of the other amorphous child, and the twins? We never really find out. What are Hidaka and Sayuri’s stories? We never really find out, although you could make a solid case that episode 8 delves into Hidaka’s mindset through Bu-chan. That’s not to say it’s ‘bad’, but all the build-up and subtlety from the first half is just sort of forgotten. Thankfully the series does eventually get back to its roots and the main focus it should be on; the world according to Cocona, and her relationships (familial, platonic and romantic). There’s a character I’ve neglected to mention called Yayaka, who honestly has a brilliant arc from beginning to end, and may even be more interesting than Cocona. Even when the show’s writing does lose track, the solid base is still there.

In many ways Flip-Flappers is the antithesis to Magical Girl Raising Project; it’s a visually ambitious production with a lot of great ideas and some marvellous character study, let down somewhat in the end by some lacklustre plotting and pacing. And yet both shows are good. Really good, in fact, despite the flaws. And definitely a product of the post-Madoka anime world.

See, while MagiPro is a clear spiritual descendent of Madoka, I’d argue that Flip-Flappers has been influenced even more. Because as I said, the entire point of Madoka is never that it was dark. The point of Madoka was to take a magical girl, and explore the humanity behind her. It does for magical girls what things like The Dark Knight and Iron Man did for superhero movies, or Evangelion did for mecha shows. Magical girl shows prior could be complex, and could be dark, and could be undoubtedly human. But Madoka Magica took that concept and showed it to the world, and frankly, Flip-Flappers is far more its child than MagiPro is in that regard. Flip-Flappers is a show so in tune with human nature and human relationships that it kinda sorta works to its detriment, although not enough to stop it from being a great show.

But of course, this is all just conjecture on my part. What I can say though is that, despite being remarkably different, both of these shows are really very good and you should watch them. If you’re a person who prefers solid storytelling, shocking twists and thrilling entertainment, Magical Girl Raising Project is the show for you. If, however, you prefer ideas to stories, and would rather explore a character than see them in a fight to the death, or you just want to marvel at the fantastic worlds, then you’ll probably prefer Flip-Flappers. I definitely fall into the latter category myself.

Still, whichever you prefer, it’s reassuring to know that magical girls aren’t going anywhere soon. As proven with superheroes, they are not just kids stuff, or lazy shows with simple characters and lessons on friendship. They never have been. They have the potential to be something great, and in a community changed by a show about a shy, pink-haired girl in a big nasty world, we’re certainly going to see a lot more of that greatness coming soon.

I’ll say it here so I’ve got it in writing; I love magical girls. They are incredible heroes. They are inherently human. And they are utterly magnificent.

My scores:

Magical Girl Raising Project: 7/10

Flip-Flappers: 8/10

#magical girl raising project #mahou shoujo ikusei keikaku #Flip-Flappers #flip flap flip flap #anime 2016 #Fall 2016

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symbianosgames · 7 years

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

[Video Game Deep Cuts is a weekly newsletter from curator/video game industry veteran Simon Carless, rounding up the best longread & standout articles & videos about games, every weekend. This week's highlights include behind-the-scenes on Hidden Folks, an interview about the Coin-Operated Americans book, interviews from E3, and much more.

Well, am back from Los Angeles, attending E3, which was - well - not that different that anyone might expect. Lots of hype and excitement for large AAA games, most of which do have guns all over them (looking forward to more Tim Rogers dispatches like this from Kotaku!), a somewhat overcrowded E3 itself thanks to the consumer influx, and enough games for everyone to be excited about at least one.

For me, that Super Mario Odyssey trailer was enough for me to pre-order the game to play with my son - and finally work out how to get a Switch, which is coming in a couple of weeks. [Sidebar: it's actually a bit crazy how much Nintendo was being counted out by many - including perhaps me. Then, whomp, two games later (new Zelda, new Mario) they're the belle of the ball again.]

But that's why E3 works as high drama, soap opera, and metacommentary hub of the year for video games - we've all got a hot take, and hot takes are king. (Also why there's not a GREAT deal of E3 coverage in this week's VGDC, heh. Not that we're 'hot take allergic', but you can get that on YouTube & Twitch right now in real-time if you'd like.) Anyway, 'til next time...

- Simon, curator.]

