Things which are not Cam
Oct. 17th, 2015 09:56 pmCam was away so I had a bunch of time to fill!
( games, books, anime )
( games, books, anime )
So! I was enjoying the rpg Undertale right until it all got too hard and I gave up (specifically, the point where I had to run away from GIANT SPEARS falling from the sky while RUNNING THROUGH A MAZE) I looked up the rest on youtube and it was so great I don't regret the $10 I spent to play some of the game, especially since it helped a lot with the immersion. The whole game is a really clever, funny, and emotionally satisfying exploration of various RPG tropes. And has adorable canon same sex relationships! Note that it can be quite surreal and dark at times, though it's overall optimistic, and also as a child character you go on (innocent and not very romantic) "dates" with adult characters, which mildly weirded me out.
Since it was a little tricky to find all these, for anyone else who'd like to enjoy the story but sucks at reaction times, here's some links.
The Undertale site Has the demo, which is worth playing even if you are terrible at the combat but can otherwise enjoy rpgs. Just keep running away! Most people will improve greatly at any given battle with practice, so don't give up right away. But there's no shame in giving up eventually if it's not fun. Determination isn't everything ;)
The Undertale wiki Has hints on defeating most monsters, information on easter eggs etc.
If you want to watch a playthrough with minimal spoilers this is the best I have found. If you don't mind spoilers for the different kinds of endings I have a more detailed list under the cut.
( Spoilers for the kinds of ending, but not plot spoilers )
Since it was a little tricky to find all these, for anyone else who'd like to enjoy the story but sucks at reaction times, here's some links.
The Undertale site Has the demo, which is worth playing even if you are terrible at the combat but can otherwise enjoy rpgs. Just keep running away! Most people will improve greatly at any given battle with practice, so don't give up right away. But there's no shame in giving up eventually if it's not fun. Determination isn't everything ;)
The Undertale wiki Has hints on defeating most monsters, information on easter eggs etc.
If you want to watch a playthrough with minimal spoilers this is the best I have found. If you don't mind spoilers for the different kinds of endings I have a more detailed list under the cut.
( Spoilers for the kinds of ending, but not plot spoilers )
So after several friends being VERY ENTHUSIASTIC at me about this rpg I gave it a go, despite not really enjoying the demo, and after a difficult beginning am quite enjoying it. It's superficially an old school rpg, about a human child who falls into the Underground World of Monsters and is trying to get home despite the many unfriendly monsters trying to kill her along the way. There's random encounters, save points, shops to buy armour or restoratives with money from battles etc. But (a) It's charmingly funny, cute, and well written and (b) you can choose to be a pacifist and not hurt anyone you "fight", in which case they become your friend.
Pacifistically "defeating" a foe requires you to figure out what will make them like you: patting a dog, laughing at a would-be comedian's jokes etc. While you're convincing them they still try and kill you, and surviving requires dodging attacks in real time (everything else is turn based). I am VERY BAD AT THIS. They always use the same attacks, so you can learn the pattern, but I just react too slowly. On the plus side you can grind for gold and buy lots of health restoratives, and can run away from all but the boss fights. So I run away from everything I encounter on the way to the next boss fight, beat the boss, save, then grind for a while, save again (getting back to full health each time), and go towards the next boss. According to a friend this approach should get me through the game, hooray. EDIT: It did not.
This review goes into more detail. It reminds me a bit of the walkaround parts of Homestuck, which is also inspired by Earthbound (a classic rpg I have never played)
( moderate spoiler I am glad I was warned about )
Pacifistically "defeating" a foe requires you to figure out what will make them like you: patting a dog, laughing at a would-be comedian's jokes etc. While you're convincing them they still try and kill you, and surviving requires dodging attacks in real time (everything else is turn based). I am VERY BAD AT THIS. They always use the same attacks, so you can learn the pattern, but I just react too slowly. On the plus side you can grind for gold and buy lots of health restoratives, and can run away from all but the boss fights. So I run away from everything I encounter on the way to the next boss fight, beat the boss, save, then grind for a while, save again (getting back to full health each time), and go towards the next boss. According to a friend this approach should get me through the game, hooray. EDIT: It did not.
This review goes into more detail. It reminds me a bit of the walkaround parts of Homestuck, which is also inspired by Earthbound (a classic rpg I have never played)
( moderate spoiler I am glad I was warned about )
Comics, books, games, and anime
Sep. 25th, 2015 09:01 pmGraphic Novels:
The Wicked and the Divine: there's a queer comic book club this Sunday discussing volume 1, and since I've been meaning to read it anyway I bought the digital version. It was, as others have said, an interesting premise with middling execution, but it does have a lot of lgbt characters and an ethnically diverse cast. Basically: a group of young people have become/realised they are the incarnations of various gods. This means being immortal, having powers like fire, and the ability to "sing" in incomprehensible tongues that cause listeners to be inspired/overcome. So they act exactly like rock stars, with popular cheery goddesses, literally underground gothic death gods etc. The main character is a teenage god fangirl who gets caught up in a mystery around the gods when she befriends "Luci" (Lucifer), basically rule 63 Sandman Lucifer. The plot is moderately interesting though I've been massively spoiled for some major twists by tumblr. The characters are...ok. The dialogue is nowhere near as clever as it thinks it is and mistakes sexual references and clunky one liners for wit. The art is good asides from the bland expressions, like it's traced from 3D models. I'm in that annoying in between place where I'd like to see what happens next but don't like it enough to spend any more money or effort on it. I think I'll wait until it's done then see if I can be bothered.
