#dark genie

[lapontoart]

The dark genie from Dark cloud. It was one of my first PS2 games and still love it

[ezra-mierk]

[bl00dh0rs3]

Gameriot’s playthrough was great! i want to hug every single genie 

Reblogs > Likes

[thirteenthspirit]

Political Dungeon Crawling

I’ve always been a fan of dungeon crawlers. Somehow, the labyrinthically order and predictiveness to these sorts of games always appealed to me. Your hard work and patience were rewarded, when you persisted through the dungeon – it always felt somewhat satisfying.

As I write this, it is the day after the general elections here in Portugal. The legislative elections determine how our parliament is composed, out of a total of 230 seats, for a 4-year mandate. This year, as predicted, the people voted to reinforce the mandate of the current government – a left-centered one. There were several unexpected twists and turns, but the one that shook me the most was this: This is the first year in recorded history, in Portugal, that we elected one seat for an extreme-right party. The extreme-right. You know them? They have been gaining followers in Europe in recent years. They appeal to hate and our most base fears, running their anti-immigration campaigns and often targeting the so-called ‘minorities’.

Other than that, a very positive outcome is that, also on a historical note, a total of 3 new parties were elected. Newcomers to the parliament who had no previous expression, now have a voice.

As I watched the results come in, alone at home and late at night, I was also watching the final episode of the penultimate season of House of Cards (yes I know I’m a little behind), pardon me. And in House of Cards the Underwoods (of which I am a total Claire stan) will do anything to stay in power, that show has everything to do with political maneuvering and nothing with actual ruling.

It is a good satire of the duality between what you need to do, say and advocate for, in order to get elected, versus the actual core policies you want to see passed. And it even verges into “right or wrong” territory – if you advocate for tax cuts, but the country is steering clear of bankruptcy, you know it is a throwaway policy just to earn votes and help get you elected. But what if your main goal was never that one? Maybe your goal is just a modest increase in the minimum wage. But in order to actually formerly propose that, you need to get elected first and maybe make some unsavory promises along the way… So you lie but your intent is good (I guess?).

We can establish there are 2 distinct goals here – the first is to get elected and the second is to rule. So you start your race, to run the gauntlet.

The dungeon crawling always comes as a secondary element to propel the main storyline forward. You often need to face hordes of monsters and go deeper into some colorful (or colorFOUL) caves, towers, swamps or even pyramids (yeah thanks for that one Futaba), but always for another goal. In one of my favorite game series of all time, Dark Cloud, you need to brave the dungeons in order to recover the necessary elements to rebuild your world, which had been virtually destroyed by the vicious (and fat and purple) Dark Genie.

And so your arduous task begins. Not to rebuild your world, but to quest for the elements you need, in order to rebuild your world. Once you fully clear a dungeon, you can fully rebuild one of the areas, or even at some point construct a massive flying giant fortress (shout-out to Paznos from the sequel).

So we’ve cleared the first stage of the dungeon – let’s say the first 10 floors or so. These stages might be the hardest, you could be under leveled in a playing field dominated by sturdy and historical parties, where newcomers are shunned and laughed at, or you could end up on the receiving end of a political bullet (or accurate Hamaon…). Maybe you realize, with the twists and turns of the path, that this is not what you signed up for. After getting the current president to step down, shunning his fellow democrats in the caucus and even beating Conway, the Underwoods rule the house. And you are then indicted by the Guildmaster and accepted into Wigglytuff’s guild.

Phew! Getting elected is a struggle but you’ve managed to overcome it – you’ve done what you had to, reached that HP-restoring checkpoint and are finally in a position to make a real change. Now the real work can begin.

So you put your campaign behind you, sit down with your allies and opponents, replenish your stock of Bread and come forward with your first bill – a proposition to raise the minimum wage. It is valiant and brave, and what you fought for so hard during this race. Your main goal.

But – you’re getting ahead of yourself. After the checkpoint (and the odd cutscene) you usually have another half of the dungeon or so ahead. You start confidently climbing the next few floors but end up having the worst luck and, let’s say, run into a Monster House. So your proposal doesn’t even make it to the floor, isn’t even considered for a vote. Other parties scoff at you and demand you consign yourself to your insignificance.

“I failed” is what immediately courses through your mind. But this is the very moment where you either turn off the Game Over screen and go dedicate yourself to something else (what, like going outside? C’mon mom.) or – you persist. You remind yourself of the main goal and go back to crawling the dungeon, aka playing the political game.

So you make alliances. Promise to pass key resolutions, pretend to prioritize someone’s interests over your own, maybe address some of the big leagues. And you lie and you cheat and maybe you push some people in front of the train (WHY GOD WHY THE SPLATTER), until you are sure you can get your bill passed.

And… you made it! One of the ‘tiny’ parties managed to get a historical approval of raise to the minimum wage. Maybe you had to even relinquish the idea and credit to someone else (or spam some 1HKO items), but you did it. The dungeon is cleared, you defeated the boss and can go home with your job done.

Ok great.

…so now what? Now you have to make sure what you passed, stays in place. I doubt any party, even right-winged ones, would advocate for lowering the minimum wage, but you need to shift your stance to being a guardian of the policy you fought so hard for. Ensuring continuity.

You need to enter the dungeon again. Then again, maybe you never left. Maybe the ceiling had a teleport tile to an even higher floor – maybe there are more than 99 floors to this. Even Dark Cloud has a sadistic optional dungeon at the end. It’s no wonder most of Claire and Frank’s time is spent trying to remain in power.

So to all the newcomers in parliament, I say this – congratulations on not losing your focus and rest well today, for tomorrow your climb (or descent) begins anew.

Good luck with the randomized floors,

                                                                                                 -João A. (Pachiren)

[incorrectdarkcloudquotes]

Dark Genie: *rises from Seda's body* I'm free! I'm free!

*Suddenly gets sucked into an urn*

Dark Genie: Dang it!

[glamboyl]

Jinn - Dark Genie photo manipulation by Lily Seidel.

[enignmeman]

Inktober day 4 - Obscur

I'm doing Inktober this month, however I'm not in charge of the list, and it's someone else that manages it and shares the subject daily and today, it's "Obscur" ("Dark" in english).

For this one, I decided to draw the dark genie from the dark cloud series, BUT, in dark clouds, because it's very dark, of course.

[enignmeman]

"Dark Genie"

I don't have much to say about this one, I played and finished Dark Cloud a few months ago, really great game, if you can afford to, play that game. Dark Chronicle (Dark Cloud 2) too is a great game.