terabient

Thursday night I tried out Carrion, a game in which you are a very large mass of flesh and teeth trying to escape a research facility. My experience so far:

In my first major encounter, I scuttled about in one of the shafts above the room I needed to clear, roaring to watch the reactions of the people inside. One thing that people do in reaction is shoot where they think you are, even if the terrain means there's no hope of them actually hitting you, and for some reason this utterly shocked me--I had just assumed enemies wouldn't panic shoot, and thought they must have had some unseen angle and were capable of damaging me. So I plopped out of the shaft, and because I still didn't have a great grasp on the controls I sort of pinballed around the room in a desperate attempt to avoid bullets. This did not work perfectly, but I did manage to batter the humans enough to kill them before they killed me. Then I had to pick out their various body parts from the debris to eat them, which due to my clumsiness ended up taking a fair amount of time as I kept dropping limbs just before they made it to my mouth(s), and had to flail around for them again.

In one of my last encounters before quitting, I did the "roar and scuttle through the air shafts" again (it's fun) only this time I dropped a piece of the ceiling onto a human, which caused her to tumble off screen; I assumed she died. I killed her two colleagues by tossing them at each other until they, um....fell apart. After consuming them I heard whimpering off-screen: the first person was still alive. Just as she had collected herself enough to pull out her gun, I tossed her down into a sort of murky, rocky pool of water a few levels down. I think she may have survived that too, but it didn't matter since I ate her after that.

In summation, Carrion is pretty good at making you feel scary and dangerous even if you don't know what you're doing. Would recommend.

★ Last week the student I work with one-on-one cut her math worksheet in half and tried to pass off one half as the whole sheet. This is one of the cleverest things I have ever seen anyone do and while I made her do the other half of the sheet I really wanted to....not do that.

★ I've only been working at this school for a month and I've lost count of how many times I've been asked about staying on during summer school or next year. I can't give anyone an answer since I'm working through a placement agency, and the only reason I'm working at the school is because the district underhired at the beginning of the year and now they're scrambling to put bodies in classrooms. So, IN THEORY, the district will hire at least slightly more people than they did this year, as hiring LNAs through an agency is Not Cheap, but in practice it sounds like nobody is applying for open positions so maybe??? I will be here for summer school/next school year???? I don't mind but I am not impressed by the school district's personnel practices.

★ Since I've been paring down my physical video game collection for the past few months, my backlog has gone down considerably, and I'm trying to set aside at least an hour a day playing something instead of looking at a shelf full of stuff and getting overwhelmed by it. I've started several games, though I haven't finished any of them yet. I've sunk the most time into Tactics Ogre, which I never played when it first released on the PS1--I love the storyline so far but grinding new classes has become excruciating, so I'm taking a break for a few days. Whoever decided all classes start at level 1 should be punch...er, ashamed of themselves.

★ BORDERLANDS 2 HAS A NEW EXPANSION AND IT'S FREE AND HOPEFULLY WE LEARN WHAT THE FUCK WAS UP WITH THE END OF THE PRE-SEQUEL \o/

I'm not looking forward to the raised level cap tho, the exponential scaling made getting to level 72 one of the most painful grinds I've ever experienced. It's been years since I last played BL2 and in retrospect, the whole "overlevel" thing, and having it gated behind the Digistruct Peak arena, was a really weird way to handle the issues created by exponential scaling. I was hoping they'd ditch it in BL3 but I'm fairly certain they confirmed exponential rather than linear leveling is still in effect. :(

★ Meme: For ten days, I post an image from a video game that has impacted me without a single explanation and nominate somebody to take the challenge.

Chrono Trigger

from twitter, this "all these words make sense individually but not together" style headline: Farming Simulator Esports Expands with League and Farm-Tech Sponsors

things i have learned:

★ Farming Simulator League has a prize pool of $284,000 (US) what the F U C K

★ There's a FarmCon specifically for the Farm Simulator series, not for farm simulators in general or, uh, actual farming.

★ The competitive mode is 3v3 hay bale stacking

★ Logitech produces a line of Farming Simulator-specific controllers and is planning to expand this hardware line

★ Farming Simulator devs specifically barred farm-tech companies from sponsoring the league as they did not want to create conflicts of interest between sponsored teams and the league

★ Farming Simulator 2019 sold 1 million copies in the first 10 days of its release which lbr blows most video game sales out of the water and explains why all of the above exists

I, for one, am looking forward to the heated discussions on what is considered "cheap" "low-skilled" "uncompetitive" in team-based hay bale stacking and any other competitive farm activities the devs create.

Taken from tumblr: For ten days, I post an image from a video game that has impacted me without a single explanation and nominate somebody to take the challenge.