Miss Marvel (vols 1,2 and 3): this is the other diverse comic the teenagers on tumblr keep posting gifs of and I liked it a lot more, though it's less my kind of thing. A lower middle class muslim teenage superhero fangirl gains super powers, and decides to defend Jersey from evil. It's a pretty straightfoward "optimistic teen gains superpowers" story, but charmingly done, with likable characters, light humour, thrilling fights etc. There's some heavy handed Young Adult Fiction elements, like Consent Is Important, Teenagers Have Value But So Do Parents etc, as well as some plain silly aspects, it felt very aimed at young people. But I still quite enjoyed it as someone who was once a teen fangirl and still gets a kick out of imagining befriending Wolverine (this scene was so cute). Also there's a little Agents of Shield crossover at the end of Vol 3 with Simmons (and Coulson) which I enjoyed.
( Read more... )
The Wicked and the Divine: there's a queer comic book club this Sunday discussing volume 1, and since I've been meaning to read it anyway I bought the digital version. It was, as others have said, an interesting premise with middling execution, but it does have a lot of lgbt characters and an ethnically diverse cast. Basically: a group of young people have become/realised they are the incarnations of various gods. This means being immortal, having powers like fire, and the ability to "sing" in incomprehensible tongues that cause listeners to be inspired/overcome. So they act exactly like rock stars, with popular cheery goddesses, literally underground gothic death gods etc. The main character is a teenage god fangirl who gets caught up in a mystery around the gods when she befriends "Luci" (Lucifer), basically rule 63 Sandman Lucifer. The plot is moderately interesting though I've been massively spoiled for some major twists by tumblr. The characters are...ok. The dialogue is nowhere near as clever as it thinks it is and mistakes sexual references and clunky one liners for wit. The art is good asides from the bland expressions, like it's traced from 3D models. I'm in that annoying in between place where I'd like to see what happens next but don't like it enough to spend any more money or effort on it. I think I'll wait until it's done then see if I can be bothered.
Miss Marvel (vols 1,2 and 3): this is the other diverse comic the teenagers on tumblr keep posting gifs of and I liked it a lot more, though it's less my kind of thing. A lower middle class muslim teenage superhero fangirl gains super powers, and decides to defend Jersey from evil. It's a pretty straightfoward "optimistic teen gains superpowers" story, but charmingly done, with likable characters, light humour, thrilling fights etc. There's some heavy handed Young Adult Fiction elements, like Consent Is Important, Teenagers Have Value But So Do Parents etc, as well as some plain silly aspects, it felt very aimed at young people. But I still quite enjoyed it as someone who was once a teen fangirl and still gets a kick out of imagining befriending Wolverine (this scene was so cute). Also there's a little Agents of Shield crossover at the end of Vol 3 with Simmons (and Coulson) which I enjoyed.
( Read more... )
Rambly Trespasser spoilery thoughts
Sep. 10th, 2015 02:38 am(this is the final DLC for Dragon Age Inquisition, and ties up the story)
Just finished it! At 2am! COULD NOT STOP PLAYING. IT WAS GREAT. Soooooooo much better than the other DLCs. It felt like the actual proper end to the story, which is great unless you are one of the people whose system can't play it, I feel for those guys.
Oh non spoilery reminder: this happens after the end of the game, and also costs 8 power. So I waited all day to play it...then realised I had to get that inquisitor to the end of the game, and THEN get 8 power (the Descent DLC used up all my extra power for boring sidequests)
And now...SPOILERS.
( Spoilers!! )
Just finished it! At 2am! COULD NOT STOP PLAYING. IT WAS GREAT. Soooooooo much better than the other DLCs. It felt like the actual proper end to the story, which is great unless you are one of the people whose system can't play it, I feel for those guys.
Oh non spoilery reminder: this happens after the end of the game, and also costs 8 power. So I waited all day to play it...then realised I had to get that inquisitor to the end of the game, and THEN get 8 power (the Descent DLC used up all my extra power for boring sidequests)
And now...SPOILERS.
( Spoilers!! )
Games and game-ish
Aug. 17th, 2015 11:23 pmAnime:
Diabolik Lovers (ep 1): So since I'm making a dating sim about vampires it made sense to watch the anime adaptation of the Dating Sim About Vampires. But as expected it was really not my thing: it's all creepy vampire dudes stockholm syndroming the sweet protagonist. At one point a sexy evil lady vampire showed up briefly but I looked up spoilers and that plot does not go anywhere I'd enjoy. Still, it was interesting as research, and now I'll know more context when people talk about it.
