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@ideahat-universe
MLP Generations is done.
My silly little pony rpg game is finally and completely done, and it will now exist as my final word on the franchise and the fandom. I plan to move onto other stuff but if you are still interested in pony content, I think you'll enjoy this, especially if you enjoy RPGs.
A full-length RPG set in the mythic side of My Little Pony.
Now I plan on making other things.
Please enjoy.
The Amazing Red Herring Circus
So what is going to happen in the Final episode/movie of the Amazing Digital Circus? No idea! I mean I have my theories. Who doesn't? But really, these theories are more of a wish list on what I would like to see happen. I would like an absolute answer to what's going on in the outside world the computer takes place in. I would like to see them either establish some kind of stability post Caine, or abstract one after another, or maybe they all just die when the computer is turned off or the program destabilizes.
Of course the theme of the story is that you can be happy with a mediocre life, and part of the reason Jax occupies so much space in the story is that he is the Archie Bunker of this story. He exists specifically to drive the thesis as the show's thematic obstacle. A person with nihilism. He coped with his lack of agency with the idea that none of it was real and that the status quo was immutable. But things actually started changing but the chance of actually escaping is unbelievable (probably true as well) so the only thing that can happen is an unknown, worse existence that is now possible thanks to Caine being deleted.
I mean the worst good ending is everyone escaping the game and returning to the normal world. The worst ending is everyone abstracting and dying, and the most reasonable good ending is them making the best of their digital experience. That ending also affirms the theme of the series so it's also the most likely to happen unless Gooseworx really did decide to ruin the show out of spite.
But we're not here to talk about what could be the most reasonable and possible ending to the series. Instead, the subject is about the various fan theories that assume a twist and different themes than what is actually in the series. Let's start with a very early one.
Caine and Abel allegories:
The second theorists noticed that the logo of the building was CnA and that the host AI was named Caine, people have taken this link and assumed there's religious and specifically Christian allegories in the series. And that this is some sort of commentary on how evil god is. To keep ourselves from falling into a god debate in general let's just focus on the part that matters most. The story of Caine and Abel doesn't apply to most of the story of the digital circus. Caine and Abel is one part of genesis and most of Genesis doesn't apply to the plot or themes of the digital circus either. Caine established that his name is his own hallucination. He named himself and Kinger never indicated that the AI was named much less that they called it Caine. Abel doesn't truly exist. We named the blue AI Abel. Caine pulled the name of Abel from the player's mind data (which he has proven capable of doing) and applied it to the NPC in response. That entire quest was the product of what the players (and the audience) were thinking. But even if there was a real life Caine and Abel, those two men were not living their lives based on their namesakes from the bible. Even then, the bizarre and weird way Caine ended up acting was due to the programming from Scratch who was trying to Allen Resnik the project and live forever inside the software. That's why he was the first to abstract, because he couldn't live forever in the program because the main controlling AI was obsessed with generating chaos.
Bubble is behind it all!
Some people think Bubble is Abel, that Bubble is a parasite, that Bubble is its own AI. None of these things are the case. Bubble is just another program operating within Caine. His primary function is to voice whatever sort of sub conscious thought Caine has. It's not a real separate and even logical mind.
This is just like I have no mouth and I must scream! Look I get it. When I first started seeing the link between That novel and Amazing Circus it sounds like a great pull. But it's been pulled too often and no one has reigned that in. There's a big problem with this comparison. It only works as a setup. And even then this is a flexible setup as there are multiple stories about people being trapped in a virtual world. One could reference dot hack sign or live forever as both are character focused stories on how people cope with existential elements in their lives when a digital interface has been injected into it. I have no Mouth and I must Scream can effectively be interpreted as an anti god story. AM isn't just a super computer. It has seemingly limitless power and control and exerts its power exclusively to commit acts of cruelty. A key element of that novel is that AM can't really be defeated or stopped and only exists to make humans suffer. Caine. Is nothing like that. In fact in episode 8 Caine being accidentally deleted in the same episode he comes within the ballpark of being like AM is practically a joke. You thought Caine couldn't be stopped? Turns out Caine can be completely destroyed without a trace. Caine actually IS a computer program. AM is a thought experiment on the cruelty or absence of a god.
In the end, I don’t think The Amazing Digital Circus is building toward a giant lore twist, a secret biblical allegory, or some revelation that redefines the entire story. I think the reason so many fan theories feel wrong is that they assume the circus itself is the true subject of the series. It isn’t. The circus is framing. It’s the absurd, surreal scenario used to examine very grounded human fears: isolation, uncertainty, lack of agency, emotional stagnation, and the struggle to find meaning in a life that may never become what you hoped it would be.
That’s why I don’t think the ending is really about discovering the “truth” behind the world. Whether the characters are copies, connected minds, or something in between ultimately matters less than what they choose to do with their existence. Escape, oblivion, or acceptance are the only real outcomes left, and the most likely one is not a triumphant victory over the system, but the characters deciding that even an imperfect existence still has value.
That’s also why characters like Jax matter so much. He represents the easiest response to suffering: if nothing matters, then cruelty doesn’t matter either. But the entire thesis of the series pushes against that idea. The possibility that things can change, that relationships matter, or that life retains meaning even under absurd conditions completely undermines his worldview.
So just sit back and enjoy the movie, and remember, if the worst ending takes place. It was YOUR fault.
Probably.
Morality Lost
Over the six years I have consumed a lot of Hazbin hotels and Helluva Boss content and as it's gone from being fairly dumb and simple to more thoughtful and complex I don't see people hitting the heart of the problem.
WHY is the show inconsistent about how it feels about sexual assault?
WHY is Charlie Morningstar and her motivations both the hook of the show and the weakest element of it?
WHY is heaven depicted as either evil through intent or evil through neglect if the objective is to send sinners to heaven?
Well I'll tell you.
The Core Problem with Hazbin Hotel is that it is a Story About Morality Without a Moral Framework
Hazbin Hotel presents itself as a story about redemption.
At its core, the premise is simple: Can sinners in hell be redeemed?
It’s a powerful idea—one that naturally invites questions about good, evil, responsibility, and transformation.
But this is where the show runs into its central problem:
It explores redemption without establishing a consistent understanding of what redemption actually means.
Any story about redemption depends on three things:
A clear sense of what is wrong
A meaningful process of change
A defined idea of what “better” looks like
Without these, redemption becomes vague.
In Hazbin Hotel, morality often feels contextual rather than structural.
Actions are not consistently treated as right or wrong in themselves. Instead, their moral weight shifts depending on:
tone (serious vs comedic)
character likability
narrative framing
Angel Dust is one of the clearest examples of this tension.
The show establishes that:
his hypersexual behavior is a coping mechanism
his addiction is tied to trauma
his relationship with Valentino is abusive
This is grounded and believable.
But at the same time:
the show plays his behavior for comedy
sexual harassment is treated as humor
Valentino is sometimes shown sympathy
So Angel Dust exists in two conflicting modes:
a serious portrayal of abuse
a comedic exaggeration of that same behavior
Because the moral framing shifts depending on tone, the character’s arc becomes unstable.