Phantasy Star: End of the Millenium


tagging tehexile, whose drabbles have made me think about PS a lot lately :) (of course, don't feel pressured to do this if it doesn't interest you!)

The Steam winter sale is almost done (it ends January 3rd), and i probably should have done this sooner, but here is a list of all the shmups I have played, their sale price, and my extremely biased thoughts on which ones are worth getting and which ones are not. d^_^b

Cream of the Crop

Danmaku Unlimited 2 ($0.99) - A straightfoward shmup with a beautiful esoteric soundtrack, a clean, minimalist graphic style and mechanics that are easy to grasp and connect in such a way that it's relatively easy to survive if that's what you focus on, but requires a high-risk, high reward approach for high scores.

Crimzon Clover ($1.99) A shmup classic and one that's frequently recommended by people who haven't obsessively played everything in the genre. Simple in the sense that gameplay boils down to "kill these waves of blisteringly fast enemies before they kill you," made difficult through brilliant enemy placement, variety and fiendish bullet patterns. Excellent boss design; the Stage 3 boss is one of my favorite fights in any game.

Trouble Witches Origin ($4.99) I cannot speak objectively about this game: it's probably my favorite shmup of all time. A horizontal cute 'em up where you control magical girls instead of ships, with a heavy emphasis on bullet cancelling rather than dodging. Has a large selection of characters to choose from, with very distinct ways of playing each one due to differences in shot type, familiars (a permanent 'option' that isnt' directly controlled) and magic barriers (the thing you use to cancel bullets). A little anemic on modes but the ones that exist (arcade/story, time attack and boss rush) are all very different from one another. For some reason has a rather robust storyline with a lot of cute art and an atrocious translation that makes everything hilarious whether it's intentional or not.

Ikaruga ($4.99) Another classic shmup. Has a "polarity" mechanic where you become immune to one type of bullet and you must switch frequently between types to get through patterns; doesn't feel like anything else in the genre. Rewards a more methodical approach compared to the pace of most shmups, so while it's not easy it's more approachable to those turned off by the twitchiness of more frenetic bullet hells.

Deathsmiles ($7.99) This is...another horizontal cute 'em up with magical girls instead of ships. It's quite possibly CAVE's (a legendary shmup developer) most popular release. Has a creepy/cute gothic lolita aesthetic and soundtrack. Notable for having a non-linear stage progression and the ability to set the difficulty on a per-stage basis, excluding the extra and final stages. This release has several modes with different mechanics, with some featuring an extra character and stage.

Worth your time

Hurricane of the Varstray ($1.99) Made by the same developers as Trouble Witches, this is a vertical shmup that takes on an edgy sci-fi look. Suffers the same awful translation as Trouble Witches, but the ~edgy quality leads to some truly spectacular turns of phrase (there's a lot of very bizarre swearing and insulting that goes on). Like Trouble Witches, you're expected to cancel bullets rather than weave through them; in fact, it's literally impossible to dodge patterns after a certain point as the enemies and their bullets literally fill every inch of the screen for the vast majority of the levels. Instead of dodging, you fill up a super meter that sets off a screen clearing laser, which charges up another meter that temporarily turns your ship invincible and allows you to ram into literally everything for points. Timing your laser/invincibility use to coincide with the heaviest waves of enemies is where the difficulty lies. It's also pretty grueling at 12 stages with a second loop on top of that, so it's not suitable for short play sessions, although there is a Caravan mode included.

Diadra Empty ($2.99) An arena shmup heavily remincient of Defender, you play as a young girl searching for her sister with her dragon friend. Has a level-up mechanic where you can purchase different upgrades in between stages such as extra options, faster shield recharging, greater speed, etc. Stages are cleared by surviving for a set amount of time, then killing the boss that appears. I have the Amazon release, and the Steam release was apparently riddled with bugs on launch, though it appears a patch has fixed that issue.

RefRain -prism memories- ($7.49) This is another shmup that eschews dodging for cancelling mechanics; at higher difficulty levels, bullet patterns are deliberately designed to be impossible to weave through. Using bombs converts enemies into prisms that charge your bullet-cancelling weapon, and proper use of bombs and bullet cancelling can wipe out bosses within a second. Has a cyberpunkish plot that influences the presentation in a unique way (the idea is that you're hacking into some kind of database and each character has her own user interface/operating system(I think?). One of the few shmups where the story isn't an afterthought or complete nonsense.