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Developer Q&A: Balancing storytelling and player choice in Prey (Alex Wiltshire / Gamasutra) "Talos-1 runs on eels. This large space station, setting to Arkane Studios’ recently released emergent sim Prey, deals with its residents’ effluent by sending it to large vats where it’s consumed by the things."

Nintendo of America Boss Fils-Aimé On Comebacks, the Future of the DS and Surviving the Wii U (John Davison / Simon Cox / Glixel) "It's almost exactly a year since we last spoke with Nintendo of America president Reggie Fils-Aimé at E3 2016. On that occasion he was standing fifteen feet above that Disney-like Nintendo E3 booth, which was dedicated solely to the forthcoming The Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild."

Why 'Super Mario Maker' Didn’t Kill the Mario Hacking Community (Jess Joho / Motherboard) "Yet, playing hyper-polished feats of design like Super Mario Maker leave some longtime fans of the franchise nostalgic for the days of janky programming, kill screens, and brutal challenge. That's why the heroes of the Super Mario World (SMW) ROM hacking community remain stubbornly alive, even long after the release of an official Nintendo Mario level creator."

Coin-Operated Boys: An Interview with Carly Kocurek (Dan Royles / Nursing Clio) "Carly Kocurek’s Coin-Operated Americans: Rebooting Boyhood at the Video Game Arcade (Minnesota, 2015) examines the origins of modern video game culture in the “classic” arcade era, spanning the release of Pong in 1972 and the industry’s first major collapse in 1983. She traces the formation of the “technomasculine” during that period, as the arcade became increasingly defined as the province of young men."

How we make a game called Hidden Folks (Adriaan de Jongh / Imgur) "Hey there! I'm Adriaan, one of the two developers behind Hidden Folks, a game for smartphones and computers in which you search for hidden folks in hand-drawn, interactive, miniature landscapes by unfurling tent flaps, cutting through bushes, slamming doors, and poking crocodiles!"

Offworld Trading Company: An RTS Without Guns (Soren Johnson / GDC / YouTube) "In this 2017 Game Developers Conference talk, Mohawk Games' Soren Johnson dives into strategy game history to explain how he and his team developed Offworld Trading Company, a strategy game with little combat."

These Maps Reveal the Hidden Structures of ‘Choose Your Own Adventure’ Books (Sarah Laskow / Atlas Obscura) "Reading a “Choose Your Own Adventure” book can feel like being lost in a maze and running through twists and turns only to find dead ends, switchbacks, and disappointment. In the books—for those not familiar with them—you read until you come to a decision point, which prompts you to flip to another page, backward or forward."

A Falconer Enters the World of Video Games (Simon Parkin / New Yorker) "The story of how Nricco Iseppi, a master falconer, came to Riot Games has, among the company’s staff, acquired the malleability of myth. According to one scriptwriter, it began when Riot had an orange grove planted on its multimillion-dollar campus, in Los Angeles, a place already bristling with perks and mod cons."

Interview: “Rez” creator Tetsuya Mizuguchi’s unusual life evolves humanity (Staff / Denfaminicogamer) "One midnight, during an internal office chat at the Denfaminicogamer editorial department were the words “They’re crazy.” This was right at the end of 2016 after PS VR was released. As it were, the editorial departments odd excitement resulted in an impulsive interview about VR Contents “Rez Infinite” at the end of last year. This article is a written version of that insane seven hours interview. [SIMON'S NOTE: the translation isn't perfect, but this interview is AMAZING - you rarely see Japanese creators asked historical questions in this kind of depth.]"

The Garden Ages | Myst series (Sam Zucchi / Heterotopias) "How do the linking books in Myst read? These books are, in-universe, written out in the alphabet and language of a dead civilization. The text details the world that the writer wishes to visit: an island is described, its qualities delineated in some detail, and a linking pane appears on the first page, ready to literally transport the reader to the object described."

The RPG Scrollbars: In search of urban fantasy (Richard Cobbett / RockPaperShotgun) "There’s a real urban fantasy gap in the gaming industry, and it’s never made much sense. We see a thousand Tolkienesque fantasy games a minute (rough napkin calculation) and the future’s typically so bright, even the lens flares need shades. Yet when it comes to that line where the mundane meets the magical, mostly what we’ve had for the last few years is false hope."

