Yup! Very sure she didn't send it with him. That's probably why he cuts a pant leg off one of his only pairs of sweats when he's smashed on vodka after waking up, because the man just wants to wear his beanie. She kept his damn comfort hat. (She's allowed.)
Just because of this post and the reply, I went back to re-watch for this exact moment.
The reply is right. Even at the end of the movie, when Ryland sends off the Taumoeba to Earth, he's still wearing that beanie he cut for himself from his pant leg at the beginning of the movie. I don't think the beanie was sent up with him.
As far as it goes with Stratt having kept Ryland's beanie in particular, I can't tell since my version isn't as HQ. But from what I can see, there seems to be pilling on it? So if it is Ryland's beanie, then she's probably used it quite a bit.
hi phm people can someone plz find the clip of rocky going "need much more room for rock and much less room for grace."
im also pretty sure there's a moment where rocky goes "no NO no no" and it's very hashtag-sarcasm. please help need them for soundboard and also my brain
As far as the "need more room for Rocky and much less space for Grace." I believe you're referring to when Rocky moves in?
I'm assuming the "no NO no no" is either from the Life is Reason scene when Rocky's trying to explain the importance of Life on Adrian or during their practice flight run prior to the Time to Go Fishing Sequence?
the need much more room for rock and much less room for grace is right, i think the "no no no no" is the video stratt plays when shes old but cannot find it D:
hi phm people can someone plz find the clip of rocky going "need much more room for rock and much less room for grace."
im also pretty sure there's a moment where rocky goes "no NO no no" and it's very hashtag-sarcasm. please help need them for soundboard and also my brain
As far as the "need more room for Rocky and much less space for Grace." I believe you're referring to when Rocky moves in?
I'm assuming the "no NO no no" is either from the Life is Reason scene when Rocky's trying to explain the importance of Life on Adrian or during their practice flight run prior to the Time to Go Fishing Sequence?
So if I knew I was gonna be obsessed with Project Hail Mary for a month, I'd have figured something else out. But I have literally no time (I leave for a trip at the end of the month for a concert in Vegas.)
I continue to be obsessed with Project Hail Mary and ended up making a novice photoshop-esque photocard to give away for the concert, since I was gonna bring my plush Rocky to the concert too, and was gonna give that away to anyone who recognized him.
So may I request a concert ready Rocky with a lightstick?
Ask and you receive!
Aahhhhh have so so much fun at your concert! I’ll forever be jealous of whoever gets the Rocky merch XD
One note on PHM and color. I have a pretty extensive post about Grace's motif of rainbows and refracting light.
When Grace makes his decision to go back for Rocky and let go of Earth, he wears the white NASA jumpsuit for one of the only times (maybe the only time?) in the film.
If you collapse the rainbow, if you combine all of the disparate colors, the result is a blinding white. Thus, Grace at this moment, finally given the choice that was taken from him before, is whole and complete.
So I just came back from another viewing after thinking about this... and this post about white being the color of bravery.
To the audience, when Ryland is shown being transported to the Hail Mary, he's in his white NASA jumpsuit. He probably wasn't even conscious of it.
I really like the idea that this scene was likely a deliberate directing choice to show the audience that Ryland Grace is indeed light, and brave at his core. The fact that it's only when he's unconscious initially, and then in that ending sequence, when he ends up choosing to foresake going back to Earth, bravely choosing to go back after Rocky, is when he really steps into it.
I'd also like to really think that this scene as well, shows how much faith everyone in the Project Hail Mary team had for him. This was likely how they sent him off too, prior to getting put into the bag that he was in at the beginning of the film.
In the Director's Commentary, it's revealed that the 'Good Luck!' written on Grace's bag when he's waking up from his coma is written (in universe), by the International Space Station astronauts. Notably, he's also not wearing that outfit when he gets out of his coma, meaning that he was likely changed out of that outfit.
It's not quite clear when he was changed out of it or when he finds it necessarily, but he ends up finding and using it during that celebration scene in the Mental Health Screens area after they're successful with the Taumoeba breeding, and then when he chooses to be brave for Rocky (as seen in OP's post above).