Rather than having a consistent standard, right and wrong are often determined by context.
This creates a larger issue:
If the moral weight of actions changes depending on presentation, what exactly are characters being redeemed from?
Charlie’s goal is to redeem sinners.
But without a stable moral framework, redemption becomes difficult to define.
If:
good and evil are flexible
behavior is judged based on context
and perspectives shift depending on sympathy
then redemption itself becomes unclear.
This leads to a contradiction:
Heaven is portrayed as flawed or hostile
Hell is populated with sympathetic, likable characters
So the question becomes:
Why leave hell at all?
The story does not consistently establish why hell is worse than heaven—only that it is.
If you follow this logic far enough, something interesting happens.
The story stops being about redeeming individuals.
Instead, it begins to feel like something else:
A reinterpretation of hell itself.
If no behavior is consistently condemned, then:
sin becomes identity
harm becomes characterization
and redemption becomes optional
At that point, the focus shifts.
Not toward changing sinners—
But toward reframing the environment they exist in.
Hazbin Hotel has a compelling premise.
But it struggles because it explores redemption within a moral system that is fluid and context-dependent.
And when morality is unstable, redemption loses its foundation.
Which leads to an unexpected conclusion:
It’s not that sinners are being redeemed.
It’s that hell itself is.
I Was Wrong About VTubers
When the Hololive / VTuber wave exploded in 2020–2021, I had the same reaction I had during early MLP fandom days:
“What is this, and why is it everywhere?”
From the outside, it looked strange.
People were spending:
Enormous amounts of time
Significant money
Professional rigging and animation budgets
…to build a persona that, in many cases, didn’t even matter to the content.
The model would exist.
The lore would exist.
But then the stream would just be someone playing Minecraft.
At the time, I didn’t get it.
Because there weren’t many English VTubers early on, I mostly consumed clips. When I would sit down and watch an actual stream in a language I could understand I found myself, not entertained throughout. It was like the clips that people made were the only funny and entertaining content as opposed to being a highlight of an overall good stream.
Another thing that confused me early on:
Why build an elaborate character if it doesn’t meaningfully affect most content?
Why invest in lore if you’re just playing Mario Kart?
It felt like wasted effort.
Over time, I realized the persona isn’t always meant to dominate the content.
It’s a framing device.
My “oshi” ended up being Neuro-sama.
And that’s not accidental.
Neuro isn’t a person pretending to be an AI.
She is literally an AI.
Her identity isn’t decorative.
It’s intrinsic.
Her performance is emergent.
When she hits milestones, improves, glitches, or evolves, that is the narrative.
Her authenticity comes from the fact that she isn’t role-playing sentience.
She’s approximating it.
Ironically, that makes her feel more real than many flesh-and-blood streamers playing characters.
What I also noticed is that higher-quality streamers create a better clip ecosystem.
Creators like:
Jerma985
Vinny Vinesauce
Have entire economies of curated highlights — sometimes 30 minutes long — that preserve pacing and context.
The clips aren’t just bait.
They’re edited experiences.
With Neuro-sama, the same thing applies.
You can watch:
Quick viral moments
Extended highlight reels
Entire milestone arcs
The ecosystem scales.
For many other VTubers, I discovered a different function.
They’re not primary entertainment.
They’re remixers.
Watching a VTuber react to:
JonTron
Internet Historian
Is a way to refresh content I’ve already seen a dozen times.
It adds friction.
A new perspective.
A different rhythm.
Its commentary layered onto commentary.
And that’s surprisingly effective.
Yeah, yeah! It's a reaction and I don't like to react channels that don't do anything interesting. When a person turns a 30-minute video into a 1 and 30 minutes you're in for a different viewing experience then when you had originally watched the video.
Let’s be clear:
There absolutely are VTubers whose entire appeal leans heavily into par asocial engagement.
Soft voice.
Direct address.
Emotional intimacy.
“Chat, I love you.”
That ecosystem exists.
And it can be manipulative.
But reducing the entire medium to that is lazy.
It’s like reducing all YouTubers to vloggers.
Or all anime to isekai.
There’s a spectrum (and we're all about spectrums here!)
I get it now. Maybe one day I might entertain the idea. Possibly being a PNG tuber, but it's hard to say, I'm not much for standing on a stage, I much prefer writing a performance. But you never know with these sorts of things.
I want to get off Ms Poppy's wild ride.
When I first wrote about Poppy Playtime, I called it the perfect mascot horror game.
Not because it was the scariest.
Not because it had the best gameplay.
But because it was optimized.
Optimized for the modern content ecosystem.
It had everything mascot horror needed to succeed:
Distinct mascots designed to be merchandised
Frequent puzzles that pad runtime without overwhelming players
High-energy chase sequences that are entertaining to watch
Strong visual branding that translates into thumbnails
It was the perfect system.
Not for players.
For streamers.
And that distinction matters.
Mascot horror exists in a strange economic space.
Most fans don’t play mascot horror games.
They watch them.
Which means the real customer isn’t the player.
It’s the streamer.
Streamers pay for the game, generate content, turn the game into free advertising.
The developer doesn’t just sell a game.
They sell a content engine.
And Poppy Playtime executes this model flawlessly.
The chase sequences are visually exciting, mascots merch-ready, moments, optimized for reaction.
It’s efficient.
Almost too efficient.
By Chapter 3, the illusion started breaking.
The game stopped feeling like a horror experience.
It started feeling like a product pipeline.
The deeper you go into the facility—literally miles underground—the less it feels like a believable place and more like a series of set pieces designed for spectacle.
The scares don’t escalate.
They repeat.
Chase sequence.
Dialog section.
Puzzle.
There are minigames here and there, but it was not present in chapter 5. Chapter 5 is just the essentials.
And bros? I am not feeling the hand pack anymore. It's a fun gimmick at first, but there's been no addition of complexity to the hands we've obtained. We just get different hands for different problems. Every hand is "Put key in keyhole" There is no puzzle that asks you to understand how to cleverly apply the hands to solving the problem. It presents an objective that can only be solved with that hand, you already have the hand so you just used to interact, and the path opens and you progress.
People keep complaining about the puzzles, there are no puzzles. It's all busy work.
The Prototype is supposed to be the ultimate culmination of the company’s experiments.
But its design feels disconnected from the internal logic of the world.
Everything else in Playtime Co. is based on toys.
The Prototype isn’t a toy.
It’s a skeleton.
A collection of mechanical parts.
Even its aesthetic choices—like the jester imagery—don’t align with the company’s established product identity.
It feels less like a natural extension of the world and more like borrowed mascot horror language.
As if it exists because mascot horror requires a “final monster.”
Not because the story demanded it.
This problem becomes even more obvious with characters like Lily Lovebraid.
She doesn’t feel like a toy.
She feels like a stylized person.
And that distinction matters.
The horror of mascot horror comes from the corruption of something innocent.
A toy.
When the character stops feeling like a toy, the horror weakens.
It stops being uncanny.
It becomes just another monster.
Mommy Long Legs had this problem.
Lily Lovebraid has it even more.
