This week I’ve done barely anything. In my free time I’ve been watching YouTube, but I’ve barely had enough time to commit games. Next week I should have more, so hopefully then I will have anything to talk about.
How’s everyone else this week?
I originally thought a post on Labyrinth would be pretty large; epic even. The more I worked it over in my mind,the concepts got simpler and simpler (famous last words). My original premise was based on the observation that most people remember Labyrinth for, well; David Bowie’s balls. And the skintight pants prominently displaying his equipment. We must be honest, as well; David Bowie is a pretty sexy fella and the entire presentation of Jareth the Goblin King does nothing but accentuate this idea. Sooo…that means Labyrinth is about growing into sexual maturity, right?
No, it’s not. That wasn’t the original idea, it’s not in the script, and it’s not explicitly in the movie. It’s just that everything related to the Goblin King, especially *in the second half of the movie* carries sexual overtones.
This week I’ve been playing more Mount & Blade II: Bannerlord.
So far, I’ve learned that turning down the damage reduction really hurts. Last time I played I had damage reduction set to easy, so I was effectively invincible with heavy enough armor. But now I have to learn what it’s like to take damage.
Also, since I’m not making most of my money from smithing, I’m having to actually learn how trade caravans and workshops work, instead of making one really good sword and having enough money to pay an army for a year.
Anyway, what’s everyone else doing this week?
Hey, everyone. I hate to have another non-content day, especially with so many things actually in the works. I took a nap and planned to finish up my weekly post afterward. Instead I got hit with a lot of negative stimuli that sent me spiraling. Thankfully I noticed and arrested the fall, but now I have to re-organize and build myself back up.
I have an analysis of Labyrinth in the works, by the way. My spouse and I thoroughly discussed the overt narrative and distinguished that from the sexual overtones. After reaching our conclusions, I spent a bit of time researching to see how much was intentional…how the sexual stuff got in and related to the rest of it. You can step back and go cross-eyed and it all pretty neatly fits together as long as you can’t see the details that interconnect. And don’t get me wrong; I’m not saying it’s a problem or done poorly (not exactly). Just that there are really two stories, or a big story and a little story, that are complementary but don’t really intersect properly.
I have more Villagers & Heroes content, or at least I think I do. I’m not sure how far this stuff is going to play. The game is *fun,* but there’s also no way around the fact that you’re just playing an abstract version of World of Warcraft. Is there a place for that? I think so. I haven’t really made up my mind.
Star Wars: The Old Republic is testing texture updates for the player character models. Updated higher-resolution player characters have been requested for years, of course; but the reviews of the current efforts on the test server are NOT glowing. Everyone is saying (and showing in screenshots) that the cumulative effect of the update doesn’t really seem to do anything more than make almost every character look twenty years older. Now, if that was a *toggle* that you could flip to reflect that your character has aged that much from the beginning of the game, or maybe a character aging option, that would be fine. Neat, even. As the default? I’m not sure that’s the desired effect, and I have a hard time believing that was the intention for every texture. I mean, there *are* people just now coming to the game and starting out with their own twenty-year-old farm boys and girls, you know?
Connelly was cast at 14 years old to play a character listed, depending on the script you reference, as 13, 14, 15, or 16 years old. She was, of course, 16 when the film was released. Henson chose her after several script revisions, and one of three other actresses were on the short-list, none of whom were Connelly. While specific references are hard to find these days, Connelly was selected after Henson chose to bring out more of the sexual elements of the story (this was after David Bowie was brought on to play the Goblin King.) I can’t find the reference anymore, but Connelly’s rapidly maturing appearance when they started filming *was* noted, and it probably highlighted the sexual overtones a lot more than was originally intended. More on that…some other time.
Still busy this week. I did manage to play a bit of Mount & Blade II: Bannerlord, nothing new to say about it, just a good game.
What’s everyone else doing this week?
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”
Here is a long look at a game that tries to live up to a big legacy and fails hilariously.
A game I love. It has a solid main story and a couple of really obnoxious, cringy, incoherent side-plots in it. What happened here?
His problem isn't that he's dumb, the problem is that he bends the world he inhabits.
An ongoing series where I work on making a 2D action game from scratch.
WAY back in 2005, I wrote about a D&D campaign I was running. The campaign is still there, in the bottom-most strata of the archives.
Bethesda felt the need to jam a morality system into Fallout 3, and they blew it. Good and evil make no sense and the moral compass points sideways.
The plot of this game isn't just dumb, it's actively hostile to the player. This game hates you and thinks you are stupid.
Some advice to game developers on how to stop ruining good stories with bad cutscenes.
Why was this classic adventure game so funny in the 80's, and why did it stop being funny?
Just how big IS No Man's Sky? What if you made a map of all of its landmass? How big would it be?
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