The scene with the Mental Health Screens, it's hard to tell that he's wearing the white NASA Jumpsuit because the white of the suit ends up being covered up by everything else going on with the fireworks and lights, etc., until the very end of that sequence. I'd like to think that was intentional, since Ryland was still planning on going back to Earth at that time and he didn't learn the truth of how he got onto the Hail Mary, so while he's almost there, he hasn't quite fully stepped into it yet.
I think this interpretation is helped by the fact that Ryland responds to Rocky's "special clothing for celebration" remark with "You're making me think I have to up my game."
It's almost as if he still considers the white NASA jumpsuit a costume.
Which makes things interesting, since the last challenge for Ryland in this movie is dealing with one final caveat. In trying to figure out the contaminant in his ship, he ends up de-pressuring the ship... and stuff goes flying out.
This includes some of the clothes he had lying around the ship too.
It wouldn't surprise me if Ryland partly had to use the white jump suit out of necessity too. Once he's figured out and dealt with the Taumoeba leak and realizes its implication, he can't be a coward any longer.
If he doesn't help Rocky... Rocky dies.
And then that's when we get the scene in the Mental Health Bay, with the white NASA jumpsuit on full display. It's fully and completely lit now compared to how it was before a few minutes ago.
To quote OP, "If you collapse the rainbow, if you combine all of the disparate colors, the result is a blinding white. Thus, Grace at this moment, finally given the choice that was taken from him before, is whole and complete."
In my eyes, Ryland Grace at his core, is blindingly white. He's braver than he thinks. As he works to figure out who he is, his white light fractures into into a rainbow prism, where beautiful colors can be seen, but it's not fully who he is. Once he pieces together who he is, the good and the bad, and steps into who he is now, the fractured rainbow prism of character development we've seen over the course of the movie coalesces into the outfit he uses to save Rocky and the outfit he uses to give his final report to Eva Stratt via the Beetle probes.
The white NASA jumpsuit.
With that, Ryland Grace has come full circle.
From being forcibly loaded onto The Hail Mary, to finally making the choice to save Rocky and to forsake his chance to go back to Earth. He finally accepts who he is - the person that everyone else on the Project Hail Mary team knew. Someone who will save Earth. Someone who will do the right thing.
Highlights from the Project Hail Mary director's commentary:
*SPOILERS!!!*
Grace waking up from the coma was the first shot they filmed for the movie! They wanted Ryan to feel eased into the character, and what better way to do that than have him play a character who can't remember who he is?
The little "GOOD LUCK!" note in sharpie that's written on Grace's sleeping bag was canonically written by the other astronauts on the I.S.S. before the Hail Mary crew got put into the ship. In real life, Phil and Chris wrote one word each. They said it was like "a blessing on the movie."
Ryan's most nerve-wracking day on set was when he had to shoot with the classroom full of children. Most of the kids were made up of the children of the film's crew members.
The scene where Grace looks through Yao and Ilukhina's photos is footage of him looking at and reacting to actual pictures of the actors with their loved ones.
When Grace calls Stratt to tell her that he and Carl figured out how to breed astrophage, Ryan is genuinely calling Sandra on her day off set, and her audio is her genuine reaction to the unexpected line: "Carl and I made a baby!"
"We like showcasing Ryland Grace's social anxiety while having a lot of people staring at him. LOL!"
Their intention for the space funeral scene was to have Grace convey that he was trying to ease his own sadness by making the dead people with him feel better about being dead :(
The markings on Rocky's body convey his mission patch, his rank in the crew, his wedding band, and his family crest.
Grace and Stratt's conversation on the boat is Grace asking her if they're allowed to be close friends, and the response from Stratt is no, they can't. This gets driven home in the karaoke scene. She understands the value of connection, a part of her wants it, but "Her love for people has to be suspended for her to do her job."
Rocky has different forward-facing faces for different thought processes! They named his "satellite dish" face, his "scrunched up thinking face", and his "monobrow face".