They invite fan art more than fear.
Poppy Playtime relies heavily on chase sequences.
Which makes sense.
Chase sequences are fantastic spectator content.
They create:
Panic
Urgency
Reaction
Perfect for streaming.
But they’re fragile.
If the player fails repeatedly, tension turns into frustration.
You can see this in real time watching streamers like Markiplier lose immersion when the mechanical friction becomes obvious.
The illusion breaks.
The player stops feeling hunted.
They start feeling inconvenienced.
God-damn has Shipwrecked 64 spoiled me to what good Mascot horror can be. It's not like Poppy's playtime isn't the standard, Poppy's playtime formula is so strong even modern FNAF is just a Poppy playtime knock off.
AND WHY THE HELL ARE THERE 9 SEQUELS TO GARTEN OF BAN BAN?
Daniel Mullins is one of the few developers whose entire body of work revolves around a single question:
What happens when a game becomes aware of itself?
Not just aware of the player—but aware of its own existence as software.
This idea has driven every major release he’s made:
Pony Island
The Hex
Inscryption
Each game builds on the last, refining his obsession with meta-narrative, developer intent, and player identity.
But Inscryption exposed something unexpected.
It revealed both Mullins’ greatest strength—and his greatest weakness.
Daniel Mullins was clearly influenced by Undertale.
But not in the way most developers were.
Most developers copied Undertale’s tone:
Quirky humor
Emotional characters
Moral consequences
Mullins didn’t copy the characters.
He copied something deeper.
He copied the Gaster layer.
The hidden layer.
The layer that implies the game exists beyond the visible narrative.
Toby Fox used meta-narrative to question the player.
Daniel Mullins uses meta-narrative to question the game itself.
His games aren’t asking:
“Why are you doing this?”
They’re asking:
“What am I?”
On the surface, Pony Island is simple.
A deliberately broken arcade game.
But the real experience isn’t playing Pony Island.
It’s interacting with the entity behind Pony Island.
The game becomes a conversation between:
The software
The developer
The player
And something else pretending to be all three
Completion isn’t the goal.
Understanding is.
The Hex expands this idea dramatically.
On the surface, it’s a collection of different genres:
Platformer
RPG
Fighting game
Adventure game
But none of these mechanics are the real point.
The real point exists outside the visible game.
Through ARG elements, external files, and hidden installations, the story extends beyond the executable itself.
The game stops being software.
It becomes an investigation.
This is Daniel Mullins’ true design language.
Inscryption is different.
For the first time, the core gameplay is genuinely compelling on its own.
The card game mechanics are:
Well-paced
Strategically interesting
Mechanically satisfying
You don’t play Inscryption just to uncover the meta narrative.
You play it because the game itself is fun.
The meta narrative enhances the experience—but it isn’t the only reason to continue.
This is why Inscryption broke into the mainstream.
Not because it was Mullins’ most meta game.
But because it was his most playable game.
Daniel Mullins excels at creating conceptual experiences.
But mechanically, his games often feel minimal.
Not broken.
Not incompetent.
Just thin.
Pony Island’s mechanics wear out their welcome quickly.
The Hex’s genre shifts are interesting conceptually but shallow mechanically.
Inscryption is the only game where the mechanics can stand independently from the meta narrative.
And that distinction matters.
Because most players will only tolerate meta narrative if the gameplay supports it.
Recent smaller projects and game jam entries reinforce this pattern.
They’re interesting.
They work.
But they also remind you that Mullins’ instinct is not to create mechanically rich systems.
His instinct is to create conceptual frameworks.
Games that exist primarily to deliver an idea.
Not games that exist primarily to be played.
Daniel Mullins is arguably one of the most interesting narrative designers working today.
But his greatest strength—his focus on meta-narrative—is also what limits the mechanical depth of his games.
Inscryption succeeded because it balanced both.
But that balance may not be the norm.
It may be the exception.
Which means future Daniel Mullins games will likely continue to be fascinating.
But not necessarily fun.
And that distinction defines his entire body of work.
I mention this now because if you are a Daniel Mullins fan the next big game should be fun BUT if you just liked Inscryption because the game was fun, you could be disappointed because the ARG element is typically where all the meaty gameplay goes, and the game is just a framing device.
Gooseworx's shadow looms and darkens
I remember early on saying that Gooseworx's project was creating a lot of problems for themselves. And at the time I made some recommendations. Go completely scorched earth on content creators talking about your project in a way you don't like. A good example is Cookie's Bustle. Someone out there owns a legal copy of Cookie's Bustle, in their mind they own it. And because they own it they censored any instance of anyone playing Cookie's Bustle from the internet and any copy of the game or footage of the game was censored everywhere and the end result?
Cookie's Bustle no longer exists.
Gooseworx has this power, but it's evil so they never considered using it. And now look where we are. The concern with the fandom has mutated like some deranged creature.
Now Goose is saying they want to ruin the show they made for the purposes of payback and quite honestly, even saying this sarcastically is bad.
How did we get here? I have a theory, a lot of these issues are centered around Jax. I mean from day 1 Jax was going to be a fan favorite and at around that same time Gooseworx was eager for people to hate Jax. Jax is some strange lightning rod that even with Jax having suicide ideation, they believed that those who hated Jax would continue to hate him.
What if, the reason Gooseworx doesn't like their fandom and Jax by extension, is that these two elements represent a part of Goose's dark side, an aspect of themselves they suppress?
Carl Jung called it The Shadow. Unconscious dark thoughts and aspects of yourself you don't want to associate with or even be aware of. The more you suppress it, the darker it becomes.
I mean the signs were all there. Look at Gooseworx's persona! It's been humanoid/robotic for many years, but recently it's now an abstract shape. Now I'm not suggesting that Gooseworx is abstracting as a result of unresolved mental issues.
Except I'm saying exactly that. Creating The Amazing Digital Circus has unlocked The Pandora Box, and they attained an audience based on a version of themselves that they hate, and the resolution is to figure out whom they really are and make peace with it.
Or just completely abstract into nothingness. Whichever one is funnier.
What I've learned from watching other people learn about ENA
I watched a lot of ENA streams. I also played it myself.
Furthermore, I don’t usually play games that drift into “walking simulator” territory, but I do enjoy point-and-click adventure design. ENA fits closer to that second category — exploration, dialogue, surreal logic, environmental storytelling.
After watching multiple playthroughs, I came away with something interesting:
I have critiques for a game I genuinely think is great.
Not about tone. Not about art direction. About player behavior.
Here’s what I noticed.
1. The Lonely Door Problem
Players are told they must interact with three doors (and their corresponding genie) before the smoke clears and the chapter ends.
But what many players assume is:
“I’ll go through the Lonely Door first, then come back for the others.”
That assumption is wrong.
The game doesn’t strongly communicate that this is a one-way commitment. So players rush through the Lonely Door and unintentionally skip Coral Glasses and several one-time interactions.
By the time they realize what happened, it’s too late.
This feels like a remnant of the game originally being structured as one cohesive piece before being split into chapters. Structurally, it behaves like you’ll be able to loop back. But you can’t.
