#gaming thoughts

[bokettochild]

So I'm procrastinating on my homework (as one does) and watching skis from VivaLaDirt (as one does) and a thought struck me

Why do NPCs have unlimited funds? Like, any NPC that you can do business with in games usually can buy AND sell items with you, but unlike the player, they can buy anything and everything continually

So, thought happened: what if there was a game, fantasy or whatever, where an active and important mechanic was literally just the in game economy? You trade and sell and buy in a small town and the game would reflect it with preset graphic changes that "upgrade" the NPCs and buildings, but conversely, when you only recieve money in a place and spend it all somewhere else, the town and NPCs downgrade.

Yes yes, I know, why bring rea world problems into a game? BECAUSE WE COULD HAVE THE SATISFACTION OF FIXING IT! Haughty nobles in such-and-suchville making you irritated? Well, sucks to be them, you can actually downgrade their society on purpose and go find Old-People Town and spend a ton of money there, or maybe take it to Orphan Village, or, I don't know Poor-Farmers-With-Unrealistic-Amount-Of-Kidsburg!

Just, I think it would be interesting for someone to buy a game, go about doing the things they usually do, just to try selling something to an NPC and being told that said NPC doesn't have that kind of money right now. or, conversely, if that NPC is the only one who sells arrows on an entire map section, suddenly they're wearing silks and thanking you for bringing fortune to their household.

Just, it would add a bit more fun, I think, if buying and selling in games wasn't;t just about getting ahold of supplies you NEED to play through the game *ahem* arrows in Zelda *ahem* and actually did something for the plot and story in a small way that made it feel less menial.

Just my thunks though

[no-he-is-not-a-villain]

Flow of time: Real-world vs the Beach

I just love writing a fic that relies on an understanding of how the time flows different between the Beach and the real-world. NOT.

Goddamn it’s hard to conceptualise. And for some reason, I decided to figure out what the actual time different is.

So I drew a little diagram to help myself out (so I made it look nice and decided to share it all with you too).

I could be wrong, but this is my interpretation of how it might work. 

I used pointy shapes cause it was easier to conceptualise, and it is in no way to scale because it's not possible for me to accurately represent that (you'll find out why in a minute).

So basically time moves much much faster on the Beach. We also know this because when Sam gets sucked into that vortex, he feels like he's gone for hours but everyone says he only disappeared for a few seconds.

DISCLAIMER

This is all conjecture based on what we know about Heartman's time spent searching for his wife and child. It could be completely wrong. We don't know the exact amount of time he spend on the Beach each visit (I use a hypothetical number below), and we also don't know ecatly how time 'feels' like it's running on the Beach. All we know is that it feels much, much longer. It might not work like this AT ALL, we just don't know (or I've misinterpreted it, in which case, tell me, i won't be offended). Also, my understanding could just be completely wrong - it happens. It's possible that trying to find a formula for figuring it out just doesn't work at all. Maybe time comes in waves and is't consitent, mayne it doesnt feel like much longer, hyst a little bit. Who knows (maybe Kojima lol. Or maybe not?) It hurts my brain to imagine it.

so now, it's maths time ( ꩜ᯅ꩜;) 

Keep in mind that I'm not great at maths (some things like the number of minutes in a month etc, were googled, so they're 100% accurate). If you think I'm incorrect, I won't be offended, cause it's more than possible haha. I hate maths.

OKAY

To start, here's two facts that we need to know. In the real-world (including ours):

1 month = 43,800 minutes 11 months = 481,801 minutes

We'll be using Heartman as the basis for this.

So here's what we know for certain about Heartman's trips to the Beach:

Every 21 minutes, he spends 3 real-world minutes on the Beach.

That adds up to 60 cycles a day. 3 real-world hours (180 minutes) a day spent on the Beach.

He tells Sam that up until that point, he's done that 218,549 times (although that's not relevant to finding out how long Higgs has been on the Beach for)

We also know that when Higgs tells Sam (at the end of DS2) that he's been trapped there for "tens of thousands of years", it's been 11 months since the end of DS1, when he was left on the Beach.

What we don't know:

How long "tens of thousands of years" is (that's what we're about to figure out). Heartman says that during those 3 real-world minutes, he spends "months at a time" on the Beach searching for his wife and daughter, but we don't know how long that actually is.

