Basically I’m to analyze all of Caine’s adventures by how much the humans enjoyed them and see what was at fault if the adventure failed its purpose.
Gather the gloinks!
The very first adventure which… starts badly. Zooble is immediately unconvinced by the gloinks and kidnapped, so Caine either on purpose or accidentally made it so it would annoy Zooble.
However I also have to point out that Kinger, Jax and Gangle didn’t have a Particularly bad time during the adventure, with most pain being brought by Jax’s tricks. Pomni and Ragatha had an awful time but that was because of Kaufmo abstracting, so the adventure itself wasn’t bad but mainly because we barely saw it play out.
4/10 (making it annoying to one of the circus members is bad but that seemed more like a oversight that only affected one member, probably would have been a nice adventure if Kaufmo hadn’t abstracted)
Candy canyon kingdom
This one starts both better and worse, the environment is immediately more welcoming and the circus members did seem to have been given everything to succeed (like a shotgun) the main problem that made the adventure suck was Jax’s directly sabotaging or annoying the others.
However I have to take points away since it’s clear this adventure was too action focused, specially since neither Ragatha, Pomni nor Gangle seemed to work during this situations while Kinger wasn’t much of help.
The adventure on paper is fun but in practice Caine failed to consider the players weren’t prepared for this.
6/10 (could be better if Caine had put a tutorial and made sure Jax couldn’t ruin it)
The mystery of mildenhall manor
This one is divided on two sections, which for once I have to say Caine did an amazing work with the safe side. It’s calm, welcoming and allowed the players to choose between a relaxing tea party and a horror movie. Only flaw being that Jax sabotaged it again and made Kinger and Pomni fall into the horror side which… yeah it’s bad.
It’s stressful, the puzzles are unclear and it’s just horror for the sake of it. The final puzzle with the souls possessing them isn’t very good (now comes the theory of what happens to Zooble is they hold their breath, if they literally become straight as if their limbs become stiff and unable to move then Caine f*cked up massively since the adventure was made for Zooble. But we have no confirmation so this won’t be as considered)
8/10 (massive improvement that actually gives them what they want but the horror side has many design oversights and Caine clearly misunderstood what Zooble wanted)
Guns
Is alright.
Not perfect by any means since Ragatha is obviously not going to like it, but the others clearly had fun (Kinger showed his moves, Pomni was having fun, Zooble enjoyed shooting Jax, Gangle showed genuine happiness that was stronger then the one the comedy mask showcased and Jax likes violence)
Is a massive improvement upon the last adventure since this one doesn’t have soft locks or acts as unintentional torture (ragatha’s problems were mostly caused by… Jax bounding with Pomni, which Caine had no fault on) however most of the credit goes to their relationships making the adventure bearable for each other (Jax and Pomni liked playing bad guys with each other, Zooble and Gangle were clearly supporting each other, Kinger was a ragatha’s emotional support during the entire thing)
7/10 (they had actual fun but mostly because of eachother’s company, and Caine still made a adventure one of them would dislike by principle)
Escape the circus adventure
0/10
Yeah, no, I can’t defend this one. This is Caine’s worse adventure by far that was driven by his need to “prove they’ll stay” and his wrong idea that this will appease them.
Kinger’s adventure + Spudsy’s
Kinger clearly had fun and we never see anything but him styling while in the back of a bull. This falls on the same category as the gloinks because we literally had no clue how it was meant to go except that Kinger did well.
10/10 (Kinger showing why he’s the best character)
Meanwhile spudsy’s… It was awful for Jax, Ragatha and Gangle herself.
Zooble just did their job so nothing bad happen but Ragatha went on a acid trip all episode, Jax was basically put in conditioning and it clearly took a toll on him, and Gangle seemed like she was ABOUT TO ABSTRACT. Only Pomni could walk out with a smile because she had closure with gumigoo which was an unintended result of Caine reusing NPC’s.
And the worse part is that Caine didn’t cause any of this things (except maybe the stupid sauce, that one could have been his doing)
Gangle came up with the idea, ran the whole thing with little interference from Caine (with him only doing so when gangle asked for it) and it was awful, with Gangle being the one who hated it the most.
2/10 (was a awful adventure all around and I’m only giving it points because of the little closure Pomni had)
Why am I including Gangle’s adventure with caine’s? To make a point. His adventures aren’t great, they are flawed from the get go since most don’t want to participate. And even if they wanted (like Spudsy’s) is clear that willingness won’t make an adventure good.
I wanted to make clear that Caine isn’t really that bad at his job, the problem is that he’s working with an unwilling audience since that’s the only audience he can have. He even addressed some of the problems his adventures had… before the next one fell on a different hole he already patched.
His desperation and need to make them like his creations clearly hurt his creative abilities as he went on, he was so close to making a adventure they would like but ended up going in the opposite way when the suggestions did exactly that.
Stargazing and the bar
Both of this adventures did what Caine almost did during the previous adventures, I think the bar scene (while not exactly the same) would have been something similar in the tea party.
But the moment it’s was THEIR idea and not HIS, is when he started going the opposite direction. After all Caine was made to create without input (unlike ChatGPT which needs a prompt, Caine could create by himself) so he probably saw it as him failing. They aren’t enjoying his ideas, they are enjoying someone else’s ideas he made reality.
10/10 (I’m pretty sure it was kinger’s suggestion)
9/10 (I think Jax wasn’t a big fan of it but he didn’t seem very troubled in general)
So in conclusion… yeah, Caine isn’t that bad making adventures but most of the problem comes that the humans don’t even want adventures, and when they do they can range from awful to amazing which shows how hard is to make a good adventure.