Games:
Monument Valley: fantastic, beautiful, understated little phone puzzle game. You are a little girl wandering minimalist fantasy landscapes with Escher-esque topology that uses forced perspective in very creative ways. I found it fairly easy, there are a few minor timing puzzles I didn't always like. It reminded me a lot of Journey.
Descent (Dragon Age Inquisition DLC): really not worth $25, but otherwise moderately entertaining Deep Roads story. Focused very much on two not very interesting DLC-only NPCs with basically no other background characters and nothing for the companions to say or do. Some mildly interesting environments and dwarf related worldbuilding, but the (level adjusted) fights were difficult and dragged on and on, making the fun bits feel stretched out. Sidequests were dull as dishwater.
Cute Demon Crashers: Cute free sex positive dating (well, friends with benefits) sim. A college girl gets to know 3 incubi and a succubus and possibly has sex with one. Strong emphasis on consent and fluffy happiness: you can say no at any time and there are no bad endings. I did the f/f path and it was endearing but a bit too sex focussed for me (which I knew it would be but THE ART WAS TOO CUTE) The demons are all aromantic, it's the fantasy of the perfect calm, knowledgeable, non judgemental older partner with no expectations who wants nothing for themselves but to make you happy. Which is not really my thing (I prefer pining losers haha) but is certainly a contrast to the Diabolik Lovers style love interest.
Dark Parables: Ballad of Rapunzel: Servicable continuation of this series of fairy tale themed hidden object games.
Love Chronicles: Salvation: really quite terrible hidden object game. I didn't mind the previous games in the series but this is set in a demon underworld and is just ugly and unpleasant, and the puzzles aren't much fun.
Diabolik Lovers (ep 1): So since I'm making a dating sim about vampires it made sense to watch the anime adaptation of the Dating Sim About Vampires. But as expected it was really not my thing: it's all creepy vampire dudes stockholm syndroming the sweet protagonist. At one point a sexy evil lady vampire showed up briefly but I looked up spoilers and that plot does not go anywhere I'd enjoy. Still, it was interesting as research, and now I'll know more context when people talk about it.
Games:
Monument Valley: fantastic, beautiful, understated little phone puzzle game. You are a little girl wandering minimalist fantasy landscapes with Escher-esque topology that uses forced perspective in very creative ways. I found it fairly easy, there are a few minor timing puzzles I didn't always like. It reminded me a lot of Journey.
Descent (Dragon Age Inquisition DLC): really not worth $25, but otherwise moderately entertaining Deep Roads story. Focused very much on two not very interesting DLC-only NPCs with basically no other background characters and nothing for the companions to say or do. Some mildly interesting environments and dwarf related worldbuilding, but the (level adjusted) fights were difficult and dragged on and on, making the fun bits feel stretched out. Sidequests were dull as dishwater.
Cute Demon Crashers: Cute free sex positive dating (well, friends with benefits) sim. A college girl gets to know 3 incubi and a succubus and possibly has sex with one. Strong emphasis on consent and fluffy happiness: you can say no at any time and there are no bad endings. I did the f/f path and it was endearing but a bit too sex focussed for me (which I knew it would be but THE ART WAS TOO CUTE) The demons are all aromantic, it's the fantasy of the perfect calm, knowledgeable, non judgemental older partner with no expectations who wants nothing for themselves but to make you happy. Which is not really my thing (I prefer pining losers haha) but is certainly a contrast to the Diabolik Lovers style love interest.
Dark Parables: Ballad of Rapunzel: Servicable continuation of this series of fairy tale themed hidden object games.
Love Chronicles: Salvation: really quite terrible hidden object game. I didn't mind the previous games in the series but this is set in a demon underworld and is just ugly and unpleasant, and the puzzles aren't much fun.
Creative Things!
Jul. 23rd, 2015 11:52 amWow I haven't done a general creative roundup since last year. Mostly because I haven't been feeling like making general creative stuff. What I have been doing is...A NEW VERSION OF [REDACTED] OMG.
And now the THREE non Dragon Age arts I have drawn in the last six months, two for exchanges.
( Addicted to You, Original, Puella Magi Madoka Magica )
And now the THREE non Dragon Age arts I have drawn in the last six months, two for exchanges.
( Addicted to You, Original, Puella Magi Madoka Magica )
So after much squee by ![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)
ember_keelty I checked out Seven Kingdoms: The Princess Problem. And I really liked it!
It's like a cross between Long Live The Queen and The Royal Trap/The Confines of the Crown: you're a noble from one of six not!18th century!European countries at a diplomatic summit, and your choices about skills and dialogue affect your success and relationships. You can choose to play on story mode which makes it easier to pass challenges and impossible to die, or challenge mode if you LIKE failing and dying (I have not played challenge mode. I have heard it is fun if you like that sort of thing)
It's only a demo, afaict it stops at the point where the plot would split into love interest (or lack thereof) specific paths, but it makes for a fairly satisfying little story as it is.