Direct quote: "I love how on the spectrum Rocky is." ROCKY AUTISTIC CODED CONFIRMED!
After Rocky recovers from his injuries: "As Rocky returns to the movie, the lights turn on. The warmth returns. It's like the day breaking."
Confirmed that when Grace and Rocky reunite, Rocky says to Grace, "You came back for me, question?"
They throw this out there for two seconds and do NOT expand on it, but according to Andy Weir, Stratt is imprisoned for life but somehow ESCAPES???
The Eridians built Grace an artificial tree in his enclosure because Rocky knew he liked trees
There's so much more they shared about film processes and the people who were behind making certain effects possible. I highly recommend checking out the commentary if you're able!
I think my favorite bits of commentary occurs when they're talking about the actor's acting choices and the shots they've chosen to use to illustrate certain things. (Spoilers for the movie below)
Director's Commentary: "I love that shot of Sandra, like paying attention- you know, it's a movie about looking and witnessing one another. She's always evaluating Grace deciding whether he's got what it takes. Spoiler! He does. He does."
This occurs prior to Rocky moving in and is the flashback that occurs when Eva introduces the chosen candidates to Ryland for the mission. I appreciate that the directors directly commented on this shot sequence because it shows that Eva Stratt has always had her eye on Ryland. This is her seeing him as the kind of person he is.
To put on gloves, Ryland doesn't have to blow it up like that, but the camera lingers on him as he does. From the very beginning with the hacky sack world in the classroom when he mentions that it's lava to now, she sees that bit of whimsy in him. Despite Grace being on this aircraft carrier for how long and doing so many experiments and being the lead researcher on Astrophage, he keeps that part of his personality. Surrounded by the gravity and seriousness of the mission at hand, it's not lost on her how Grace can put people at ease while staying true to who he is.
This is moving into headcanon territory, but I think he's always been on her shortlist from the very beginning.
And then this one, right before they end the flashback on the aircraft carrier.
Director's Commentary: "That's Sandra wondering- clocking Ryan saying he's not brave."
Knowing how things ended on Earth for Ryland and the fact that Eva heard him saying that he's not brave. Hecka heartbreaking. It also for me, puts that final Earth flashback sequence into perspective too because this shows that she's mentally preparing to call his bluff. If something happens, she has to be prepared to force him to do to the right thing; to force him into a situation where he has to rise to the challenge like he's done under her every single time before.
And you see it in the scenes where Ryland is volun-told that he's their replacement science officer for the mission. How Ryland is desperately clawing for any excuse not to go. Some of his remarks are played off for laughs: "I put the not in astronaut.", "I can't even moonwalk.", "I get sick on the elevator." But behind those remarks is a desperation for someone to reaffirm that he's not who they think he is.
And he doesn't get that.
He's always thought of himself as a coward.
Everyone in that room - from Carl to Ilyukhina, Yao to Eva, and the other scientists - know what he's done. There is an empirical reason Eva introduces him as the "world's leading authority in Astrophage Biology." Eva also lays out her reasoning, saying that she needs an expert in Astrophage who's mission ready, and that Ryland has been present for "every major scientific and strategic meeting" they've had on the mission.
Despite his protests, on paper, he is logically the person most qualified to replace DuBois on the mission.
So when Ryland gives his last question to Eva in the boardroom about wanting some time to think about giving up his life, and she tells him three hours... not only is this devastating to Ryland, but it's also a brilliant way to test him. To test Ryland's cowardice. If he wanted to, Ryland could've easily tried to run off the base in those three hours Stratt gave him. But he doesn't. He runs away from people, but he doesn't run off the base.
In those three hours, he sheds his tears, gathers himself, and instead of running from Eva, he willingly goes to her to tell her that he refuses. He could've ran off the base then instead of meeting with her. But he doesn't. Instead of running, he faces her head-on like he does when faced with the Astrophage. It's only when Stratt forces him into a corner - when the doctor comes in, when he realizes he's outnumbered, and when the agents start trying to block his exit.
