T w e n t y S i d e d

Let’s do something new. I watched a video months ago of someone trying free MMORPG’s on Steam, and this was one of the few that actually scored highly. It is, to be clear, a mobile game that’s also available on PC. Of course, so is Genshin Impact, and Honkai Star Rail, and other especially Korean MMO’s that generally pass for AAA game titles…and certainly compete with and even outdo them. But I think it will be obvious as soon as you load the character creator that Villagers & Heroes seems to occupy a place closer to those 2010’s games that were designed for mobile use, and THEN got PC versions. You know, when you blow up the graphics to an actual 1920×1080 (or bigger) monitor, the simplified textures and reduced polygons that you can’t see on a phone screen become blatant.

Continue reading ⟩⟩ “Cold Opening: Villagers & Heroes”

Paige Francis He/him

I wrote out the prologue of The Old Republic smuggler story a couple of weeks ago. What I left out was the characterization. For all characters, the player is presented with three responses to every dialogue option with few exceptions. There are actually several different characterizations that could be represented in these interactions; they don’t always align to the same three concepts. That’s in addition to choices that can affect your Light Side/Dark Side alignment, *and* the occasional option that can raise the influence level with your companion. Light Side/Dark Side and companion influence choices are *mostly* consistent, but I’m pretty sure every companion has some nonsensical options. And for what it’s worth, former writers and producers of the game have confirmed some of these as mistakes that got missed on play-testing. The remaining dialogue can be used for character-building, if that’s your thing. As a reference, the Imperial Agent can repeatedly choose options that establish her character as (in my case): Pro-Imperial/Bureaucracy, Anti-Sith, opposed to the Empire’s xenophobic policies, in favor of quick, practical assassinations as solutions to problems, independent and dismissive of anyone other than her own subordinates, and supremely confident. And that’s just the subset.

Continue reading ⟩⟩ “SWTOR: The Smuggler WAHOG”

Paige Francis He/him