That mismatch causes accidental content loss.
2. “Where Do I Go?” — The Attention Drift Issue
ENA does communicate who is inter-actable. The language is there.
And yet, players still get lost.
Why?
Because wandering in ENA often leads to events that feel important — like the Purge Event — even if they aren’t part of your immediate objective.
Players who bounce around quickly end up:
Climbing up the taxi driver’s sleeve
Entering the cave
Finding the heads
Triggering the Purge
They miss content and shorten the experience unintentionally.
This exposes a design tension:
The world invites exploration, but progression isn’t always clearly tiered between “optional curiosity” and “core objective.”
3. The Flesh Building Is Too Confusing
The building containing the taxi driver’s head is the biggest offender.
It has:
Dead ends that don’t telegraph themselves as dead ends
A ghost pointing vaguely in the wrong direction
A massive gap leading to what feels like unfinished content
A shortcut that bypasses most of the interior
If you reach the taxi driver’s head via shortcut, then try to explore the cave normally, you end up circling back to something you already completed.
Players think there’s more in that cave than there actually is.
The confusion isn’t difficulty — it’s expectation mismatch.
4. The “God-Level Frogger” Moment
If you triggered the Purge Event, you eventually reach the river crossing.
Most players fail here.
Not because it’s conceptually hard — but because something about the jump physics or control feedback causes half-jumps and mistimed inputs.
I used a controller and had no issue.
But watching keyboard players attempt the sequence was painful.
Some players:
Attempt to brute-force jump the river
Ignore the human board (the bridge)
Jump straight into the river assuming they’ll respawn
Up until that moment, pits just reset you.
So the river feels like “just another fall.”
It isn’t.
The consequence feels disproportionate because the game hasn’t trained the player to expect that kind of permanence.
5. Theodora and the “Safe Choice” Effect
When players reach Theodora, they almost always choose the “real aspiration” immediately.
They avoid optional dialogue.
They avoid risk.
By that point in the game, players are afraid of messing up.
So they minimize interaction.
Ironically, the more cautious and attentive someone has been, the less optional content they risk engaging with.
That suggests the game may not clearly communicate which choices are flavor and which advance the plot.
6. Alex the Hoarder and the Waiting Problem
Alex is fated to die.
When he has a heart attack, you’re given the option to revive him.
But if you wait long enough, he just dies.
In theory, that’s darkly funny.
In practice?
No one waits.
Because the wait is absurdly long — several minutes.
Fifteen seconds feels long in a game.
Seven minutes feel broken.
This reminds me of Terra Memoria, where the devs initially made players wait intentionally to create a feeling of mundanity — and later removed it because it just felt bad.
If Alex is going to die regardless, the wait window should be 30–60 seconds max.
Otherwise, no player will naturally discover it.
7. The Friendly Giant Visibility Issue
During Uncanny Streets, players see the giant stuck in the wall and assume he’s interactable.
He isn’t — not yet.
Later, during Auction Day, he is interactable.
But by then, players don’t look for him.
A neat piece of environmental storytelling ends up largely unseen.
Final Thoughts
ENA: Dream BBQ is great.
But watching other people play it revealed something fascinating:
Not flaws in tone or creativity — but friction between player expectation and designer intent.
Most of the “mistakes” players make aren’t because they’re inattentive.
They’re because the game subtly trains them to assume one thing — and then occasionally breaks that rule.
That friction is interesting.
And honestly?
Watching people learn ENA might be as fascinating as playing it.
My one post for black history month
I’ve been busy lately, and if I’m being honest, last year’s Black History Month posts didn’t get much traction. One thing that did take off was when I turned my Michelle Obama debunking article into a video. That did well. But between projects and real-life obligations, I don’t have much time to pour into posts that seem to disappear into the void.
So let’s keep this one brief.
I want to talk about Relooted.
As someone who grew up loving Sly Cooper, the idea of sneaking into a location, stealing something valuable, and making a stylish escape is inherently appealing. Heist mechanics are fun. That countdown-escape format—run to the objective, trigger the alarm, and get out before time expires—is a proven sub-genre. It’s the same design DNA you see in games like Wario Land 4 or even Pizza Tower. I once jokingly called them “platvroomers”—platformers built around momentum and escape.
Gameplay-wise, Relooted sits comfortably in that lane. It’s a solid concept.
Where I start to lose interest is in the framing.
The premise—stealing artifacts back from museums because they were “stolen first”—is presented as the moral backbone of the story. That’s a heavy philosophical anchor to build your entire vibe around. Museums, for better or worse, exist to preserve and immortalize culture, art, and history. There’s nuance there. It’s not as simple as “they stole it, so we’re stealing it back.”
The tone reminds me of Killmonger’s philosophy in Black Panther—a character whose anger made sense emotionally, but whose conclusions were written as fundamentally flawed. That kind of framing can be compelling if handled with depth. But if it becomes the central justification without much nuance, it risks flattening what could otherwise just be a stylish heist platformer.
And that’s the thing: when I compare Relooted to something like Pizza Tower, the difference is instantly clear. Pizza Tower overflows with personality, exaggerated style, tight control, and chaotic charm. People fell over themselves to love it because of that energy.
Relooted’s gameplay concept is appealing. Heist stories are appealing. But the art direction didn’t grab me, the framing device felt heavy-handed, and the controls (at least from what I’ve seen) don’t look as tight as the genre demands.
That said—82% positive reviews isn’t bad. And active player counts don’t mean much for a single-player platformer. Maybe this is exactly the audience the devs wanted to reach.
For me? The mechanics are solid. The premise is what does the most damage.
Live by the Killmonger framing, die by the Killmonger framing.
I liked Labubu when it was Domo.
Pokémon Z grade
So, I haven’t talked about all the stuff that came out regarding the Palworld lawsuit yet. It’s ridiculous—like, genuinely absurd—and I can’t imagine there are many people who don’t feel that way at this point.
At first, I assumed the lawsuit over those retroactive patents was a strategic move: maybe Nintendo hoped to use Japan’s high pass-through rate to score an easy win on something that would never hold up in an American court. But now it’s clear they’re playing a long game of attrition—death by a thousand cuts.
It’s a risky move, because even if Palworld went bankrupt tomorrow but somehow managed to win the case, Nintendo would win the battle (killing Palworld) but lose the war (weakening its grip on patenting game mechanics).
We’ve seen this before. Bleem! Went bankrupt against Sony fighting the suit, but the ruling allowed emulators to legally exist. That one court case shaped the entire future of game preservation.
It's kind of a big deal honestly. But we have basically no control over those suits outside buying Palworld games and merch to keep their war chest funded (which maybe you should do purely on principle alone) so let's talk about gaming instead!
Now, let’s talk about Pokémon Legends: Z-A.
It doesn’t look great. Setting the entire game in one city could have been interesting if they leaned into it—built elaborate districts, made the city vertical and alive like JAK 2’s Haven City. But instead, it just looks flat.
Remember the old Pokémon games? Back on Game Boy, the maps felt alive—nooks, crannies, hidden treasures, weird NPCs, mini-games, unique side areas for catching Pokémon under special conditions. Each corner of the world felt worth exploring.
