I promise nothing and deliver less.

Here’s where I collect stuff I like. Maybe you’ll like it too. Do let me know if you need anything tagged! My current system is rather minimalistic. Icon by the defunct blog ask-a-deviljho

[hoicoro]

[prokopetz]

It's actually a bit surprising to me that we haven't seen contemporary meta brainfuck indie games do more than they have with 1990s point and click adventure games' penchant for developer-intended softlocks. That feels like something you could very easily spin as Saying Something.

[prokopetz]

Honestly, having grown up with this bullshit is probably a big part of the reason I'm fascinated with player-hostile game design. Giving a puzzle three different solutions with fully voiced and animated reactions to each, except two of those solutions render the game unwinnable in ways that won't become apparent until hours later is a level of "fuck you" that most modern games with pretensions of player-hostility can only dream of!

[prokopetz]

@lunchm34t replied:

what adventure games softlock you like that?

I'm usually loathe to suggest TV Tropes as a resource, but given that only a person who's entirely unacquainted with the genre would be asking that question, a primer is probably warranted. Check out the Unwinnable By Design article and read the preamble for context on the types of softlocks we're discussing, then hit either the "Sierra" or "Infocom" links (yes, those two publishers each have their own dedicated sections!), pop open the "Cruel" tab, and get ready to read some stuff that makes you mad.

[sd-d0-l1y]

There really is only one correct way to play some of these games huh.

[prokopetz]

A critical piece of context that a lot of modern gamers completely miss is that Douglas Adams' adventure games are works of parody not only in terms of their narratives, but also in the sense that they're rather vicious parodies of adventure games as a genre. Each of their absurdly obtuse puzzles is lampooning some puzzle design trope or set of tropes that was legitimately commonplace at the time they were made, and many of the really nasty bits are crafted specifically to piss off experienced adventure game fans who otherwise wouldn't get caught out by that sort of thing. They're outliers in the genre only in the sense that they're putting forth extra effort to be annoying about it – most games of the type pull the exact same shit entirely without remark!

[prokopetz]

(Honestly, the player-hostility of Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy tends to be tremendously overstated owing to a combination of effective marketing and the fact that it's the only adventure game from that era that any significant number of current-gen gamers have ever actually played. In terms of sheer fuckery it's considerably friendlier than stuff like, say, Codename: ICEMAN.)

[dana-ategina]

were these like, rented out blockbuster-style and the devs got a cut out of said rent, or

[prokopetz]

It helps to understand that point and click adventure games are one of the first genres the Git Gud crowd really fixated on, and a lot of these early design trends revolved around catering to that crowd. It only got reframed as a genre for filthy casuals in the wake of a demographic shift in the mid 1990s that saw the genre's player base skewing strongly female; it's practically the only example of a video game genre's reputation flipping directly from "hardcore" to "casual", and one of the most striking illustrations of the fact that which kinds of games are considered "real" games is more about identity politics than mechanics.

[xalatath]

THIS SHIT GOT ME SEEING STRAIGHT UP SERPENTS

[beemovieerotica]

not to be a killjoy but it's still crazy to me that it's considered mean to be like "maybe you should read / play / watch the source material before creating fanworks and diving into the fandom" bc every time i see somebody going "i havent played disco elysium or know anything about it tbh but uwu here's harry and kim kissing" idk maybe you should engage with it. maybe you should play the anti-capitalist surrealist game where you investigate the murder of a mercenary who led the gang rape of a foreign girl and process that for a bit? and then you can do cutesy mlm or whatever idc. but like at the absolute bare minimum you should understand what the source material involves otherwise we get the phenomenon of people joining a dragon age server and wanting content warnings for like, mage racism. like it's fine to ship and transform the genre into whatever but if you arent comfortable with discussions of the actual source content itself then maybe the fandom isnt for you and a different one is. peace and love.

[roughentumble]

love her. get his ass kiyohime

[roughentumble]

here's an image of her transforming back from dragon into a woman. queen

[theanishimori]

[mintykiwi]

oh wow get his ass.

[cryptotheism]

(Speak as a baboon)

[clegfly]

made this one in a fit of seething rage

[gghero]

I havent drawn anything in 10 billion yearssss so here take these. some are VERY old some of these more recent but ohhhh man... Akane........

I might clean the first two up I might be onto something there

[rosieandthemoon]

Olga Dugina & Andrej Dugin "The Dragon Feathers"

[tatibana-tsuki]

オカルトマニア の アカネ が 勝負 を 仕掛けてきた ！

[absolutelyashka]

Okay, one last Alice photodump from MCM! Pretend there’s a knife in the right photo lol.

[targetedknowledge]

[kmnm1403]

blossom

[garbageknight29003]

[I think Zero is...one of us...]

[coyyfishh]

Played Somnium files not too long ago and it changed my life

[actualized-animal]

it’s a known phenomenon that some artists always make their furry characters look like dogs even when they’re a completely different species, and while part of that might just be a technical flaw (ie not knowing how to draw other animals’ features) i think it’s often more attributable to the much broader trend of artists only designing characters who are conventionally “cute” or “cool” or “attractive”— it’s analogous to movies and tv shows where everyone looks like they stepped out of a beauty magazine. and like, i’m not saying that’s morally wrong, but i do think it’s boring. there’s so many animal species with so many interesting physical features that you can incorporate into designs. the protagonist of a piece of furry media does not always have to be a fox, or a wolf, or a canid at all. you can have characters based on animals that are not found in north america or europe, even ones that are not widely talked about. and give that bat girl a big pointy nose. she’s literally cutes with it

[maxknightley]

i'm literally cutes with it.

[actualized-animal]

she's literally cutes with it!

[twistedpictures1-deactivated202]

hey you should ask your doctor about MAOIs. my SSRIs weren’t working so we tried those (i’m on nardil) and it did wonders for my mental health. just saying as a suggestion because based on the fact that you put the fucking onceler on my dashboard in 2022 the meds you take right now don’t work

WHAT

[giltspark]