YouTube has this thing now called YouTube Playables (great name as usual, guys; it's not a children's snack pack), that are basically in-app "Flash games"-style things that are just enough game to keep you watching ads.
The ones of these that aren't direct ripoffs of owned IP (very specifically Zuma) are barebones exercises in that bog-standard FTP addictive mobile gaming loop we all know and hate but also LOVE, minus the in-app purchases (for the time being). Like, shallow systems that are fun for exactly 30 minutes, then get stupidly hard so you'll pay to win, though you can't do that yet, so...kind of pointless.
...I still spent FOUR HOURS playing these, because they tapped into my primitive lizard brain's desire to try and master an utterly meaningless task and then feel undooly smug about it.
I didn't get any ads, because I'm a stooge that pays real money to Google every month for this, because once you go adless, you CANNOT go back. Which kind of negates the whole point of these, as addictive time-wasters that keep you glued to the platform and its commercials? But I already pay for YouTube and STILL got caught in these, so I suppose everything is going according to YouTube's plan either way, and I need meaningful human relationships.
But THAT isn't going to happen any time soon! So let me waste another evening on these by reviewing some crap garbage games for idiots that no one cares about, on Tumblr dot com!
1. Totemia: Cursed Marbles
It's Zuma. That's it. With a couple minor tweaks that make it harder and more annoying.
Just license Zuma, YouTube. I think you can afford the, what, $25 that would cost atm?
2. Sword Play
An on-rails sword slashing game (you don't control the movement, just the slashing), and you kill plastic doll guys before they kill you.
At some point they get projectiles that move really fast, that you can only destroy via specific directional QTEs that don't register properly half the time, because this is all relative finger smearing across the screen.
It was fun before that. The guys fall apart specific to how you slash them. That's something.
3. Dessert DIY
This one sucks. You're just picking from very limited options, then doing specific motions to trigger animations that create desserts that don't even look much like the promo art. People request different things, but early game all they ask for is "whatever you want to make" and "do one out of poop with bugs on it to make someone I hate throw up."
And then there's an animation of someone accepting what is obviously poop with bugs on it from their sworn enemy, they eat it anyway, then vomit.
The only fun part about this is the shameless inclusion of NPCs that look like celebrities, specifically Billie Eilish, Kanye West, and Donald Trump.
If you want to make a poop ice cream cone with bugs on it and feed it to Trump until he vomits all over his desk, this is the game for you. Otherwise, this is meh even for one of these meh games.
4. Bowmasters
Dueling Angry Birds, but you have no control of the camera and it focuses on you so you have to trial-and-error the degree of angle and throwing force to figure out how to hit and kill your opponent before they hit and kill you.
There are many colorful pop culture-inspired combatants to unlock, with a huge variety of projectiles of different weights, sizes, and behaviors. This is the most "very nearly a real, good game" one of these.
...Except that the level progression forces you to do Bonus Rounds, and one of those is "knock fruit off the head of an opponent without hitting them, and you have to do this like 5 times in a row, and we move you further away from them another 30 yards every round, and you have to use a wildly different unique projectile every round, and you get 3 chances, and that includes if you miss entirely."
It is basically impossible to do this, because your ever-changing location makes calculating arcs and force, with the ever-changing projectiles, impossible, in this limited amount of attempts. It turns into grinding it out until RNG randomly makes you win.
Which is a shame, because otherwise, this is fun. But you WILL get stuck on a stupid fruit round and stop playing this.
5. Mob Control
You have a cannon that launches blue guys. The NPC opponent does red. You both are trying to bumrush the other's base, taking advantage of buttons and switches and bonus gates that speed you up or slow you down and multiply your number of guys. Guys annihilate each-other when they run into each-other, so you need to overwhelm Red before they overwhelm you.
It's fun until it gets so fast that it becomes a chore to manage where precisely to launch guys specifically to annihilate other guys.
6. Merge Master
This goddamn game. This was 3.5 hours of my 4 hour playtime.
You have a grid board, with you at the bottom and an opponent at the top. You both have an army of warriors and dinosaurs, and a team HP bar. You click go, the warriors fire projectiles and the dinosaurs melee the nearest enemy, and last man standing wins.
Before each round, you can arrange the placement of your army, and use money you won from the last rounds to buy more warriors and dinosaurs. But the kicker is, you can combine like warriors and dinosaurs to make more powerful units, which you keep at the end of every round. They don't gain XP or anything, but as you make more money, you can buy more 1st-level units (that's all you can buy), and gradually combine them and then combine the combinations, and on and on and on, making incredibly powerful new units. And you need a mix of low-level and high-level units to have enough melee dinosaurs and projectile-throwers to overwhelm high-level enemy units, or draw fire away from your own, against the ever-changing enemy army each round.
It's a process of slowly adding more units and combining them to make stronger and stronger units, and as many of them as you can get, accounting for the limited board space. Also the price of units rises exponentially each round, so you may have 1 trillion gold, but at this point a new 1st-level dinosaur costs 245 billion.
I couldn't stop with this. It just got me. I wanted to see new exciting high-level warriors and dinosaurs, and see how fast I could take the other army down. There's more than zero strategy at work here, and battles can vary substantially from round to round, depending on what mix of units the enemy brings to the board.
It's still a rudimentary Flash-esque game, and very much akin to those shitty mobile boss rush games that raid our shadow legends. But it's not PTW yet, and the graphics are a charming and distorted replica of early 2000s 3D games, like Age of Mythology or GTA 3. It felt like something, for awhile.
It isn't, and I wasted valuable battery charge on this stupid shit. But I was having fun. And sometimes, that's enough.
...And posting about it here. It's something to talk about that isn't the world eating itself.