Now, for the sake of coming to some sort of prediction for how long Higgs has been trapped there, we need to decide what "months at a time" is.

So for the sake of being able to do some math, we're gonna say it's:

3 months (obviously this is a guess, don't come at me, but we needed a number for this maths to work)

So here comes the math, based on the hypothesis that:

3 real-world minutes = 3 Beach months or simplified: 1 real-world minute = 1 Beach month

There are 43,800 minutes in 1 real-world month.

Which means:

1 real-world minute = 43,800 Beach minutes

Now if we use our fact from before about how many minutes are in 11 months (the real-world amount of time Higgs has been stuck on the Beach), then:

481,801 x 43,800 = 21,102,883,800 minutes on the Beach 

Which in years, is:

40,150 years 40,150 years

40,150 years spent alone on the Beach.

I mean, I'd probably go insane after that long too. I'd probably to insane after just 11 months trapped on the Beach.

Our poor baby boy.

BONUS

If you want to know how long Heartman spent looking for his wife and child, using the same 3 month hypothesis as above: 54,637.25 years.

ANOTHER BONUS

The reason I figured this out was cause of my "Don't Worry Darlin'" fic. And just in case you were interested, if you were to visit Higgs every 24 hours, and say you slept for 8 hours a night, that means you got to spend 40 years together, but when you woke? Well, you'd be only be gone for 24 hours, but Higgs would be left alone for 120 years in between each of your visits. So, maybe it's fair enough he decided to keep you there with him (also spending 40 years together at a time is just insane wtf)

It hurts my brain to imagine this being real, like how hard it would be to spend like one minute in the real-world and roughly three months on the Beach.

But regardless,

Thank you for coming to my maths lesson (..◜ᴗ◝..)

[cameronlockhart]

I'll never get over the fact that the Switch's Mii Maker gave us a whole-ass color wheel for hair, eyes, and accessories, yet we're still stuck with the same twelve shirt colors from the Wii era. 🙃🙄

[strawberrythighddemon]

The Monsters Hidden in Plain Sight: What Life Is Strange Actually Shows Us

Friday night after the release, I played Life is Strange: Reunion. And oh my gosh, it was delicious to play. The story is richer than ever. And there are situations in the game that just validated what I thought would happen.

Spoiler warnings, obviously.

But this isn’t a game review. This is me pointing out the things people rarely address — the actual antagonists of both Double Exposure and Reunion. The ones hiding in plain sight.

There’s this ongoing topic I always end up circling back to: the people whose actions are more insidious are the higher figures at Caledon University. Some people point at Safi posing as Lucas and saying things to his son as the worst thing possible, and I have to disagree. That’s just short‑sightedness. It bypasses the actual perpetrators of the story, and Lucas is one of them.

Lucas’s son ended up living with his mother after Safi posed as him, which is probably the best thing for that boy, because Lucas is not a good person. He’s unethical as a professor — he abused his position and plagiarized a student’s work. Maya Okada. By plagiarizing her work, he gained a lot of money and fame from it. Even got a movie deal, which we learned in Double Exposure. And not only that, he’s one of the core factors in why she unalived herself. Yasmin and Vinh are the other culprits of why Maya Okada chose to end her life. And they hid the plagiarism behind “mental illness” as the main reason, when in fact she was taken advantage of by a mentor/professor, and the administration covered it up.

I’ve written blogs about schools not caring about students, only about the reputation of the school. It’s like entering the job field and thinking HR is meant to help employees, when in fact it’s the opposite — it protects the interests of the company. I can attest to that because HR did nothing for my coworkers when I was working in retail. My coworkers were smart enough to read the signals early and transfer or take other offers instead of pursuing the problems they were facing.

The school setting is not much different. You have to have solid evidence to back up any claims. But because Lucas took Maya’s manuscript and hid it — probably the only copy she had — she had no proof. And because of the hierarchy, because he was established, no one would’ve taken Maya’s side. That’s more insidious than what Safi did, trying to get a bit of vengeance for her best friend, who died because her work was stolen and her mental health was weaponized against her.

And I know what that feels like. My mental health was used against me when people harmed me. They automatically invalidate your claim if you have a history of mental illness or emotional struggles. I can attest to that. It happens. It’s why things get pushed under the rug.

So the moment someone says Safi is a bad person and her actions are the worst ever, I have to point out what Safi’s mother did, what Lucas did, and how the administration will side with a perpetrator to maintain their image,  and then the victim takes their own life because of it. That is true evil. Those actions go under the radar because they’re so normalized.