He runs.
So that final scene when Ryland is tackled to the ground, sedated with drugs, and Carl tells him, "You know who you are. You're gonna do great."
They are calling his bluff.
Eva and Carl likely believe in Ryland more so than anyone else - since they've been with him from the very beginning of this saga. Despite how Ryland sees himself as a coward, they are betting that when push comes to shove, when he's forced into it, he will rise to the challenge.
Gotta get this out b/c it keeps taking up space in my brain:
I wonder if part of the reason Eva Stratt always had Ryland Grace in the back of her mind for the Project Hail Mary mission is because she got to observe (and arguably test) him the whole time, starting from their first meeting.
Spoilers for movie below the cut.
The movie does a great job at showing how much of a fish out of water Ryland is initially. But what I haven't seen talked about as much is the fact that I think from the very beginning, Eva Stratt, is very subtly pushing his buttons. And she knows it.
From their first interaction, when she goes to his classroom - when she points out how much she knows about Ryland's past history in academia, she's watching for his reaction.
She's clearly done her research on him. She knows he has a PhD in Molecular Biology. She knows he used to publish papers. But also, she even seeming to correctly conclude why he got kicked out of academia. That it wasn't because of his research necessarily, but because of his behavior. And even then, he stands behind his research.
After Eva gets Ryland's attention, she forces him into a new environment. The lab. She has him analyze the samples under her watch and under the gaze of plenty of important people.
She watches him work alone, when faced with the unknown samples. Even as Ryland realizes he's a "guinea-pig", he still does what he's been asked to do. She watches how methodically he works, and what he does when he's hit a wall in his research. She watches him grapple when he discovers his hypothesis is wrong about Astrophage, and how even knowing that, still chooses to accurately record his results. She watches him flourish, discovering and piecing together what Astrophage is. Piece by piece, she watches as Ryland unravels Astrophage - what they're made of and what they do.
Then once Ryland gets comfortable, Eva pushes his buttons again. Says that he's done, and that she's taking his advice to find other scientists to continue. But that's when Ryland pushes back. She watches as he fights to hold onto a few of the Astrophage to experiment with.
She sees his tenacity as a researcher.
As Ryland's research continues to bear fruit, she forces him again into a high pressure situation. The meeting on the aircraft carrier. Not only could she observe Ryland's reaction to the Gravitational Forces via his flight to her and additionally, how he reacts when out of his element, but she could also observe how he relates to others - others that have more knowledge than him. When Ryland gets there intially, he thinks he's there to relay his findings about Astrophage breeding. Which is true, but it's a half-truth.
In truth, everyone in that room - all the public officials and scientists there and over video call - knows about Project Hail Mary... except for him. He's the only one without Top Secret Clearance.
As Eva has Ryland explain his new findings about Astrophage breeding, she watches how he gives his explanations. How he manages to explain his discoveries in a clear and concise way to get his point across. It might be crude, yes. But it's efficient. It gets his points across, especially across to all the different people from different countries that are gathered there, and people can quickly understand him.
When Ryland's research is confirmed to have been replicated, as stated by the other people on that aircraft carrier, questions to him are levied. Most notably, the question about how to efficently breed 2 million Astrophage comes up.
Eva watches as Ryland answers.
Ryland talks about the best way to breed Astrophage, but then questions the question's premise, publically. He asks, in this room of high ranking individuals, the people he was initially scared to present to, why they would need to breed 2 million Astrophage.
The fact that Ryland doesn't unequivocally answer the question, isn't lost on Eva, I'd wager. He lays bare the fact there's an agenda behind that question. He clocks that needing 2 million of Astrophage is suspicious especially considering how much energy these things can hold. It also shows how shrewd he is. He knows there's something that they're not telling him, and he's teasing out the intent behind that question.
That's when Eva makes the exectutive decision to give Ryland top secret clearance.
Then once more, Eva observes as Ryland comes face to face with this dire information about Astrophage and the Sun. As Eva explains the plan and Ryland asks questions, he's very quickly able to put things together.