Compare that to today’s Pokémon: it’s bigger, but emptier. And sure, Mega Evolutions are back, which should be exciting—except Digimon did it first, and frankly, they did it better.
So instead of dropping more money on Pokémon Z-A or whatever mainline title comes next, let’s talk about monster-catching games that deserve your time.
Digimon World franchise:
Digimon World 1 is something I've already recommended, and I still recommend it, but let's say you went out and played it till there was nothing left to see. The next step if you still want the same exact thing but newer, well Next Order fits that bill, it hits all the basic beats, removes some jank from the psone title and streamlines it in various ways. You even get two Digimon to take care of instead of one. Not only does that double the fun it allows a partner system with your two Digimon where they interact with each other and can even do fusion only digievolutions. The best part about that function is that not only is it something that you can use on command, it can trigger automatically when your Digimon are knocked out. This creates a very organic and exciting second wind in what was a presumably climatic fight. (Or at least a very hilarious and explosive way to deal with a low level opponent that just got lucky.)
But hey! Maybe you don't care for the monster raising gameplay loop. After all, it comes with the monsters dying and that's not always fun! It's okay. The interesting thing about Digimon is that there are plenty of traditional turn based games where the digi evolution mechanic is easier to deal with. Digimon World Time Stranger is a very nice story driven experience with strategic turn based combat, and you still get many of the nice aspects of digitizing minus the tamagochi system that can sometimes make you swallow bitter pills.
But let's say you just want more of Digimon world 1. Well you're in luck, because Digimon world 1 has romhacks! Digimon World Maeson is a new way to play that classic Digimon game! You'll need to modify pre-existing game data of Digimon World 1, but the method has instructions and even customization options that allow you to change little things about the gameplay experience that the modder was able to streamline or remove entirely. That's not the only romhack either. Some romhacks out there even allow you the option to switch out the roster of Digimon you can obtain and control. Including Machindramon.
Monster Rancher franchise:
Not into Digimon? Try Monster Rancher. Monster Rancher 2 is still the series’ high point—and you can grab the remaster on Steam or mobile. Training your monster, watching it grow, and battling it out in tournaments remains incredibly addictive.
Want something different? Monster Rancher Kaiju lets you raise giant monsters in an Ultraman crossover, complete with classic rubber-suit creature vibes.
It has mods. Ya see, awhile back I looked into the modding community and people were like “the files were encrypted, nothing can be done about it.” and I figured depending on the password a breaker would probably take a while to break encryption if ever, but we got lucky figured out the password using Social Engineering.
It was just KoeitecmoMF1&2
And ya know what? Thank god for that it was something we could make a logical guess on because that means we can edit game data.
Now you can play monster rancher 2 with mods that adjust all kinds of values in the game, allowing for all kinds of shenanigans (and clearing up elements of the game that don't make sense for the inexperienced).
But it doesn't end there. There's about a few hundred or so monsters in Monster Rancher. But there could be more. Wouldn't it be nice if there were like a thousand or more Monsters in Monster Rancher 2?
What's this?
Oh, wow! Look at that! There is a mod that adds more monsters. It's incomplete, but maybe this is an opportunity, feeling artistic? Want a specific monster rancher combination to be in the mod? Or maybe you just want to really specialize the way every monster looks in the game. You can do that with this mod (and a little experience with Photoshop or similar programs if you have experience editing or illustrating).
Get even more invested in your monster's championship run when it's designed to your exact specifications!
Coromon:
If what you really want is classic Pokémon but modernized, Coromon is exactly that. It’s a lovingly faithful take on the Game Boy Advance-era Pokémon experience—but packed with built-in ROM hack-level quality-of-life features.
You can see EVs and IVs, fast-travel anywhere, change natures, use infinite TMs, and tweak dozens of gameplay options. It’s as customizable as it gets, and it scratches that old-school itch without any modding required.
Personally, I still think Pokémon Unbound (a ROM hack) does it better—but Coromon is commercial, accessible, and getting a sequel soon. If you want a legit, high-quality Pokémon-like with great design and polish, this is the one to support.
We’ve only scratched the surface of this genre. From Digimon to Monster Rancher to Coromon and countless indie takes, there’s a huge world of monster-catching games that aren’t Pokémon—and they’re often more creative, more fun, and more respectful of your time.
Even if you’re just a casual Pokémon GO player, there’s something out there that will click with you. And if you do love Pokémon, try exploring ROM hacks and fan games. Many are built in RPG Maker and do wild, inventive things the official games never will.
So please—support the genre, not just the brand.
Buy Palworld. Play Coromon. Try Digimon World. Mod Monster Rancher.
Because this isn’t just about fun games—it’s about keeping creativity alive in a genre that deserves to evolve.
I don't know how to feel about this.
On one hand—
where the hell is the love for Problem Sleuth?
Problem Sleuth walked so Homestuck could run, yet it’s like everyone’s forgotten the foundation that webcomic empire was built on. No nods, no reverence, nothing.
On the other hand… it’s made by Viziepop.
I mean, let's be fair. This should be something Viziepop should be able to make. On paper, it makes sense, Helluva Boss is downstream from Homestuck.
Both thrive on chaotic internet humor.
Both have a completely horrific internet fandom.
Both are constantly flipping between several layers of intense sarcasm superglued to sincere melodrama.
So sure, this should work. But the pilot is rough in ways only people who’ve actually read Homestuck will immediately recognize.
First off—spoilers. I get it, it’s been years. Homestuck practically is the DNA of modern internet culture, so maybe you think nothing’s left to spoil. But showing off basically a variety of story impactful twists in the last 20 seconds of your pilot? That’s a bold choice.
And here’s the core problem: Homestuck’s writing is impenetrable by design.
It’s a multimedia labyrinth, partially co-written by its audience over seven years, full of bait, switch, and deliberate confusion. Andrew Hussie thrived on trolling his own readers. You cannot distill that chaos into a simple video format—and the pilot proves why.
The narration is inconsistent. It flickers in and out, leaving gaps that Viziepop’s signature style rushes to fill—with lots of cursing and anachronistic quips that completely reframe the tone. Those tonal shifts aren’t harmless; they change who the characters are.
Take John Egbert. In the comic, we discover him through his interactions—with his house, his stuff, the absurd “commands.” His character emerges organically through gameplay parody.
In the pilot? That’s lost.
The “Dad boss fight” sequence especially misses the mark. It’s not supposed to be an epic duel. It’s a parody of RPG combat, deliberately clumsy and absurd. Likewise, it’s what makes the latter, actually cool Dave vs. Bro fight land so well. Without that tonal buildup, the humor and pacing just collapse.
And that’s the heart of it: Homestuck wasn’t just a story, it was an experience. It relied on reader interaction, flash animations, music cues, and misdirection layered like sediment. Trying to compress that into a standard cartoon format—especially one written in Viziepop’s voice—isn’t just ambitious.
It’s biting off more than anyone could possibly chew.
Should have adapted Problem Sleuth.