( No spoilers just more details )
ember_keelty I checked out Seven Kingdoms: The Princess Problem. And I really liked it!It's like a cross between Long Live The Queen and The Royal Trap/The Confines of the Crown: you're a noble from one of six not!18th century!European countries at a diplomatic summit, and your choices about skills and dialogue affect your success and relationships. You can choose to play on story mode which makes it easier to pass challenges and impossible to die, or challenge mode if you LIKE failing and dying (I have not played challenge mode. I have heard it is fun if you like that sort of thing)
It's only a demo, afaict it stops at the point where the plot would split into love interest (or lack thereof) specific paths, but it makes for a fairly satisfying little story as it is.
( No spoilers just more details )
Games! (and things which are not games)
Jul. 9th, 2015 04:13 pmBooks:
A Season for Scandal by Stephanie Laurens: marriage of convenience regency romance I was enjoying until the Evil Irish Villain got a bit too irritating, will go back to it eventually.
Anime:
Tsurimita: cheerful and deeply confusing story about teenage boys in a seaside town where one of them is...a fish? Or an alien? Or something?? I only got through the first episode, I may watch more when I don't mind being confused. The main character seems to have some sort of magical anxiety disorder (EDIT: apparently not magical)
Games:
( Read more... )
A Season for Scandal by Stephanie Laurens: marriage of convenience regency romance I was enjoying until the Evil Irish Villain got a bit too irritating, will go back to it eventually.
Anime:
Tsurimita: cheerful and deeply confusing story about teenage boys in a seaside town where one of them is...a fish? Or an alien? Or something?? I only got through the first episode, I may watch more when I don't mind being confused. The main character seems to have some sort of magical anxiety disorder (EDIT: apparently not magical)
Games:
( Read more... )
Latest watched things
Jul. 3rd, 2015 04:16 pmWritten to distract myself from the fact Cam will be leaving for a work trip in a couple of hours.
Movies:
Inside Out: Pixar cgi odd couple roadtrip movie about anthropomorphised emotions inside an 11 year old girl's brain. I really liked it! The overall theme is growing up and accepting change and negative emotions and I thought this was done pretty well, even if it was about sane, relatively well adjusted people and I had bittersweet memories of my own much less cheery childhood. The psychology felt plausible and was apparently pretty good, I can see children (mentally ill or otherwise) finding it a useful way to conceptualise things. It wasn't THE BEST movie ever but it was funny and cathartic and had WAY more female characters than pretty much any other Pixar film: the three main characters are the girl Riley and the two female coded emotions Joy and Sadness, and the secondary characters are Riley's parents and the other three emotions who are two guys (Fear and Anger) and a woman (Disgust). I now ship Joy/Sadness which was unexpected. Not especially subversive, or diverse asides from gender but...it's Pixar :/
TV:
Miss Fisher's Murder Mysteries: All caught up! Season 3 ends in a pretty satisfying place, even if it dragged a little in parts. They even briefly remembered she has a dead sister! EDIT: Have been reminded that it was actually kind of cheesy and odd, even if I enjoyed it anyway.
Utena: Am slowly rewatching this every now and then at TV night, it's interesting now I (vaguely) know how everything fits together, and I'm enjoying it. The remastered animation is surprisingly crisp. I am also enjoying watching my unspoiled friend react to everything :D
Games:
Love Chronicles: The Sword and the Rose: replayed the first Hidden Object game from Big Fish I encountered, it was actually pretty fun, the shallow plot suited my need to just click a bunch of puzzles mindlessly, the art is mostly very pretty and I really like the "building wacky devices" puzzles.
Fairway: Finished it! Played it through again! Definitely worth $5 if you like solitaire with variations and increasing difficulty.
Hmmmmmmm I know there were more but I have blanked entirely.
Movies:
Inside Out: Pixar cgi odd couple roadtrip movie about anthropomorphised emotions inside an 11 year old girl's brain. I really liked it! The overall theme is growing up and accepting change and negative emotions and I thought this was done pretty well, even if it was about sane, relatively well adjusted people and I had bittersweet memories of my own much less cheery childhood. The psychology felt plausible and was apparently pretty good, I can see children (mentally ill or otherwise) finding it a useful way to conceptualise things. It wasn't THE BEST movie ever but it was funny and cathartic and had WAY more female characters than pretty much any other Pixar film: the three main characters are the girl Riley and the two female coded emotions Joy and Sadness, and the secondary characters are Riley's parents and the other three emotions who are two guys (Fear and Anger) and a woman (Disgust). I now ship Joy/Sadness which was unexpected. Not especially subversive, or diverse asides from gender but...it's Pixar :/
TV:
Miss Fisher's Murder Mysteries: All caught up! Season 3 ends in a pretty satisfying place, even if it dragged a little in parts. They even briefly remembered she has a dead sister! EDIT: Have been reminded that it was actually kind of cheesy and odd, even if I enjoyed it anyway.