E3 Was Different This Year, And It Wasn’t Just The Crowds (Nathan Grayson / Kotaku) "It’s the first day of E3. I’m walking the show floor—or more accurately, oozing across it, slug-like, followed by a trail of my own sweat. I’m shoulder-to-shoulder with swathes of people. Across the way, crowds of people whoop and holler, each of them hoping to win swag they can stuff in their floor-length swag bags. 15,000 new people are in attendance this year. [SIMON'S NOTE: one of the most considered of the 'what's up with E3 this year?' articles.]"

7 examples of accessibility design that developers should study (Richard Moss / Gamasutra) "Games are for everyone. And in recognizing this, ever-increasing numbers of developers are making a point to incorporate more accessibility features and options like remappable controls, configurable subtitles, resizable HUDs, and more."

The big interview: Xbox boss Phil Spencer (Wesley Yin-Poole / Eurogamer) "It was with all this in mind that I sat down with Xbox boss Phil Spencer at the Galen Center in Los Angeles to talk Xbox One X. At £449, I'm not sure who the console is for ("there is a customer out there who's looking for the premium experience"). I fear for Microsoft's first-party studio setup ("I do think we have an opportunity to get better in first-party")."

The State Of Virtual Reality (Brian Crecente / Polygon) "One could argue that the age of virtual reality kicked-off during last year's Game Developers Conference, an event that nearly coincided with the launch of two of the technology's most important head-mounted displays in recent history: the Oculus Rift and the HTC Vive."

EA Boss Andrew Wilson's Vision of Gaming's Future Will Blow Your Mind (John Davison / Glixel) "The intervening years were tumultuous and challenging. Changing the company to deliver on that vision was a bumpy ride, but now 10 years later, Wilson is eager to convey what the new Electronic Arts stands for, and its vision for the future of games. [SIMON'S NOTE: Much snark online for some of the 'vision' in this interview, particularly the Emily Dickinson bit.]"

Ex-Puyo Puyo producer reveals some of the classic puzzler’s earliest prototypes (Kishi / Retronauts) "Last week, Compile founder Moo Niitani announced two previously unreleased works from the defunct developer’s glory days on MSX2 computers. Later this month, Dominon and Dominon X are both coming to Project EGG, D4 Enterprise’s prolific download service for old Japanese computer games."

Don't Change a Thing! The Challenges of Evolving Solitaire (Russell Carroll / GDC / YouTube) "In this 2017 GDC session, MobilityWare's Russell Carroll shares the experience of updating Solitaire for a modern mobile audience, and what features they were able to update while grappling with intense resistance to any changes made to the core game. [SIMON'S NOTE: I've known Russell - who used to run indie site GameTunnel - for a LONG time, and this talk is as much about management philosophy as it is solitaire - it's super well-considered.]"

Young Men Are Playing Video Games Instead of Getting Jobs. That's OK. (For Now.) (Peter Suderman / Reason) "Video games, like work, are basically a series of quests comprised of mundane and repetitive tasks: Receive an assignment, travel to a location, overcome some obstacles, perform some sort of search, pick up an item, and then deliver it in exchange for a reward—and, usually, another quest, which starts the cycle all over again. You are not playing the game so much as following its orders. The game is your boss; to succeed, you have to do what it says."

7 roguelikes that every developer should study (Stefanie Fogel / Gamasutra) "With that in mind, we asked developers to name some of their favorite roguelikes - or games in other genres influenced by roguelike mechanics - and the lessons they can teach people today. And, many of these games are free and/or open source, which makes them easy to download, play, and study!"

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[REMINDER: you can sign up to receive this newsletter every weekend at http://ift.tt/2dUXrva we crosspost to Gamasutra later on Sunday, but get it first via newsletter! Story tips and comments can be emailed to [email protected]. MINI-DISCLOSURE: Simon is one of the organizers of GDC and Gamasutra, so you may sometimes see links from those entities in his picks. Or not!]

#IFTTT #Blogger

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symbianosgames · 7 years

Link

- Simon, curator.]

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#IFTTT #Blogger

0 notes

symbianosgames · 7 years

Link

- Simon, curator.]

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

#IFTTT #Blogger

0 notes

symbianosgames · 7 years

Link

- Simon, curator.]

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

#IFTTT #Blogger

0 notes

symbianosgames · 7 years

Link

- Simon, curator.]

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

#IFTTT #Blogger

0 notes