I have a love hate relationship with Backseat, on one hand his video on Chulip is the definitive retrospective on that game, it's very comprehensive and good and covers a game that people touch on and pass by.
And then he did Smash math which is a cavalcade of nonsense as he comes up with increasingly stupid ideas on how to figure out who could be in Smash Next time. In retrospect his bad guesses and almost good ones make it way more funny now than it was back then, but don't take my word for it.
He does glitch runs of mascot horror games, presumably because he saw how easy it was to mill for content by playing a game specifically to trigger bugs and sequence breaks.
But most games have a very simple bug so a lot of it is just him playing a Mascot horror game, and I'm more or less over the genre, it has to be really thoughtful and clever for me to even care.
That leads me to Garten of Banban. Garten of Banban should not exist much less have 8 chapters. It has this many chapters thanks to the irony poisoned moron Uhyeah who had to meme Ophila bird to the point it went viral in the mascot horror space, well, people ironically liking something justified sincerely making a franchise out of it, and now we have 8 chapters of this game, and it is probably the most baffling franchise that has ever existed.
I mean when I ask an AI to explain it, it makes sense, but I can't shake the reality that garten of banban exists as like a strung out, twisted version of Poppy Playtime.
Some say that this is a parody, maybe, the Euphoric brothers have made parodies, but I think much like Uhyeah and a lot of people these days, they're just pathologically unserious and insecure. They tell jokes because they can't commit to really being serious about anything.
It's just really stupid shit that shouldn't exist. Backseat put on kid gloves for this video, and it's a real L because he went pretty hard on trying to break the mimic and didn't care at all about the story or how well it's animated and performed. But the incredibly tepid Garten of BanBan is called decent even though character models are still horrible and whatever isn't made are flipped assets. What is crazy though is that voice actors are being paid for. I would have assumed the euphoric brothers would use AI but no, they spent money on voice talent. Presumably. Again, people do these things for free just for the memes.
So Backseat's video about Banban 8 is disappointing, but not as disappointing as him insisting that Birdo was going to be added to smash ultimate.
Five cent Fuentes
So, about ten years ago I said I’d dig into the whole “Alt Right” thing, and yeah, I did. The big takeaway? The “Alt Right” doesn’t really exist. Anyone who gets slapped with that label usually just falls under plain ol’ conservative or libertarian. There’s nothing “alternative” about it — it’s just the right wing we already know.
So it is right it's just not Alt Right.
But that's straightforward definitions. I know that Alt Right is typically used as a Dog Whistle to call someone on the right politically a White Supremacist, a Nazi, A segregationist, A Klan member, and a racist.
Additionally, Far Right has the same exact effective definition. Again, most groups that identify as conservative are kind of fairly aligned across the board. So, commenting on a “Far” version of the baseline when “far” is the baseline means that there is no “far.””. Are you still following me?
But like we said, these are dog whistles for Racism, Xenophobia, and National Socialism.
So about those.
If you are calling a Conservative a National Socialist. You are a Dummy.
The biggest reason is that if you are significantly left to right or even left of center you more than likely harbor some kind of socialist view.
Most of the arguments between Conservatives and Liberals are about the installation of government policies that are socialist coded (government subsidized goods and services). Conservatives typically want less government installations, so most if not all liberals are closer to being a socialist and thus, half of the requirements for being a Nazi than Conservatives.
Or are they? We can't forget Nationalism. Are conservatives Nationalist? Yes. Oh so, Both sides of the party are half of the Nazi party. Just like Xigbar, we're all half Nazis.
Personally, I think the propensity for someone to become a Nazi is more about a specific culture that you align with. If you reject individuality in favor of a collective, you can become a Socialist and a very extreme one as the collective decides for you what is and isn't acceptable behavior. Nationalism is bad if there is no peaceful path to assimilation. Becoming a Nationalist for immutable traits like race, gender, or sexuality creates a US vs. THEM mentality and if you can't convert THEM, and they're in your way they will have to be destroyed.
But America has an individualist culture, most people really want to be left alone and people are often only politically activated on a single issue, IE: the issue that affects them. Take for instance the Israel Palestine conflict. Liberals in America want to pressure Jews and Pro Israel government members into condemning and rejecting Israel. However, this behavior is socialist and seeks to strip each individual of their ability to decide for themselves, how they feel about that conflict. The massive pushback is part of American's drive for individualism.
I think this mindset prevents Nazism more than punching a Nazi ever did.
So Conservatives at best are nationalists but if being a nationalist is just being a legal American than outside of being an Anarcho Communist, there's no issue because most people take pride in being a part of something. Socialism can be fine as well, but I assume that goes without saying.
I think that basically makes the other definitions way easier to knock down. White supremacists are just Nazis. Instead of Religion or State, it's just race. Outside a theory that posits Conservatives and Democrats switched sides at one point in the past Conservatives are eager to have minorities in their ranks. I know the idea is that you get an Uncle Tom here and there to be a convenient shield for this sort of culture war but, White Supremacists are extremists. And being an Extremist means they don't make pragmatic decisions.
Don't believe me? Go on Kiwi Farms and look at the article covering the Truck Driver accident where the driver managed to get 3 people killed making a U-turn on the road. Despite the fact that there are many highly intelligent law-abiding Indians in America and throughout the west, the people in that comment section consider Indians and every other race to be a failed experiment in socialization.
That's the thought process of any White Supremacists. They don't think there are any “Good ones” Every non-white race is bad. What's amusing to an extent is that even among other whites there are good whites and bad whites. Like how there used to be prejudice for Italians and the Irish. There are deeper levels of the purity test. That's the silver bullet that keeps racial nationalism at bay, you can never be pure enough, and let's just say the quiet part out loud, purebred is inbred, and that is also socially unacceptable.
Which also means that KKK isn't really valid to acknowledge as a thing that even exists much less has any sort of relevance to today's culture. It's the ultimate Red Herring! It's a National Socialist group specific to The American South, but The KKK were at their most powerful when they were democrats. And now that the South is mostly Republican you hardly ever hear about one and in an age where everyone has a phone out don't you think it's weird that hooded Klansmen are never seen?
NO! I did cork board conspiracies last post.
I digress. The last one is segregationists which is a socialist idea. You separate the societies. Maybe say their equal when they're not and hope it doesn't fall apart (it always does).
Malcolm X famously didn't support Democrats or Republicans and instead only identified with the Nation of Islam. He was a segregationist though.
All right. So we did all that yapping so we can have this nice foundation for what to say about Nick Fuentes.
Nick Fuentes is apparently popular because he's a voice for disaffected white men. I knew about this guy for several years now, but I ignored him because I assumed like most White Supremacists that he was never going to get anywhere with his rhetoric.
I just kind of thought of him in the same vein as Richard Spencer.
You remember Richard Spencer? There's that famous clip of him getting punched in the face while talking about Pepe the Frog. He voted for Ron Paul in 2012, Donald Trump in 2016, No one in 2020, and uh, Kamala Harris in 2024.
Yeah, he voted for a libertarian, a Republican (that functions like a Corpo Democrat), No one, and then Kamala Harris, a literal fucking Muppet.