Utena: Am slowly rewatching this every now and then at TV night, it's interesting now I (vaguely) know how everything fits together, and I'm enjoying it. The remastered animation is surprisingly crisp. I am also enjoying watching my unspoiled friend react to everything :D
Games:
Love Chronicles: The Sword and the Rose: replayed the first Hidden Object game from Big Fish I encountered, it was actually pretty fun, the shallow plot suited my need to just click a bunch of puzzles mindlessly, the art is mostly very pretty and I really like the "building wacky devices" puzzles.
Fairway: Finished it! Played it through again! Definitely worth $5 if you like solitaire with variations and increasing difficulty.
Hmmmmmmm I know there were more but I have blanked entirely.
Her Story: review and search terms
Jun. 25th, 2015 03:50 amSo I couldn't sleep and REALLY felt like playing the new game Her Story, and since it's only $5 I bought it.
It's a game about database searching, woo! WAIT NO IT'S ACTUALLY GOOD. Like a more non linear Analogue: A Hate Story, you are puzzling through a mystery via old logs. In this case, they're videos of a woman being interviewed about her missing husband. As you watch new videos you get new search terms to try, which leads to more videos. I haven't managed to get them all, but it's pretty easy to get the basic gist of the story. Really, I got the basic gist a few videos in, and the rest was just figuring out the (sometimes quite interesting!) details.
This very positive review is what inspired me to buy it, and I have to say I was a bit disappointed with the cheesiness of some of the twists, they allow for interesting story telling but I was expecting something more plausible and less "Oh I've seen this movie". But once I got over that I really enjoyed the game: the underlying story has issues, but it's told REALLY well. The non linear, player controlled aspect is very cleverly done, and the actress makes you care about not only her but the characters you never meet. Since I wasn't overwhelmed with admiration for the plot I haven't bothered untangling all the complicated clues that might clarify some of the ambiguity. But there's definitely some sneaky clues to puzzle out if you're inclined that way.
But I CAN'T FIGURE OUT HOW TO FIND ALL THE VIDEOS. I'm stuck at around 75% /o\ For anyone else in this boat, here's my search terms thus far, roughly categorised by number of videos returned. I'd ignore the one video words unless you get REALLY desperate, most of the time they were the already seen video where I'd heard the word. EDIT: Have seen them now, wasn't missing anything significant.
Note: without spoilers, the game deals with some heavy subjects. I mean, the first suggested search term is "murder", and it goes on from there.
( Spoilers! )
It's a game about database searching, woo! WAIT NO IT'S ACTUALLY GOOD. Like a more non linear Analogue: A Hate Story, you are puzzling through a mystery via old logs. In this case, they're videos of a woman being interviewed about her missing husband. As you watch new videos you get new search terms to try, which leads to more videos. I haven't managed to get them all, but it's pretty easy to get the basic gist of the story. Really, I got the basic gist a few videos in, and the rest was just figuring out the (sometimes quite interesting!) details.
This very positive review is what inspired me to buy it, and I have to say I was a bit disappointed with the cheesiness of some of the twists, they allow for interesting story telling but I was expecting something more plausible and less "Oh I've seen this movie". But once I got over that I really enjoyed the game: the underlying story has issues, but it's told REALLY well. The non linear, player controlled aspect is very cleverly done, and the actress makes you care about not only her but the characters you never meet. Since I wasn't overwhelmed with admiration for the plot I haven't bothered untangling all the complicated clues that might clarify some of the ambiguity. But there's definitely some sneaky clues to puzzle out if you're inclined that way.
But I CAN'T FIGURE OUT HOW TO FIND ALL THE VIDEOS. I'm stuck at around 75% /o\ For anyone else in this boat, here's my search terms thus far, roughly categorised by number of videos returned. I'd ignore the one video words unless you get REALLY desperate, most of the time they were the already seen video where I'd heard the word. EDIT: Have seen them now, wasn't missing anything significant.
Note: without spoilers, the game deals with some heavy subjects. I mean, the first suggested search term is "murder", and it goes on from there.
( Spoilers! )
Recent Distractions
Jun. 18th, 2015 02:06 pmAnime:
Natsuyuki Rendezvous: A bittersweet josei romance about a young man who falls for a florist but then comes into conflict with the ghost of her dead husband. About grief and love and moving on. I really liked it, it had a happy ending but still made me cry. The husband had what is heavily implied to be cancer since childhood, I thought the show did a pretty good job of showing the ways chronic illness can affect a relationship, and while it did have a young healthy guy telling an older sickly guy to give up on his wife seemed to have the reasonable moral that ill or dying people can make perfectly good partners, but dead people not so much. The "two guys fight over a girl" aspect was a little annoying sometimes but it makes the "women are not actually objects to be fought over and the first priority should be making them happy" point pretty clearly, and we got her point of view some of the time. I liked that neither of them are too Alpha Male Shoujo Hero, though I'm amused how similar the hero is to the floppy haired (and often taciturn) younger LIs from other josei like Gokusen and Kimi Wa Petto (thank you josei writers, floppy haired younger men are the best)
Game:
Fairway: A golf themed solitaire game which I have been quite enjoying. I found a lot of the golf aspects annoying and turned them off/skipped them, but as a game it's quite well designed, there's lots of levels of increasing difficulty and you can "grind" for money and wild cards. After 27 hours of play I've bought all the powerups, gotten all but one of the trophies, and gotten 3 stars on almost all the levels. Not sure I'll play much once I've done all that but I can see myself just playing through all the levels one by one and seeing how well I can do using as few wild cards as possible. Unlike Regency Solitaire the money you earn is always useful since you can use it to buy wild cards, though I am earning way more than I spend even on the trickiest levels.