When I played Reunion and found out Lucas was teaching at a high school, it made me sick. I wouldn’t want a person like that shaping young minds, which is what he said in the game about why he likes high schoolers better than college students. He said college students have a more fixed mindset. That conversation alone made me think: holy shit, he’s an insidious bastard who will use any narrative to boost his ego and gain a following. That man should be nowhere near education. But his school hired him, probably knowing he plagiarized a student’s work and is indirectly responsible for her death.

And I have to say it: if Lucas were a woman, she would’ve been banned from being an educator. But because Lucas is a white‑presenting man, he was able to get a job at a high school “to shape young minds,” he said.

I don’t know how much clearer the game can be about who the actual antagonists are.

Knowing this, I always choose the side of the person who is the most misunderstood and scrutinized for going up against the entity that actually harms others. Harm that leads to death. That’s more insidious than Safi telling Lucas’s son whatever she said. That kid is probably in better hands with his mother, anyway. Lucas is a piece of shit human being. I wouldn’t want any kid in his care because of his lack of empathy and ethics. He abused his power. It led to the death of a student. And yes, he’s indirectly responsible — and so are Yasmin and Vinh.

And Vinh… he represents the individual who upholds the pillars that destroy people like Maya Okada. The higher‑ups gave him an invitation to a better life. A good job. Opportunities. All he had to do was look the other way.

Then there’s the demolition team in Reunion — illegally going against a court order, at the Abraxas house late at night, with explosive charges set in the basement. Max and Loretta could’ve been killed. The door literally said to cease demolition. No one expected a demolition team to be there ‌late at night. And Vinh was aware of it. Teller and Yasmin were behind it. And in Teller’s office, the house was supposed to be condemned due to severe water damage from the storm. But we saw the house, and Max said it, the house looked fine. In my opinion, it looked like it was in great shape. That tells me an inspector was paid off. And that does happen in reality as well. It’s absolutely insidious that you can’t trust an inspection done on your home, because a builder or the company can pay off someone willing to approve it for a large sum of cash. Corruption is everywhere. And the game is quietly telling us this because it’s a legit thing that happens. If you have money to pay someone off, and they’re willing to accept it, here we are. Corruption at its finest. The elites are mentioned constantly in the game—the real antagonists of reality itself. Because they are known to do it.

Safi is just a shape‑shifter. She didn’t know much about her abilities or the consequences. Max’s powers are the ones that can do the most harm. Her abilities are the reason places get destroyed. Max can’t accept outcomes. If she makes a mistake, she rewinds. She never sits with consequences. She shuts down, shuts people out, tries to fix everything. She’s a chronic people‑pleaser. It’s why Amanda was anxious and paranoid about Max rewinding things, because she is known to do that.

And you know who else experienced similar judgment? Bianca from Wednesday.

A siren who can manipulate people with her voice. She wears a charm to prevent it. However, her ex, Xavier, accused her of using her powers on him, and we don’t even know if that’s true. He was being a jerk. Even during the dance, he asked her to erase his feelings for Wednesday because he couldn’t deal with them. And she said no. I could see that Bianca truly liked him. She wanted to be loved and seen by him. You can’t get that by manipulating it. She used her powers to get into the school, sure, but that doesn’t mean she used them on people she cared about. She was trying to escape the cult her mother had raised her in. And to escape the leader who was exploiting her and her mother.

So yes, Max, Bianca, Safi, they all relate. Women with abilities are judged for the very thing that isolates them.

I don’t see Safi as an antagonist. I see a woman just as lonely as Max, with abilities that set them apart. Vulnerable to judgment. Villainized. At some point, apathy sets in. And Max shot her in Double Exposure. Max has different sides, too, but that’s not the point here.

The point is that the real antagonists are the ones hidden in plain sight. The ones with systemic power to ruin someone’s life entirely. Maya Okada was the victim of that. And probably many others.

Safi isn’t the monster. Max isn’t the monster. Bianca isn’t the monster.

The monsters are the ones who hide behind institutions, titles, and reputations — and they’re the ones who get away with it.

Let that sink in.