None of those people were National Socialists, so I just assumed Richard Spencer was controlled opposition.
The same for Nick Fuentes, he's this young White man talking about how we need America Only policies and that the white race must be preserved. Also, he refuses to fall on the sword of parenthood and spends a lot of time around queer coded people (Gay and Bisexual Men),
And ya know, he isn't white enough (Mexican).
So to me, he's a very fake person. But he has some momentum built up I guess.
If you are left of center, and you are still reading this, thank you! Here is your reward, I bring you the true definition for people like Nick Fuentes and Richard Spencer.
Yes. A Groyper. What is a Groyper? It is a Nationalist Socialist who pretends to be a conservative, not because they are truly like-minded and want to work together on similar goals, but because ultimately conservatives don't want an extreme stance like racial segregation. No global trade, or international alliances. But Groypers do.
People like Nick Fuentes exist, specifically to cajole conservatives into being Nazis. Why is Nick Fuentes even considered Right-Wing if his essential ideals are socialist which is a leftists' ideology?
I'm shooting in the dark, but I'm thinking Nick Fuentes is the result of fighting fire with fire.
People insist that conservatives are Nazis, so Nazis become conservative, but real conservatives aren't Nazis, so they get rejected. But people on the far left force Nazis and conservatives into being one and the same, so you have Nick Fuentes, a literal wolf in a sheep's clothing.
So yeah, Nick Fuentes is a Nazi — but the only reason he’s got space to exist is that people keep insisting conservatives are Nazis. If we dropped the lazy labeling, guys like him would just get tossed out of the conversation entirely.
Java anyone?
All right, so I'll save you the story as to why this is happening, but I've once again fell into playing Minecraft. These things just happen. However, this run will be different. Instead of playing it on my computer, I'll be playing it on my handheld devices!
Oh, that's not impressive? Well I wasn't done. I will be playing the Java version of Minecraft on my android handheld devices.
How does that work? Well I'll tell you!
First you acquire a legal copy of Minecraft for the android (if you don't want to do that I won't stop you, just know that you'll need a doppelgänger of the software I'm recommending to continue from there).
And after that you install Pojav Launcher. Once installed you'll create an account.
You hit play and there you have it. Game is now running.
But of course, the real reason you want the Java version of Minecraft is due to all the mods that work only on the Java version of Minecraft.
With that you'll need to install Forge, not on your PC, on the handheld device. You transfer the version of Forge most compatible with your favorite mods onto your handheld device and open up the Pojav.
You execute the Forge Jar file, and it will go through the installation process as if it were on a PC.
That should complete with no issues.
After that you click on the pencil icon in the main menu and change the version to that Forge version. You should also set a Java Runtime and a Render method, but that will be decided by your personal taste.
Now. Close the game. And go on your PC again. Now go shopping for Mods. Download all the Mods you want to use and then side load them onto the device (or install it on the website, nothing is stopping you from downloading any of these files from your handheld's browser honestly, I just think it's easier to browse on a computer). Now you will open Pojav again and this time you will run the game.
You should see Forge running and see a tab for Mods in the Minecraft Main Menu. Return to your device's main screen and open up your file folder app. Go to where the Minecraft mods are in your device and select them all (except forge, mojo Pojav, and Minecraft itself of course) and move them into the Mods folder. You can't navigate directly to the folder like you would if you were modding Pv2, instead there's a sidebar (opened with a click on the three lines in the top left corner of the screen) that reveals your launcher. You click on that and the navigation is Launcher>Shared_dir>Mods
Drop the mod files there, close the game. Open the game through the launcher again and the mod files will be added to the game. If an error happens though you'll need to close the launcher in the settings menu (or any other option that force closes an app) and do what's required to get a clean open to the main menu.
I kept it small. Just Enough Items and more ore. I used to have dozens of crazy mods, but I've seen the light. You don't need everything you could possibly install in a given Minecraft mod. You just need the things that will make a basic play through a little less dull and personally, I like it when there are all kinds of fun things to mine in Minecraft. Everything else staying Vanilla is just fine.
But if you're one of those weirdos that installation strange Minecraft Mods, well, now you can do it on the go. But if anyone asks. I don't know you.
I was actually planning on releasing a video where I tried to figure out what's happening to IH main channels and whether it has anything to do with what happened to the Man in the cave video.
But then I went on Kiwi farms and one of the users said that IH teased his video coming out soon on his Patreon. Sure enough, it did so unlike him, I'm downgrading an idea when it's not important to go over the top.
If that didn't give away the subject of the post I'll just go straight for the head, I think the Ever Given video is mid.
I think it's watchable, not bad at all. But it's not very funny and feels very slow and repetitive.
And the problem is the editing. One of the things I wanted to originally cover was that Internet Historian has changed the way he writes, almost as if there is a writer for his work and I don't mean it in the plagiarist sense.
Classic Internet Historian had a very straight forward system for creating and editing a video.
He'd find some series of events that are all related and make a compilation video covering all the notable moments for that subject. Usually it was covering the antics of 4chan, Reddit, and Twitter, but it included lots of other places.
It was focused on Internet History though.
I think everything changed when The Swedish Job was uploaded. Rather than it being about Internet History events or the video being a recollection of events around a subject, it was a story. He got a bunch of his friends to play various roles, and he became less of a historian and more of a narrator and the Swedish Job was just a short story comedy.
Then he releases the Costa Concordia, and it's back to basics and barely ties together with the internet. There's a lot of editing and there's more focus on the characters in the event than the event itself, but it's a great comedy video.
And that extended to The Gentleman Pirate which was effectively a Monty Python level comedy about a D tier pirate.
But see, that's not internet history, and it's not an essay style breakdown of what happened, it's just an Indie Film.
Which brings us to Man In Cave, which isn't even a comedy, It's just a film. Man in Cave is a shoe string budget psychological horror movie. At best there's dark humor, but it's mostly a sad story about a guy who wanted to catch a break and found himself stuck in a cave, hoping for an escape only for him to meet an incredibly torturous end.
Between Ever Given and Man in Cave was the “I am become Fancy” series. This was still not Internet History but was more traditional in terms of it being a comedy and being a silly essay centered around several interesting subjects contained within that theme.
It also was an incredible-unfocused series of videos that had trouble consistently delivering on its stated goals and was afraid of covering as much of the subject as it possibly could. Instead, it went for cliff notes and focused on what was most funny, sometimes becoming an entire non sequitur that had to be covered in a lampshade.
Then you switch over to Incognito mode, and he's like a complete idiot with the attention span of a gnat. Story mode is even lazier, someone else is playing the game, and he narrates the plot of the game as it happens, riffing and editing jokes into the dialog (that's why those videos are long by the way, there's no fat taken out of them and IH never finds a funny game to play, always something mainstream or boring).
I'm telling you Mac, it doesn't make sense! How can one guy insist on making high quality content once a year also be the same guy that's shitting out unfocused, podcast and MST3K level slop?
And then he makes Ever Given which is just a Narrative Documentary. Why are we doing a Narrative Documentary on an event that lasted a week and in the grand scheme of things, barely impacted anything? Costa Concordia, Swedish Job, and Gentleman Pirate were all great videos because it was a comedy of errors and breaking things down made it more funny as well as informative.