Also:
President Pomni: 3/10 (it was just Jax playing annoying a prank)
Safari: 2/10 (is the gun’s adventure but worse since only Jax has a gun)
Baseball: 6/10 (it was just a baseball game so it was just simoke fun, most problems came from the humans infighting. But Caine definitely didn’t make it better since he clearly doesn’t know how it’s played)
Did you know that 1 in 28 people are actually marx kirby in disguise
if i have done the maths correctly, that’s 292,857,143 marxes in the world! that’s a lot of marxes! in fact, that means theres more marxes in the world than there are people in indonesia!
Hey, but what happened to the Taranza and Necrodeus comic you first published on October 5, 2022? It was so beautiful, why you no longer continuing it?
I forgot (also my drawing skills weren’t as good so I have some things in mind as of right now, I’ve improved a lot but I’m currently distracted in other projects, I might pick it back on in the future but if I I’m 100% redrawing the first part)
Not gonna lie, I was impressed to have received an ask about Ume, since I only ever briefly mentioned him in text! Well, that and he was hidden in my avatar.
Anyway, obligatory reference sheet featuring the evil scientist orb ~
Ume was born the 36th offspring of the first Heart Matterborn, Ultra Knight and as such was raised with plenty of resources to learn from, especially when it came to heart magic and matter. He developed a keen interest in heart matter and began to experiment with it early in his life under the supervision of his parent.
When he was still very young he was gifted a demon beast puppy known as Wolfwrath by a friend of the family, the first Soul Matterborn, Valfrey, which not only became a life-long companion to him, but also provided him with easy access to soul matter, which is a plasma in its purest form, opposing the solid nature of pure heart matter. Discovering how different these types of matter are sparked a keen interest in further studying the science of matter.
Curious about the remaining types of matter, Ume made an effort to obtain pure dream matter from the local fountain of dreams. For the time being he focused on furthering his skills in Mirror Magic and developed a machine in secret that allowed him to easily monitor, control and alter matter using the Mirror Ability and a giant kaleidoscope within.
The day Ultra Knight disappeared marked the day Ume got to know the Dark Matterborn known as Eon-Eon Dutch, who would finally allow him to dabble into the research of dark matter. Dutch may have been an adult, but he was still very naive and immature. It was very easy for Ume to take advantage of him. Needless to say, Dutch would not look back on his time with Ume fondly.
Ume’s research into matter was published as a series of books he boldly named “Mind over Matter”, many of which were banned both for the cruelties described and for fear of replication of these experiments. Dutch had to learn the hard way that Ume didn’t stop at working with matter as is, he regularly created Matterborn and charged them with either positive or negative energy documenting the results.
Initially Dutch attempted to stop him, yet that only left the Dark Matterborn with scars that mark him to this day. He reluctantly complied with Ume’s orders until his family caught wind of what was happening. Upon being presented with an exit out of the situation Dutch confronted Ume one last time to announce his departure, an event that lead into a fierce battle between the two, resulting in Ume getting to know first hand how it is like to transform into a negatively charged Matterborn, after being struck by an immensely powerful form of dream magic. Thus Ume ended and Dark Mind began.
Samus Returns came out in 2017, Retro took over Prime 4's development in 2019, I know their hands were tied on what Tanabe wanted for the project and major outlines were already done but characterising Samus without the aggression Samus Returns Samus has when fighting her opponents is such a huge miss imo. There's really no excuse for not taking note of how a mainline 2D game depicts the protagonist of the series.
In Samus Returns seeing how brutal and effective she is against her opponents makes the contrast of her kind and caring nature when interacting with the baby Metroid so much more meaningful. And I'm sorry but SR Samus would kill Sylux without breaking a sweat so what the hell is going on with Prime 4 Samus?
Hell even Other M had the excuse of Samus not being in top form because she was feeling pretty shaken up over the events of Super Metroid but Prime 4 gives no indication that shes particularly bothered by anything so its not like her emotions are getting in the way of her mission.
Also you're telling me post Super Metroid Samus can't handle a pack of alien wolves by herself and needs marines to sacrifice themselves for her??? Fuck off, she is not leaving anyone behind unless she is literally incapable of any other decision. Samus doesn't need to be a chatterbox, outside of the long inner monologues in Other M she speaks very briefly with Adam and the other marines and that how it should be, she shouldn't be mute because it's well established she isnt! I don't care that Other M is bad, it is still canon until stated otherwise and besides she speaks in Fusion and Dread too and both of these games are well loved!
Prime 4 being set after Super Metroid is such a huge problem for me. The space pirates are supposed to have been wiped out and Samus is the last Metroid, to ignore that straight up goes against the canon of the mainline games and completely fucks with Samus' arc.
Also Raven Beak couldn't make Metroids on his own even with a Thoha Chozo being forced to work for him, y'know the original creators of the Metroids but somehow Sylux figured it out? Bullshit.
Samus Returns and Dread characterised Samus really well with minimum dialogue and through her actions. Prime 4 let's her look cool and has a few humorous moments due to her silence but its so lacking in comparison to what the 2D games have given us, it's really outdated and needs to massively improve to Prime 5.
I love having mutuals who are into super old video game franchises from the days when video games Didn't Really Need A Lot Of Plot Until A Few Years Later When The Creators Realized They Could Just Add Plot. Because they'll post heartfelt essays about how x character is actually a metaphor for the human condition and the discovery that life has no meaning and the agony of existence and how they're also a direct parallel to some greek myth too somehow, but then I'll look up the character and they look like this:
janainaart
yousharknotpass
theartofmadeline
dededos