If you wish to take part in any fandom, you need to accept and respect these three laws.
If you aren’t able to do that, then you need to realise that your actions are making fandom unsafe for creators. That you are stifling creativity.
Like vaccination, fandom only works if everyone respects these rules. Creators need to be free to make their fanart, fanfics and all other content without fear of being harassed or concern-trolled for their creative choices, no matter whether you happen to like that content or not.
The First Law of Fandom
Don’t Like; Don’t Read (DL;DR)
It is up to you what you see online. It is not anyone else’s place to tell you what you should or should not consume in terms of content; it is not up to anyone else to police the internet so that you do not see things you do not like. At the same time, it is not up to YOU to police fandom to protect yourself or anyone else, real or hypothetical.
There are tools out there to help protect you if you have triggers or squicks. Learn to use them, and to take care of your own mental health. If you are consuming fan-made content and you find that you are disliking it - STOP.
The Second Law of Fandom
Your Kink Is Not My Kink (YKINMK)
Simply put, this means that everyone likes different things. It’s not up to you to determine what creators are allowed to create. It’s not up to you to police fandom.
If you don’t like something, you can post meta about it or create contrarian content yourself, seek to convert other fans to your way of thinking.
But you have no right to say to any creator “I do not like this, therefore you should not create it. Nobody should like this. It should not exist.”
It’s not up to you to decide what other people are allowed to like or not like, to create or not to create. That’s censorship. Don’t do it.
The Third Law of Fandom
Ship And Let Ship (SALS)
Much (though not all) fandom is about shipping. There are as many possible ships as there are fans, maybe more. You may have an OTP (One True Pairing), you may have a NOTP, that pairing that makes you want to barf at the very thought of its existence.
It’s not up to you to police ships or to determine what other people are allowed to ship. Just because you find that one particular ship problematic or disgusting, does not mean that other people are not allowed to explore its possibilities in their fanworks.
You are free to create contrarian content, to write meta about why a particular ship is repulsive, to discuss it endlessly on your private blog with like-minded persons.
It is not appropriate to harass creators about their ships, it is not appropriate to demand they do not create any more fanworks about those ships, or that they create fanwork only in a manner that you deem appropriate.
These three laws add up to the following:
You are not paying for fanworks content, and you have no rights to it other than to choose to consume it, or not consume it. If you do choose to consume it, do not then attack the creator if it wasn’t to your taste. That’s the height of bad manners.
Be courteous in fandom. It makes the whole experience better for all of us.
I hope this helps anyone who's trying to design their oc using a wheelchair, it's not a complete guide but I tried my best! deffo do more research if you're writing them as a character
Like and/or reblog this post to enter the raffle. A like will have your username added to the wheel, a reblog will have your username added twice, so if you do both, it's three times your name will be added there!
IMPORTANT: I'll only count the reblogs on main blogs - no sideblogs! That means I'll only consider reblogs from who gave the post a like to prove it's a main blog. That's to make it fair for everyone. If I'd be joining a raffle and sideblogs would be allowed, I'd be joining under 15 different usernames, counting with my main blog. Get what I mean? That wouldn't be fair!
Anyone is welcome to try a chance at it! You don't need to be following the blog to enter the raffle, but it's preferable XD
Deadline is on the 31st of August, 2024, at midnight on the GMT -3 timezone. That's the last day for people to join. I'll draw the winners in the morning of the 1st of September!
for the people who say that shadow never smiles...i have to say,you have living in a BIG lie all this time and actually its something that he does to much and i really love see shadows simling :D
i will say, the worst thing that happened in fandom was when shipping just became “i ship this bc it’s gonna be real” and not just “i ship this bc i think it’s a fun dynamic to explore idc what the writers are doing that’s not my business”
me, who has been studying orientalism and western stereotypical depictions of the east for the past 4 years, begins to have hope that people are finally starting to understand the actual depth of the ingrained false ideologies presented by western societies and media that tries to objectify and undervalue any non-western culture
i’m convinced that the ice age franchise won’t end until the squirrel that always chases after the nut gets an equally hideous girlfriend with Squirrel Tits™ and eyelashes
No you don’t understand, I have this entire developed theory about the Ice Age universe which has been cooking up in my mind and has only be reinforced by the latest 5th installment.
Scrat is the god of the Ice age universe. The story began with him and the story will end with him. If there weren’t hints before, in this latest installment, it becomes clear that Scrat’s actions dictate what happens on Earth and to the protagonists. Yes, maybe Scart’s only goal is to get the nut, but his actions SHAPE what happens in the film.
If we needed any further proof then may I point out something Buck said in the 5th film along the lines of “we’re 6 mins early! Somebody up there likes us!”
That phrase is usually used to refer to a god and in this case it’s used to refer (unknowingly) to scrat!
However, there is an ALTERNATE theory that I have been working on. What if Scart isn’t the god of the ice age universe, but rather, the NUT is? As i have already said, Scart’s actions shape the course of the story but what motivates Scart? That’s right: the nut, it is truly because of the nut that Scart does what he does that leads to the events that take place in the story.
This would create an interesting metaphor here. Scrat is chasing the nut like man chases divinity.
So when will the Ice Age saga end?? When Scart finally gets the nut for good. When man catches God.
look, fandom as a whole certainly has its own built-in biases and problems that need to be addressed
but like
every so often i think about all of the deep, nurturing lifelong friendships that only ever happened because one day two internet strangers were like ‘oh hey, we agree on which fictional characters should kiss!’
people who are right now helping each other survive via connections they initially forged by liking the same sailor moon girl or something
the internet is a goddamn garbage pit but it is also a goddamn miracle