The Ever Given video is 45 minutes of digging and tugging at a boat. There's no wacky character doing something they shouldn't do, there's no aftermath fallout worth considering. The preamble was also just normal. You could argue for all the potential disaster that could have happened from the ship being stuck. The fact that it was solved in such a way that almost everything was delivered without issue and the ship itself only needed minor repairs means the story is a complete nothingburger.
Who writes an entire script, voices almost a dozen characters, and does fairly decent editing for a video about something that stopped mattering after two weeks?
Could be worse, could be Man In Cave which aside from the plagiarism is Captain Killjoy the video. I know what this comedy YouTube channel requires, a video about someone's extensive gruesome death!
I'm not fucking crazy! Internet Historian has a writer creating stories through him! IH can barely string together a couple of ideas for a video, and this writer person was the glue that held it all together. But now this person unironically thinks they can write films, and Internet Historian's channel is the vehicle for their film writing career. Whenever Internet Historian is not being directed by this person he goes off the rails.
Where's the video on the Chaz Autonomous Zone? Where's the video on Fancy Clothing? Where's the video on Steakums?
Internet Historian is a puppet! Someone else is running the Internet Historian channel! Get your hands off me!
Am I the Ogre in the red room?
So Ross from the Gaming Dungeon delivered his State of the Union address on Stop Killing Games.
I've been following this from the beginning. Hell, I was on board for Live Service Games being a fraudulent service.
I remember when he played Dark Spore and commented on it being killed. There's good news about that by the way, Dark Spore found a necromancer willing to revive it.
But this has been talked about before. Not everyone can get lucky and find a Lich willing to reverse engineer a video game from the dead and even though. It would be easier to zombify games if the devs just gave us the corpse after it dies.
You may notice that I'm referring to the revival and even the preservation of a game as a form of zombification. That's because it is. See, for a single player game that's killed and made unplayable through DRM or some sort of authentication method that requires a server handshake. You really can bring that game back to life, but a lot of these games plagued with Live Service crap that killed it and made it unplayable are games that were meant to be in a multiplayer echo system. Dark Spore was supposed to be played by multiple people. You would form a group with other people, and you would go through levels like an online version of Gauntlet Dark Legacy. (Wait a second, Dark Spore, Gauntlet Dark Legacy. That's probably a coincidence).
But the end result is not you reviving the game and getting a multiplayer experience out of it. The end result is being able to play it alone. A multiplayer game being played alone has a very specific feel to it.
You still feel the death of the game. You just still get to play the game for what is left of it.
That's the only real problem with Stop Killing Games. We can't prevent a game that was designed around people playing it from eventually losing its entire player base and leaving the game unplayable to an extent.
And I feel like the bad guy here. Like here's this genuinely good idea with a good incentive being backed by a good person, and I'm the little demon in the Red Room with seemingly malevolent suggestions because my solution to saving video games doomed by their Multiplayer dependant design is let them all die. I want MMO and Multiplayer focused games as a concept to die.
Here's the thing. Listen to me. The reason online games were fun to play in the first place was because every game with multiplayer created its own community over time (if the game was successful) and eventually the difference between playing locally with a friend and playing with someone on your friend list was equal. It's like going to a bar where everyone knows your name.
Eventually you just log in to play the game with people who know what you're like and know what to expect.
That stopped being a thing when video games became competitive and there started being online communities of tens of thousands of players. Now, when you play a game like League of Legends you hope that the next match is with strangers because the last group sucked ass.
Now there are online games that are only fun to play IF you play it with people you already know.
Back in the day you could make friends playing Online games. You could get to know someone online and then meet up at a convention or a LAN party.
That's unheard of. I'm pretty sure if two people who played a round of League met each other IRL, the knives would come out.
I think this is a fundamental issue with the genre, and it has to die, and all good ideas made in that genre have to be reincarnated as single player games with optional multiplayer content.
Now when talking about the censorship.
People are harassing the hell out of customer service and hoping to get Visa, Mastercard, Stripe, and PayPal to bend the knee. Maybe they will! But I'm not convinced, that this is the long term winning play. See part of my problem with Stop Killing Games is that it ultimately appeals to the government and the government giveth and the government taketh and I can validate that claim right now with government level censorship of the internet. Most of the Southern states in the United States cannot visit Pornhub or similar blatant pornographic sites and in the United Kingdom you can't visit Kiwi Farms because the only website worse than wall to wall hardcore pornography is a gossip website obsessed with Christian Weston Chandler.
When it comes to having payments censored and pulled I have only one meme for you.
After 2015 and I believe 2020 as well if you were a vaguely conservative website you were getting payment processing pulled. Minds.com in particular financed itself with its own coin for years until it convinced Stripe to return (after censoring a shit ton of content). The truckers had their bank account frozen for daring to protest.
Subscribestar was also very close to getting shut down by payment processors being pressured into blocking them.
And of course, who could forget Pixiv and other sites that host pornographic illustrations getting their payment processing removed.
This has been going on for a while, maybe it's monopoly, maybe it's Maybelline and who knows. Maybe you can get the government to step in or harass the payment processors into reverting these changes, but the biggest way to hurt a company is denial of service, and we are all still using either, Visa, Mastercard, PayPal, or Stripe to complete transactions.
All of us, except Crypto Bros.
See, the solution to Visa Mastercard etc. issues is to start accepting crypto, specifically Bitcoin.
For those people who still hate Bitcoin for whatever reason, Bitcoin was specifically made to subvert the central banks and to have more freedom and control over your own money. Bitcoin is a store of value, but you know that already. Fortune 500 companies and government treasuries use Bitcoin as a store of value. There's no need of convincing there.
What does need to be said is how easy it is to solve this payment processing issue with that one switch.
If Itch.io starts accepting Bitcoin it would mean that anyone with a cash app account can now convert their Fiat into Bitcoin and continue to buy their favorite games.
See it like this. Collective Shout tries to pressure Itch to drop porn games for social political reasons. Itch resists. Itch uses crypto instead of Fiat. Who does Collective Shout, shout at? The CEO of Bitcoin?
Let's say Collective Shout tells the companies that host Bitcoin for easy transactions like PayPal and Cash app to blacklist Bitcoin addresses that Itch.io is using. Well Itch.io can generate a new list on the fly, there's virtually an infinite amount of them.
Let's say Collective Shout convinces Cash App PayPal etc. To just block all transactions to those websites regardless and somehow a Bitcoin transaction still informs those companies as to where it's specifically going to (which I'm pretty sure it doesn't) and they block it.
Well. You can just send the crypto to a third party like a software wallet or even different crypto hosting service like Coinbase or Kraken. Would Collective Shout even know where to start shouting to stop something like that? They can't! It's just that simple.
Listen. It's too late to resist crypto. It's already in your bloodstream. Like I said, BlackRock has it, your state treasurer has it, even the Nation has accepted and facilitated mainstream cryptos into our economy and budget.
Stop resisting and let the madness in.