Natsuyuki Rendezvous: A bittersweet josei romance about a young man who falls for a florist but then comes into conflict with the ghost of her dead husband. About grief and love and moving on. I really liked it, it had a happy ending but still made me cry. The husband had what is heavily implied to be cancer since childhood, I thought the show did a pretty good job of showing the ways chronic illness can affect a relationship, and while it did have a young healthy guy telling an older sickly guy to give up on his wife seemed to have the reasonable moral that ill or dying people can make perfectly good partners, but dead people not so much. The "two guys fight over a girl" aspect was a little annoying sometimes but it makes the "women are not actually objects to be fought over and the first priority should be making them happy" point pretty clearly, and we got her point of view some of the time. I liked that neither of them are too Alpha Male Shoujo Hero, though I'm amused how similar the hero is to the floppy haired (and often taciturn) younger LIs from other josei like Gokusen and Kimi Wa Petto (thank you josei writers, floppy haired younger men are the best)
Game:
Fairway: A golf themed solitaire game which I have been quite enjoying. I found a lot of the golf aspects annoying and turned them off/skipped them, but as a game it's quite well designed, there's lots of levels of increasing difficulty and you can "grind" for money and wild cards. After 27 hours of play I've bought all the powerups, gotten all but one of the trophies, and gotten 3 stars on almost all the levels. Not sure I'll play much once I've done all that but I can see myself just playing through all the levels one by one and seeing how well I can do using as few wild cards as possible. Unlike Regency Solitaire the money you earn is always useful since you can use it to buy wild cards, though I am earning way more than I spend even on the trickiest levels.
Game idea from a dream I had last night
Jun. 18th, 2015 11:49 amThe structure is like Magnolia or Pulp Fiction: a series of somewhat disconnected scenes with different characters that all add up to a coherent interconnected story.
At the start you wander around as the starting character and have the chance to talk to different people/do different things. At some point you trigger a cut scene/scene change etc, and there are multiple different ways to do this.
The game then switches to a new character with a different point of view, possibly even a flashback. This is chosen to connect to whatever scene you triggered last time. The game keeps switching between scenes, each scene chosen to connect with the story/plotlines created thus far. There will be scenes/plotlines that show up in every game but in different orders depending on the player's choices, and others that only show up in some games.
A simple example:
A1: You start out as character A, and can talk to B or C.
A2: something happens to continue A's plot
A3: something happens to continue A's plot
B1: Flashback to B's past where we play as B
B2: continuation of B flashback
C1: we flash to an assassin coming to murder C, play as the assassin
C2: Assassin plot continues
AC: Scene involving C and A
AB: Scene involving B and A
ABC: Assassin attacks, A, B and C defeat it. Everyone's arc is finished.
We always start with A1. If the player chooses to talk to B, the order would be:
A1 B1 A2 B2 AC C1 A3 C2 ABC
If they talk to C it would be:
A1 C1 A2 C2 AB B1 A3 B2 ABC
But with more continued player choice. Maybe some random plotlines that only show up sometimes, too.
I am still pretty sleepy so I hope this makes sense. Needless to say the version in my dream was fairly incoherent and silly. I can see a bunch of ways this could be difficult to implement and make enjoyable, but it's interesting to ponder. If any of you have encountered games anything like this I'd be curious to hear about them!
At the start you wander around as the starting character and have the chance to talk to different people/do different things. At some point you trigger a cut scene/scene change etc, and there are multiple different ways to do this.
The game then switches to a new character with a different point of view, possibly even a flashback. This is chosen to connect to whatever scene you triggered last time. The game keeps switching between scenes, each scene chosen to connect with the story/plotlines created thus far. There will be scenes/plotlines that show up in every game but in different orders depending on the player's choices, and others that only show up in some games.
A simple example:
A1: You start out as character A, and can talk to B or C.
A2: something happens to continue A's plot
A3: something happens to continue A's plot
B1: Flashback to B's past where we play as B
B2: continuation of B flashback
C1: we flash to an assassin coming to murder C, play as the assassin
C2: Assassin plot continues
AC: Scene involving C and A
AB: Scene involving B and A
ABC: Assassin attacks, A, B and C defeat it. Everyone's arc is finished.
We always start with A1. If the player chooses to talk to B, the order would be:
A1 B1 A2 B2 AC C1 A3 C2 ABC
If they talk to C it would be:
A1 C1 A2 C2 AB B1 A3 B2 ABC
But with more continued player choice. Maybe some random plotlines that only show up sometimes, too.
