SleepingSilence

Video Games: The General Discussion & Community Thread Number Two

@Dark Cloud I am beyond cynical about the upcoming Mario movie. (And Mario is barely a character to begin with.) And the more expanded stories are in the spin off games like Paper Mario.

So Hollywood making a Legend Of Zelda movie, (games with actual plot and much more complicated/convoluted lore behind them) would almost certainly fail. Plus, I might not have ever seen anything from Illumination Entertainment. But its studio doesn't give me any reason to. But now we're starting to drift off topic from vidya games.

Video Games: The General Discussion & Community Thread Number Two

@Dark Cloud I've seen glimpses of it through Steam Next/youtube channels that recommend indies. Haven't played a lot of survival horror, especially recently.

Video Games: The General Discussion & Community Thread Number Two

The Entropy Center is much more like Qube than Portal. (Especially in terms of its quality. And the more mindless back and forth dialogue. Versus Portal's morbid wit.) Still has bugs and flaws that I'm sure will be fixed with future patches.

But the thing is...this game is filled with non-puzzles. And no, I'm not talking about the trial-and-error 'run through the crumbling level' sections. In fact, that's somehow the best part of the game. And no, I'm not referring to the lack of challenge either. (Though this game definitely needs harder and more open puzzles.)

No. I mean the cube and switches puzzles ala Qube. Except, EVERY single trick this game pulls is, "Here, do the whole puzzle with what you can see. And Ah, HA! There's one more hidden switch at the end. Do the whole puzzle over again." (Rinse, repeat, fall asleep.)

Halfway through it in one session. Hope to finish the rest later. (And now I'm concerned that it won't even lead to anything worthwhile either. Since the dev on reddit acknowledges "his ending might be controversial." Yeah, buddy. That means its sequel baiting, or it has an ambiguous and unanswered plot. And those things are controversial for a reason. They suck.)

Is this site still active?

@Aiyanna
(Assuming you don't have your own established in-group that tends to be in every single RP together.) I'd certainly say it's the one section that will waste the least amount of your time.

The 1X1's will start faster and last longer on average. (Regardless of their complexity.) The OOC (out-of-character) communication is easier for obvious reasons. And its conclusion will usually be more obvious and transparent too.

Plus, the 1x1’s usually let you know the desired quality and quantity ahead of time. (And the best ones provide writing examples on top of it.) So you don't have to worry about the fake authority of GM's and Co-Gm's. (That will often only use their titles to dismiss outsiders from their preferred group.)

But I've also seen people create small group RP’s. (For three or four players.) So I’m sure you’d be able to find something that works out. (Point being, don’t let me stop you from trying. But I’d certainly suggest starting your own and being proactive, if you’re looking to start a group and not have it take over a week just to get started.)

What shows/movies are you watching?

Puss In Boots: The Last Wish is cute and occasionally amusing.

Wouldn't exactly call it a masterpiece. But at least it's not incredibly boring like the original...

Four episodes in, and Andor is kind of a mess. Better than shit like Moon Knight (and likely anything else they’ve ever made) by a mile. But I’d be hard pressed to call it anything special. There’s nice shots and the set design can be nice. But then the CGI is ugly, and you can always tell when the characters are standing in front of a green screen. (Though it’s passable enough to use your suspension of disbelief.) The acting is a bit wooden, and the dialogue is rarely interesting or clever. The plot is plain and obvious. (Being predictable in a bad way.) Yet several scenes don’t make a whole lot of sense either. (Usually when the conflict is supposed to happen.) And even the ends of each episode feel like the creators didn’t know how to end them satisfyingly. (Or at least on a cliffhanger that made you want to keep watching.) Though I wouldn’t simply call it “boring”. Like I’ve seen so many others claim it to be. Not that the show’s own lines, like “must everything be so boring and sad”, do it any favors...

But for its attempt to be a gritty show with consequences and gravity “because the protag kills two guys, and those deaths really truly matter.” (Rings a little hollow, after he blew up a dozen more people and didn’t care.) So I can only assume it's like a 10 hour version of Rogue One, where the ending is “everyone dies and it becomes ‘adult’ in its body count alone.”

Edit: Tried to watch Scooby-Doo! Mystery Incorporated for the hell of it. (Because Velma.) Since it's so highly reviewed. And um...I guess it's so ridiculous that it can be amusing at times? But it feels like Ryan Johnson wrote these characters. Because it's being praised for being well developed. When they're somehow even more one-dimensional than before, and everyone but Scooby was made to be stupid and unlikeable. (Because that's clever...somehow...)

Anime & Manga! Oh my! (Anime/Manga Thread)

I decided to watch the seasonal anime (thirty plus shows worth) and expected to hate almost everything I watched. But I'm closer to being 50/50 in terms of what was watchable.

The best show thus far (that's not Bungo Stray Dogs) might be a fun 7/10 action show, if it can keep up the same pace as its first episode. "High Card" (Plus, it's not a fucking Isekai. So that's another positive in its favor.)

Video Games: The General Discussion & Community Thread Number Two

Death's Gambit Afterlife is dead to me.

The moon logic required to even find the last few bosses that I need to kill, is where I stop. (Since fighting bosses is still easily the worst f*cking part of this game.)

And I refuse to waste any more of my time. Because the guides online continue to be misleading or downright false. Mostly because it's all based on the unpatched game, and therefore, has now become completely useless information.

I give it credit for having decently rewarding exploration. And that alone kept me going through the vast majority of this. But I'm moving onto the next game. So maybe I can play a fun one instead...

Is this site still active?

It's been years since I last checked in here. I've been browsing the forums lately and have seen many inactive or dead RPs. I wonder if this site is as active as it used to be years ago, or if people have been navigating to Discord. I heard that Discord-based RPing has become more popular these days.

@Aiyanna

The activity will be more easily found in the 1x1 section and through PM's. (Where I've happily RP'd for the past few years on this site.)

What Are You Listening To?

Video Games: The General Discussion & Community Thread Number Two

That game has genuinely been pushed/name-dropped on Youtube harder than any other game I've seen recently. (Aside from things like Among Us, or actual paid mobile games ads ala, Raid Insert Title Here.) To the point that I can't help, but it having the opposite effect on me...

Vampire Survivor looks like it uses slot machine tactics to keep people playing. (The dev supposedly worked in the gambling industry.) So the game uses lots of noises and flashing images of money on screen, etc. Just without the microtransactions, and endless spending that usually goes along with it. Thus, mobile game addicts or whales like most of the streamers who gave Blizzard all of its free advertising, are now playing that and praising it to high heaven.

But it appears that the game is essentially a mindless clicker game, without any input from the player aside from moving around. So, I can't say that kind of thing appeals to me.

Though upon further looking into it. I guess the dev is at least transparent that this game was already being developed to be a clone of another free-to-play IOS game. "Magic Survival" (So I guess his goal was fairly successful...)