A quick thinker.
As Project Hail Mary continues and so does Ryland's research, Eva gets to observe Ryland once more as he's introduced to the Astronauts for the mission. How he handles himself in front of more new people, but also, how to handle people who may not understand English. During Eva's introduction, all Ryland has to go on are the astronaut's names. He knows that they're going on the mission. But he also doesn't know if they can understand him in English. It isn't until after Ryland gives his introduction about spin drives with gestures that the reveal comes that they can all understand English.
Once that information is established, and Ryland knows he's talking to a pilot, engineer, and scientist, then Eva gets to watch as he communicares to them how the engines will work for the mission and subsequently, the risk they're taking on the ship with using Astrophage as a fuel. He does so with a demonstration (melting a metric ton of metal with a small amount of Astrophage) that leaves all of the astronauts speechless.
Yet another example of Ryland's adaptability and his ability to clearly communicate with others, and to do what has to be done.
Then comes the party prior to the mission.
Eva gets to see what Ryland is like outside of work. Ryland ends up finding Eva and asking her point blank about how she feels sending these people on what is essentially a suicide mission.
I imagine it's a question that no one has asked her before. It's also a heck of a brave question of Ryland especially considering she's in charge, and he works under her. But it's also a question that reveals that Ryland understands the gravity of what is being asked of her and the astronauts on this mission. He's not naive.
And then comes the fateful explosion that kills off the rest of the science team.
Then, the aftermath.
After the explosion and the debriefing, where they determine the explosion's cause, when they're regrouping to figure out what to do next with Ryland and the remaining crew. Eva volun-tells Ryland that he's going on the Hail Mary. That he's her choice.
Ryland protests Eva's decision, citing his lack of training and his fear of elevators, etc.
As the crew and Eva knock away his protestations one by one and he's volun-told of the plan, Eva watches as Ryland grapples with his mortality and the idea that he'll die. She watches to see what Ryland does when things are seemingly hopeless for him.
In that final scene with the reveal of Ryland's choice to tell her about his refusal to go, I would argue that cements her decision to force him onto the ship even more.
Because with all the time she's spent with Ryland, from when she met him as a middle school teacher to testing alien samples in the lab to becoming the lead Astrophage researcher, she's not only observed his scientific progress, but his mental resilience as well. She's thrown him into unknown situations with possible danger like in the Astrophage lab. She's seen his reactions in high stress situations. She's seen his reactions when he's faced with his own mortality and hopelessness.
Despite that, Ryland's always been able to perform. He's done what he's needed to do, regardless of what's been thrown at him.
He might be a guinea pig for some possibly lethal alien lifeform samples? He will also examine them anyway and record his results, despite the possible threat to his life.
Not only will he do examine the samples, but he'll keep going on his work until he gets an answer, even if the answer is not what he wants to hear.
His initial hypothesis is wrong? He'll admit he's wrong and re-examine his conclusions again, making sure he records things accurately.
He has to communicate with important scientists and non-scientists of different cultures and backgrounds? He'll quickly find a way to make the core concepts easy to understand.
With everything Ryland has been through under Eva, Ryland has shown, time and time again that he can rise to the challenge over and over again, even when forced.
Even when faced with his own possible death in being volun-told to go onto the mission, Ryland still tells Eva his answer in person: that he refuses to go.
It sounds like he's fighting her on it. Which he is.
It's also worth noting that he is saying this to his boss - the one who kept him on. Who even gave him the chance to work on the mission. Who gave him the chance to work with Astrophage.
Mentally, he's also showing that he's a fighter as well. That even when faced with his mortality and his death, he refuses to stay stagnant and wallow in that hopelessness. He'll pick himself up, adapt, and keep going, no matter the situation, because based on what Eva's seen, he's done that over and over and over again.
As the mission get closer, everything Eva's observed up until now, points in one direction: Ryland Grace needs to be aboard the Hail Mary. He is the best choice, given the choices, the evidence (his discoveries), and Eva's own observations of him.
I'm still working through the book, but I think this argument could be made between Book!Ryland and Book!Eva too.