I am still pretty sleepy so I hope this makes sense. Needless to say the version in my dream was fairly incoherent and silly. I can see a bunch of ways this could be difficult to implement and make enjoyable, but it's interesting to ponder. If any of you have encountered games anything like this I'd be curious to hear about them!
My gift, which was everything I asked for PLUS DRAGONS:
Hail the Hunter (3510 words) by Anonymous
Chapters: 1/1
Fandom: Original Work, Girl With One Eye - Florence + The Machine (Song)
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Characters: Girl With One Eye (Character), Narrator
Additional Tags: Fictional Religion & Theology, Servants, Dysfunctional Relationships, Power Dynamics, Non-Graphic Violence, Recovery, Dark Fantasy, Jukebox Fanworks Exchange
Summary:
And my favourite of the works I've seen, a short but interesting little interactive poem:
You are Building an Abbey for Lovers (54 words) by Anonymous
Chapters: 1/1
Fandom: Bele Doette (Traditional Chanson)
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Characters: Bele Doette
Additional Tags: Interactive Fiction, Jukebox Treat
Summary:
My assignment has gone down pretty well which I am happy about!
Hail the Hunter (3510 words) by Anonymous
Chapters: 1/1
Fandom: Original Work, Girl With One Eye - Florence + The Machine (Song)
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Characters: Girl With One Eye (Character), Narrator
Additional Tags: Fictional Religion & Theology, Servants, Dysfunctional Relationships, Power Dynamics, Non-Graphic Violence, Recovery, Dark Fantasy, Jukebox Fanworks Exchange
Summary:
A story of fate, devotion, cruelty and betrayal.
And my favourite of the works I've seen, a short but interesting little interactive poem:
You are Building an Abbey for Lovers (54 words) by Anonymous
Chapters: 1/1
Fandom: Bele Doette (Traditional Chanson)
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Characters: Bele Doette
Additional Tags: Interactive Fiction, Jukebox Treat
Summary:
You are building an abbey for lovers
For lovers who've always stayed true
You are carving your heart
So it says press to start.
My assignment has gone down pretty well which I am happy about!
Books:
Spirits Abroad by Zen Cho: I finished this a while ago but forgot to say. Overall really fantastic short fantasy stories from a Chinese Malaysian point of view, with a light touch and lots of empathy and optimism. The author's notes are really interesting too. The one story I kind of regret reading was the one with a self harm warning, it did unpleasant things to my brain.
Bitterblue by Kristen Cashore: Just started this. It's the sequel to Graceling, following the little girl who gets rescued in that book. It starts when she's still trapped and I'm glad I've already seen her escape because wow is it an unpleasant situation.
Games:
Dreampath: the Two Kingdoms: incredibly fluffy hidden object game where you, a princess, solve puzzles with your talking cat companion to get help from a dragon to save your sick sister. Not very deep or especially well made but I enjoyed it.
Mystery Trackers: The Void: The first Hidden Object game I've played where I seriously considered stopping just because it was so annoying. The games themselves are fine, but it's ugly and silly and meanspirited. I get that it's horror/mystery, and maybe that's just not my genre with these games, but it was really unpleasant and I didn't like anyone, even the victims or the detective, and it wallowed in ableism.
Spirits Abroad by Zen Cho: I finished this a while ago but forgot to say. Overall really fantastic short fantasy stories from a Chinese Malaysian point of view, with a light touch and lots of empathy and optimism. The author's notes are really interesting too. The one story I kind of regret reading was the one with a self harm warning, it did unpleasant things to my brain.
Bitterblue by Kristen Cashore: Just started this. It's the sequel to Graceling, following the little girl who gets rescued in that book. It starts when she's still trapped and I'm glad I've already seen her escape because wow is it an unpleasant situation.
Games:
Dreampath: the Two Kingdoms: incredibly fluffy hidden object game where you, a princess, solve puzzles with your talking cat companion to get help from a dragon to save your sick sister. Not very deep or especially well made but I enjoyed it.
Mystery Trackers: The Void: The first Hidden Object game I've played where I seriously considered stopping just because it was so annoying. The games themselves are fine, but it's ugly and silly and meanspirited. I get that it's horror/mystery, and maybe that's just not my genre with these games, but it was really unpleasant and I didn't like anyone, even the victims or the detective, and it wallowed in ableism.
Peggy, Pigeons and Phlogiston
Mar. 1st, 2015 05:56 pmA bunch of entertaining if implausible things. They all have female main characters but ended up being about dudes a lot of the time.
