#undertale for ts

[demonslayvr]

muse question:  would your muse do a genocide,  neutral or pacifist run in undertale.  what would they humor or consider after their first.

[queerbauten]

[earlgraytay]

Since I’m crabby about Nerd Shit today: I don’t like when video games try to excuse bad design by saying “this is a game where you’re doing terrible things, so you’re supposed to feel uncomfortable”. 

(In context: Metroid II is widely regarded as a badly-designed game, to the point where it’s had two remakes. I haven’t played it, and there’s a case to be made both ways, but this is someone trying to defend it from the accusation that it’s badly designed by saying the bad design is supposed to make you uncomfortable.)

 Nier Automata is one of the best-designed, most enjoyable games to play that I’ve seen. The world maps are huge and gorgeous, the combat is tight and satisfying- so satisfying that it’s a joy to watch, I can’t imagine how it must be to play- minigames that don’t completely suck, interesting characters, fun bossfights with Touhou mechanics to shake up your standard RPG formula, and an absolutely godlike soundtrack. I mean all I really need to say is ‘it’s a Platinum game with Yoko Taro in charge of everything but the gameplay’.  

Nier Automata has also managed to make me more uncomfortable than almost any game I’ve ever played. It’s on par with the genocide route of Undertale-- which is specifically designed to be unfun and to make you feel like a monster. 

 Undertale enemies keep attacking you regardless of whether you attack first. ‘Sparing’ them requires surviving a few rounds of combat. In Nier Automata, most of the generic enemies you meet in the first stages are non-hostile unless you attack them first.  They just kind of wander around staring at stuff.

Most generic Undertale enemies don’t cry out or beg for mercy as you’re killing them. (Some of the bosses do, but not the regular enemies). In contrast, the Nier Automata enemies say things like “OW” when you hit them, or “hurts...”, and when you try to break up a big group of them... they start chanting. I’m just gonna link you to the soundtrack of the boss battle that follows. 

... I’m not saying UNDERTALE IS BAD AND AUTOMATA IS THE BEST GAME EVAR. (Though it’s rapidly become one of my favourites). Undertale is a great game. It’s funny, it’s full of heart, and even though I don’t completely agree with the themes it’s trying to convey, I love the characters and the slightly-off-the-wall world.  And while Automata is the game that’s been most on my mind lately, I could have made the same point with, say, Bloodborne. (Great design, fantastically satisfying to play, MASSIVELY UNCOMFORTABLE in true Lovecraftian fashion.) Or the original Thief. (Great design, satisfying as hell to play, makes you so paranoid you can only play it in 15-minute chunks and murdering guards Does Not Feel Good At All). 

 Good game design can still make the player feel uncomfortable, whether it’s because of dread, oppressive smallness, or ‘oh god what have I done’. Yes, it takes work. But it’s overall better for your players and your game and it makes sure people will remember the experience you’re trying to get across.

[thegeminisage]

hey @nxsuper consider yourself

DUNKED

[timbeon]

[thegeminisage]

So entirely random question... do you ever plan on updating the youtube channel with those livestreams...? Sorry if I'm being annoying...

NOPE you’re not being annoying at all! (i know i say this a lot but i love getting asks! that’s why i keep it open & keep anon on, it’s SUPER cool to talk to you guys.) 

anyway, to actually answer your question, i have it on my literal really for real to-do list (i play habitica lol). i stopped updating them the week i had to put my cat to sleep because i was like, SUPER sad, and then they got away from me and piled up, and then i had surgery, and then, and then…you get the idea. i’ve been exporting them this whole time and keeping them on private mode cause i like to put nice thumbnails on them and link to the comic and stream in the description before i like, Post them post them, yk? i’m gonna try to get started on them maybe this week, maybe the next one! (depends on how fast the comic drawing goes, i had a tiny bit of a buffer but it is all gone now so i gotta get back on my feet again.) 

tbh it’s like, super cool that anyone even watches those hahaha i didn’t think anyone did! so yeah i’m sorry for the delay, hopefully it won’t be too much longer! 

edit: OH my god i thought this ask was for @undertale-refuse which is why i tagged it as such hold on & i will reblog it there. yes.

[inverts]

hey can ppl stop attacking actual PoC for the way they draw fictional characters

can we stop prioritizing fictional characters over actual real PoC

like yeah, internalized racism is a thing, and being a person of colour doesn’t stop anyone from having harmful opinions -- i recommend watching the student produced film A Girl Like Me for a really good look at this issue, as presented by young African American women (warning for use of slurs, iirc in a context of quoting smth said by a person not present in the video, and also warning because you might cry at part of it) -- but nobody is going to get anywhere by attacking the real people who are affected by racism in real life for how they draw fictional characters. that’s just gonna make those real people feel real bad. and we don’t need to be making already marginalized people feel isolated or attacked, and especially not now.

like if you wanna have a real conversation w/ somebody abt possible racism in media, internalized or not, or why they made certain choices, it’s one thing, but at the end of the day, experience and studies both show: if someone feels attacked, if they feel like they are being told they are “wrong”, they will cling even  more fiercely to their previous decisions, and they will not change their mind. TL:DR - online arguments have no winners. save your anger for, idk, fighting the current potus & his fascist supporters.

“sam this sounds awfully specific”

“naw it’s just general i swe”

“sam this sounds awfully specific”

OKAY FINE

specifically i’m talking about frisk, who is presented in game with simpsons yellow skin, can we stop telling people they’re wrong for drawing frisk with a skintone that doesn’t meet some arbitrary standard, because simpsons yellow does not translate well to a natural skin colour. very few artists are able to use simpsons yellow effectively. for most people, the choices are either to desaturate or to move to a different hue, and adjust from there. you cannot match it.

but like, i saw someone tell a chinese person that they were wrong for drawing frisk as a light skinned chinese character. are you really gonna do that?

like yeah, personally, i’m gonna raise my eyebrows if someone’s frisk looks about the same colour as, idk, milk, but as long as they’re a different colour than chara, that’s really the only standard you can hold fanart to, as based on the in-game sprites. (which are, officially, the only canon materials.)