Throwing this out in the void because I've been on a Game Changer binge (and the idea won't leave me alone):
But I'd love to see a Game Changer where they do a take on "rapid fire" quiz challenges.
The way I would describe this is that there's 2 different games going on, but they are both influenced by each other.
Round 1: Sam invites on 3 players to do a Rapid Fire Pub Quiz Trivia Challenge. Like any pub quiz, the questions are general and can be about anything.
For Example,
Sam: "What is the best selling video game console of all time?"
Player A: "Playstation 2."
Sam: "Correct! That's one point on the board for Player A."
Meanwhile, after Round 1 finishes, the 2nd batch of contestants come onto the set. Each contestant in the 2nd batch are unknowingly tied to someone from the Round 1.
Meanwhile, the Round 2 group are given ingredients, and told that they have to make a very specific food dish to give to a group of judges. However, the amount of directions to the food dish are based on the amount of questions their Round 1 player counterpart got correct.
For example, if Player A got 50% of the questions right, they get 50% of the recipe. If player C got 80% of the questions right, they get 80% of the recipe (and so on and so forth).
For Round 3: Sam invites the Round 1 Players back to the stage and tells them that he wants to reward them for their hard work in round 1, and brings out the food items that the Round 2 players made. Sam asks them which dish is the best, and the Round 1 players decide on one dish. (To make things more funny, the Round 2 players could be watching from the Green Room).
At the end of the round 3, Sam reveals that the dishes the Round 1 group tasted is part of the real game. Sam reveals the winner of the cook off, and their corresponding Round 1 partner. So there would be 2 winners - a teamwork game without knowing.
Or, I mean, there's another half baked idea I have where the amount of trivia questions or prompts players answer determines the amount of time needed to bake a cake. Every time a player answers a question correctly, the cake is kept in the oven for longer. Every time a player gives a wrong answer, time is subtracted, and the cake will be taken out sooner.
"Will our players get be the sweet taste of success or the bitter taste of failure?"
The goal of the players is to successfully bake the cake, by modifying whether they give a correct answer or an incorrect one.
And then they eat the cake at the end of the episode.
Having played AI The Somnium Files really reawakened my love for a good plot twist and plot villain.
These days, shows will have some normal character who's been hinting at nothing suddenly be a twist villain out of NOWHERE. No eluding, foreshadowing, not even giving you crumbs to pick up and try to piece together. They just throw it in there
But Somnium Files rewards their viewers with subtle hints everywhere. They give you specific dates/timing for a reason, they make everything connect, they make you think. It even gives enough to let you figure it out before the reveal! Of course not everything, but when the twist is revealed you go "I KNEW IT"! It makes the viewer/player feel like they were part of the story and actually solving a mystery. If not, it at least makes them go "Oohhhhh, that makes sense!" Not like it was out of the left field.
i just feel like modern media has lost touch on that and im so glad AITSF made a good mystery and foreshadowing. You can even do a whole playthrough and see how everything makes sense now, you can actually tell what's going on in the moment.
Having played AI The Somnium Files really reawakened my love for a good plot twist and plot villain.
These days, shows will have some normal character who's been hinting at nothing suddenly be a twist villain out of NOWHERE. No eluding, foreshadowing, not even giving you crumbs to pick up and try to piece together. They just throw it in there
But Somnium Files rewards their viewers with subtle hints everywhere. They give you specific dates/timing for a reason, they make everything connect, they make you think. It even gives enough to let you figure it out before the reveal! Of course not everything, but when the twist is revealed you go "I KNEW IT"! It makes the viewer/player feel like they were part of the story and actually solving a mystery. If not, it at least makes them go "Oohhhhh, that makes sense!" Not like it was out of the left field.
i just feel like modern media has lost touch on that and im so glad AITSF made a good mystery and foreshadowing. You can even do a whole playthrough and see how everything makes sense now, you can actually tell what's going on in the moment.