There Will Be Phlogiston by Alexis Hall: (which is free right now!) a short, unabashedly silly but goodhearted steampunk m/m/f romance. Had basically no plot, it was just a lot of the central dude going "So I really like you and you are obviously miserable let's have amazing sex and be happy" and both other LIs going "But you are common and I just CAN'T" and him sighing manfully before they realise the error of their ways and everyone lives happily ever after. Felt very fanfic-ish, I found myself thinking of it as teen!Viviene/Iron Bull/Dorian minus all the kink and political complexity (and with everyone white and human). Various conflicts etc are glossed over in favour of like 2 chapters at the end of pure cuddles and sex and found family fluff. The characters were slightly different from romance novel norms, the woman was genuinely kind of a jerk in a way only men usually get to be, and while the central dude was Super Manly And Large of the "even men want him" variety he was SUCH A SWEETIE deep down, his main flaw was feeling more like wish fulfilment for readers identifying with the two more prickly LIs than a real character in his own right. Note: the gay male LI experiences some pretty intense internal and external homophobia. Also, this is the 5th in a series, the world building could be confusing but I was happy just to let it wash over me, all you really need to know is that the central guy made his money as some kind of miner and the other two are upper class. I'm pondering reading some of the others but apparently they have phonetically spelled dialect and look a bit twee.
Trade Me by Courtney Milan: Poor, bitter Chinese American woman finds herself swapping lives with charming billionaire fellow college student. I liked this as a drama about two 20 somethings figuring out themselves and their families (the complicated relationship between the main character and her activist immigrant mother was REALLY well drawn) which explored class and stuff, but it didn't entirely click for me as a romance, I'm not sure why. Still it's been cool watching Courtney Milan push the boundaries of inclusiveness in romance novels more and more, the next book in this series is about the main character of "Trade Me"s trans woman best friend which sounds great.
Hatoful Boyfriend: finally finished this, I read a Lets Play a few years ago so knew the ending was intense and was kind of putting it off. Overall a great game for what it is: an increasingly cracky, bizarre, but surprisingly heartfelt parody of dating sims where all the love interests are birds. ALLLL about the dudes in the end but I mind less when it's pigeons. Has a lot more death and darkness and Weirdness About Illness than you might expect from the genre!
Agent Carter: The season finished in a pretty satisfying way. Not perfect (POC men largely exist to say one line then have something awful happen to them), but a fun 40s spy thriller/drama with some nice continuity within the larger MCU. I was happily surprised that they didn't go anywhere really awful with the canonically disabled character! They overdid people saying "you know Peggy will never date a cripple" but mostly he got to just be a flawed but mostly decent and competent guy whose disability was not his only defining feature. Would have been nice to cast an actual disabled person but I'm pretty happy with "neither evil nor faking".
There Will Be Phlogiston by Alexis Hall: (which is free right now!) a short, unabashedly silly but goodhearted steampunk m/m/f romance. Had basically no plot, it was just a lot of the central dude going "So I really like you and you are obviously miserable let's have amazing sex and be happy" and both other LIs going "But you are common and I just CAN'T" and him sighing manfully before they realise the error of their ways and everyone lives happily ever after. Felt very fanfic-ish, I found myself thinking of it as teen!Viviene/Iron Bull/Dorian minus all the kink and political complexity (and with everyone white and human). Various conflicts etc are glossed over in favour of like 2 chapters at the end of pure cuddles and sex and found family fluff. The characters were slightly different from romance novel norms, the woman was genuinely kind of a jerk in a way only men usually get to be, and while the central dude was Super Manly And Large of the "even men want him" variety he was SUCH A SWEETIE deep down, his main flaw was feeling more like wish fulfilment for readers identifying with the two more prickly LIs than a real character in his own right. Note: the gay male LI experiences some pretty intense internal and external homophobia. Also, this is the 5th in a series, the world building could be confusing but I was happy just to let it wash over me, all you really need to know is that the central guy made his money as some kind of miner and the other two are upper class. I'm pondering reading some of the others but apparently they have phonetically spelled dialect and look a bit twee.
Trade Me by Courtney Milan: Poor, bitter Chinese American woman finds herself swapping lives with charming billionaire fellow college student. I liked this as a drama about two 20 somethings figuring out themselves and their families (the complicated relationship between the main character and her activist immigrant mother was REALLY well drawn) which explored class and stuff, but it didn't entirely click for me as a romance, I'm not sure why. Still it's been cool watching Courtney Milan push the boundaries of inclusiveness in romance novels more and more, the next book in this series is about the main character of "Trade Me"s trans woman best friend which sounds great.
Hatoful Boyfriend: finally finished this, I read a Lets Play a few years ago so knew the ending was intense and was kind of putting it off. Overall a great game for what it is: an increasingly cracky, bizarre, but surprisingly heartfelt parody of dating sims where all the love interests are birds. ALLLL about the dudes in the end but I mind less when it's pigeons. Has a lot more death and darkness and Weirdness About Illness than you might expect from the genre!
Agent Carter: The season finished in a pretty satisfying way. Not perfect (POC men largely exist to say one line then have something awful happen to them), but a fun 40s spy thriller/drama with some nice continuity within the larger MCU. I was happily surprised that they didn't go anywhere really awful with the canonically disabled character! They overdid people saying "you know Peggy will never date a cripple" but mostly he got to just be a flawed but mostly decent and competent guy whose disability was not his only defining feature. Would have been nice to cast an actual disabled person but I'm pretty happy with "neither evil nor faking".