[littlecakeclub]

Falling into the loop of Slay the Princess

The premise of Slay the Princess is deceptively simple: you are sent into the woods to kill a princess locked in a cabin. The narrator insists that if you don’t slay her, she will destroy the world. But very quickly, things spiral : every choice branches, every death loops you back, and you realize the Princess, the Narrator, and even yourself are not what they seem.

⚠️ ! Light spoilers ahead !

I started Slay the Princess with the mindset of “let’s make the right choices.” I wanted to explore, to understand her, while the narrator always gave me this weird sense of mistrust. But after dying again and again, I got tired. At one point, I tried killing her few times to see what would happen, even though the narrator was annoying me. I also stumbled into one of the nihilistic Princess routes : nothing really ends, the world just fades into emptiness. Since the credits never rolled, I realized it was just another loop rather than a true ending. Slowly it clicked: the Princess was just a vessel, and the narrator was the real villain. That’s when I shifted my approach, choosing to give myself over to her, and eventually I reached the final confrontation with the Narrator and the Fusion route that gave me the so-called “happy ending.”

What I find fascinating is how many interpretations this game allows. You can play it as pure horror, as a twisted romance, or as a meta puzzle about fate and free will. Personally, it inspired me to read it through a mental health lens, but also through the lens of tassawuf (Sufi mysticism) in Islam. I’m preparing a separate post to dive into those psychological and spiritual parallels because this game lends itself beautifully to that kind of reading.

I adore the pencil-drawn art style. The sketchy, black-and-white look adds so much to the atmosphere. It’s simple but incredibly effective, giving the whole game a raw, gothic feel that perfectly matches the shifting horror.

As a game, I really enjoyed how fucked up it is. It goes all in on the creepy atmosphere, with a protagonist that feels utterly schizophrenic, and a meta ending that makes you question every choice. Sure, the narration can feel redundant at times, but the skip-dialogue option helps a lot, and honestly the repetition is part of the point. Add to that the replayability with all the different routes and Princess forms, and I found it deeply original.

So my final ending was the “happy” one : the strange, loving fusion. I know there are tons of different routes and Princess forms in this game. This post is just my own first run and how I experienced it. And I love that Slay the Princess doesn’t really give you victory or defeat, only mirrors. At the end of the day, it’s not about slaying her at all. It’s about whether you’re ready to stop fighting yourself.

(For those curious about which Princess forms I’ve seen in this first run : ✅ The Damsel ✅ The Nightmare ✅ The Beast ✅ The Stranger ✅ The Angel ✅ The Witch ❌ The Prisoner ❌ The Fury ✅ The Princess of Ashes/Nothing ✅ The Princess of Transformation)

[justafilthycasual1]

Something I noticed while playing Fantasy Life i is that a lot of games now follow a ‘tell not show’ format instead of the ‘Show don’t Tell’. I noticed it early on in the game but it really sunk in after (spoilers) Rem gets kidnapped and Ronoah freaks out. Because we don’t see it. We hear about it - the palace is closed. Apparently Ronoah is absolutely freaking out. But we don’t see it.

Apart of what made older games so interesting was that we did see stuff like that and it made sense. Ronoah is a protective older brother and we were the last people to spend time with Rem. He already threatened us once - why didn’t we get summoned to the castle? And where was Aeshan during this? What excuse did he make for returning without Rem? Did he return?

There was nothing. And nothing was mentioned afterwards either.

It’s not just the new Fantasy Life game either. A lot of other games and shows and movies follow the same trend now.

I just really miss the little pieces where we were shown what’s going on. Where we see the characters react, see what’s happening and how things get to where they’re going. But it’s like no one has the patience for that anymore and just want to get things done. To reach the finish line as quick as possible.

What happened to characters actually having character?

[keyglyph]

Why the Pokéwalker Was So Awesome

With pokéwalkers being so pricey on eBay these days, I'd guess that most of these little pedometers have gone missing since they debuted sixteen years ago. That may not seem like a big loss, but if you've ever spent time with one, you know how carrying a pokéwalker meant far more than just knowing the number of footsteps you'd taken in a day. I absolutely adore mine and spend a lot of time thinking about it, so let's reflect together on how special and surprisingly immersive these tiny devices were, both as an extension of the imagination and a brilliant blending of the game world with real life.