This is such a cool fanart. To answer your question Op, I guess it would depend on the case? (i.e. if it’s a regular case vs. something NXX related)
If it’s not NXX related then, some fun ideas...
- Artem/Rosa have to interview you for a case regarding an accusation levied at a professor.
- Luke/Rosa track you down because of some posts you made on the internet, and want to learn about your relationship to a famous piece of work.
- Marius/Rosa find you on the street and find out that you’re a barista that moonlights as a moderately popular internet creator and want to ask you about some concerns you’ve brought up regarding a popular internet website.
- Vyn/Rosa find you on campus and find that you’re the primary witness for a crime that occurred on campus.
This song, I am lucky to have. Seems that when NateWantsToBattle, or Nate Sharp, or whatever he’s calling himself now does something new, all of his old stuff suffers. This is the product of that change, one of a few songs (no others of which I have) that was released before he became NateWantsToBattle. Despite his decision to remove the song from the face of the earth, I still managed to get a hold of it, and I think any NWtB fan should listen to it if you already haven’t. I like this song more than any song he’s ever released.
A/N: Sorry, I just wanted a place to put my thoughts about the events now that it’s all over and there’s been some distance between myself and the event. If you need me to take this off, op, I can.
The event, A Love Poem to Skadi, was a pretty interesting event.
First of all, gameplay wise, it deviated from the prior events. This event was different from the Lost Gold event, the Symphony of the Night event, and Romantic Rail Getaway event. The prologue leading up to the event itself was pretty funny, and insightful. I thought it was funny how the writers decided to have NXX “coincidentally” meet up on Skadi island. The investigation portions of the event seemed similar to the Lost Gold investigation mechanic, except that it doesn’t run on a grid system. Instead of using one’s finger to point to the ultimate location, one would need to slide their finger to move the characters. Apart from the occasional hiccup that could occur when one was sliding their finger, that mechanic worked pretty well.
Storywise, the event fell in line with the expectations from previous event stories. I found the main story alright, and impactful. It did what it needed to do, and it was nice to have all of those general important moments notated in the journal mechanic. It was also nice to have the different interactions with the suitors and have them be voiced. Having those little interactions voiced meant a lot.
There were a few things for this event that had me scratching my head though.
Considering how often you had to do daily jobs in order to progress through the event, I thought it was weird that there wasn’t really an auto-job function. I think it would’ve been nice to have a function where if you did the same daily job more than once, it would auto-do the job for you? For daily jobs that involved battles, once you earned the reward, you could autobattle it for completion purposes. The daily jobs felt a lot longer to do.
That also being said, I found it weird that there was no offer to help players that were new/ late coming to this event to catch up with dailies for the event? This event was tedious at points, and I’m not surprised that with back to back events, some players might’ve needed to catch a break. I’m surprised that there was no option for players to spend AP to speed up cooldowns that way even late players could (in theory), finish the event. Perhaps the lack of such a function is supposed to make it so that players play consistently or perhaps it was a timing issue to make the story unfold slowly or a combination of both or something else entirely, I’m not sure. I can’t imagine how frustrating it must be for someone to come into the event and then only manage to get part of the storyline beats because they came in late.
Full stop, I did not like the Fairie wishing pool redemption system. I could rant at length about it, but for the bigger rewards, like the invitation and the tears, I feel like some players (myself included) could’ve benefited from having those bigger rewards be redeemed outright instead of relying on RNG. I imagine that if a player didn’t end up drawing any sort of Skadi SSR or have a lot of SSRs in general, it was that much harder to move up the wishing pools and get those rewards.
There’s also a lot to talk about regarding the story and closure for the event, the intentional programming design when it came to suitor interactions on Skadi, and the Zangr fights/Pigeon fight - but I’ve already made this long enough as it is.
Overall, I thought this event was okay. I liked the idea of the story, and the way this story played out gameplay wise was different enough from previous events to make it interesting. Though, the length of the daily jobs and the cupcake/wishing pool mechanic soured my opinion, especially as the event was winding down. (I could also talk about the gacha pool and the “rewards” for the event too. That would be a post for another time.)