From left: Tamagotchi, Pokéwalker, Dinkie Dino/RakuRaku Dinokun, GigaPets CompuKitty

As a stand-alone device, the pokéwalker (second from left above) was similar in size to the handheld digital pets of the 90s. Disc-shaped and two inches in diameter, the steps you took with this in your pocket contributed to the happiness of whichever pokémon was housed inside, as well as built up a kind of currency ("watts") you could use to play simple minigames for uncovering items and other pokémon. Two pokéwalkers could also communicate directly with each other, allowing your pokémon to have a basic interaction with a friend's. These came packed in with copies of HeartGold and SoulSilver in 2009 and were compatible exclusively with those games.

The pokéwalker was not the first virtual pet device to support connections with other handhelds of the same type, nor was it the first to allow the transfer of unique and specific character data back and forth between itself and an associated video game; the Sega Dreamcast VMU did both in 1998 with the Chao of Sonic Adventure, for example.

What made it so special, however, was how every single detail about it 1) supported the immersive fantasy that each pokémon was a distinct individual with a unique personality and history, and 2) enriched your fictional bond with them by extending them, diegetically, into your real-world activities.

All of this was intentional and so, so clever.

A Nintendo DS screen prompt during a pokémon transfer to the pokéwalker.

In terms of supporting the fantasy that your pokémon are all unique individuals, your pokéwalker starts off vacant until you yourself choose a specific monster from your own game's save file to transfer into it. This means that it's not just some random rattata or anorith in there -- it's your anorith, that shiny one with the Sassy nature you still can't believe you got at Oreburgh Museum that one afternoon, whom you've named, thought up a backstory for, traded over from Pearl, and have had following your trainer in HeartGold ever since, etcetera.*

*Please note that it is also possible for a random pokémon to join you in your pokéwalker if you keep it empty for a while. That pokémon then walks with you and can be transferred into your cartridge later on, just as if they'd followed you home from some tall grass in the real world!

After you pick your special pokémon, you’re prompted to select the "route" you want to walk on -- usually a locale based on some combination of nature, weather, and habitat type -- which primarily affects which items and random encounters you'll come across in the two minigames. The Nintendo DS then transfers your pokémon’s data from the cartridge to the pokéwalker via infrared connection, and you’re off! (Your chosen partner even “disappears” from your game's storage boxes while they’re out and about with you, further adding to immersion that they’re a singular creature who's truly moved from one place to another.)

Selecting a pokémon and route for a pokéwalker stroll.

As soon as they've settled into their portable home, you can start checking in with your pokémon to see how they're doing in much the same way you do in the HeartGold/SoulSilver games themselves. If you wake your pokéwalker out of sleep mode while someone is traveling with you, they might weigh in with some thoughts on how they're feeling, look at you expectantly, or show you an item they've found.

The pokéwalker also displays a tiny image representing the route you're on, shows your pokémon moving as you walk, and provides several other small, thoughtful details that keep you invested in your buddy and your time together.

Cider is feeling good on the Warm Beach route! Just look at that cute face. 🤎

And in terms of imaginatively extending them into your real life, when you see your pokémon cheering happily on that LCD screen from all the walking you're doing or zoning out from boredom because you've been sitting still too long, it's almost impossible to keep yourself from pretending that they're right there with you as you go about your day.

There's nothing like imagining you're walking into your university library with a Ho-Oh in tow, or that your onix is curled up politely around your elliptical while you work out at the gym. I cannot overstate how fun this is.

And to top it all off, when you transfer your pokémon back into your cartridge, the game brings everything full circle by giving you a journal-style summary of your stroll together. In this way the distinction between you and your in-game trainer effectively dissolves. The journey you have in Johto with the pokémon in your party and the things you do in the real world with those same partners in your actual pocket, inside a perfect representation of a pokéball -- everything becomes one continuous narrative. Nothing contradicts the immersion or takes away from it. And your pokémon become even more special and distinct to you because of that.

Various journal entries recounting a stroll with my anorith. Even the times of day and terrain are reflected in these recaps, and any found items are transferred into your inventory!

It's nothing short of phenomenal how a device this simple was designed to be so imaginatively deep. I keep hoping we’ll see a low-tech reboot of them one day, or that someone out there will reverse-engineer the original hardware and create a bunch of physical clones (something slightly smaller and suited for a watchband would be a dream).

And now that I've been carrying mine for over a decade, I'm at the point where it feels weird if I'm ever anywhere without it. It's just a continuous part of my mental landscape, imagining my pokémon out in the world with me. And I just love it for that.

<3