Mushihimesama ($7.99) Vertical shooter that offers several different modes of varying difficulty levels and altered scoring mechanics. Normal is a straightforward "kill everything, don't die" affair, Manic and Ultra modes have a more complex scoring system that revolves around collecting gems to increase the points received on killing an enemy, and the Arrange/Version 1.5 modes add even more changes. Stages and sprites are beautiful and unlike any other shmup on the market; you play as the titular "Bug Princess" travelling through forests, deserts and mountains in order to find the God of the Kouju, the giant bugs you happen to be shooting down (but also serves as your mount and options). Infamous for having a bullet pattern so difficult it took 13 years to figure out how to survive it.

ESCHATOS (Wonder pack with Judgement Silversword and Cardinal Sins) ($12.99) While it's possible to purchase ESCHATOS and Judgement Silversword/Cardinal Sins separately, there's no reason not to buy them together; ESCHATOS is a semi-3D spiritual successor to Judgement Silversword, one of the last games released for the Wonderswan system, and playing both offers a nice contrast in how perspective can alter otherwise identical mechanics. ESCHATOS offers a time attack mode where you have a limited amount of time to clear level checkpoints and various actions will increase or decrease the time you have left. Both JSS and ESCHATOS have simple, understandable mechanics and don't feel as punishing as other shmups, although I wouldn't call either of them easy.

Wait on it these are good games, but you can probably wait for another price drop

BULLET SOUL and BULLET SOUL INFINITE BURST ($5.99 each) For some reason, Bullet Soul and Infinite Burst are separate releases on Steam, while the 360 release (the version I own) has both Bullet Soul and Infinite Burst in a single package. Bullet Soul vanilla is a mediocre game; it has very little in the way of gameplay that elevates it from 'shoot things before they shoot you' beyond the bizarre choice to cancel an enemy's bullet pattern upon their death. This makes things forgiving to the point of dullness for significant portions of the game. The secondary modes like Caravan, Score Attack and Version B are more enjoyable but it's hard to recommend a game when the main mode is so boring. Infinite Burst is essentially an Arrange mode that adds a coin-collecting mechanic where coins bounce up from the bottom of the screen before floating away at the top; letting coins disappear lowers your score. Bombs are replaced with a super-shot mode that is charged by collecting coins, and instead of extends there is a shield system in place. Infinite Burst is a much better game, but it's also devoid of secondary modes due the split release. So uh, idk wait until they're bundled or something?

DoDonPachi Resurrection ($14.99) The most accessible of CAVE's legendarily difficult DoDonPachi series, this is...still a hard game. Comes with a plethora of arranged/reworked modes in addition to the base game, which itself can be a massive time sink with multiple loops with strict requirements to access them. Scoring revolves around keeping a combo counter constantly active by either killing stuff or having your focus shot on an enemy; the counter resets very quickly if you aren't hitting something. Unique to this installment is a laser beam system where you can push back enemy lasers with your ship's focus shot; this leads to some brutal laser-grids-overlapped-with-bullet-waves sections in later levels. A great game if you don't mind the steep learning curve to become remotely proficient, but I find it hard to recommend at $15 when Deathsmiles and Mushihimesama are both below $10.

DARIUSBURST Chronicle Saviors ($24.99) The latest, and possibly, last release in the long-running DARIUSBURST series, this game has like a bajillion different modes, 9 ships with distinct, unique mechanics (and even more available as DLC) fantastic boss design and a eerie, beautiful soundtrack that stands out in a genre where a good soundtrack is practically a requirement. It is, in fact, so stuffed with content (which explains its high base price tag) that it becomes a little overwhelming: I've only played the arcade mode and cannot tell you much of anything about other modes. Arcade mode itself is quite robust; instead of a fixed level progression there are branching paths after each stage cleared and the boss you face at the end is determined by the route you picked. As a series that began in the 80s it features many of the design choices that defined shmups from that era--horizontal scrolling, several weapon types that you upgrade by collecting powerups, and tends to fill the screen with environmental hazards and varied enemy spawns instead of curtains of bullets. Has a "burst" system where you charge up a laser that can be shot and directed in several directions while your ship stays in a fixed position; against bosses, you can "intercept" their laser attacks by activating your own just before the opposing laser hits, which leads to enormous damage and can wipe out bosses quickly if you're willing to to take the risk. There's actually nothing bad and a lot that's good about DBCS; if you're a fan of older style shmups like Gradius it's worth buying even at this price, given that this is the lowest it's ever been. Still, it's significantly more than literally every other shmup on Steam, so a bit hard to recommend in that respect.

Not recommended for various reasons, i didn't enjoy these

QP Shooting Dangerous!! ($2.39) I played this very intensely for about a week then dropped it and I've never felt the need to revisit it. Not especially bad just kind of generic. There is only one character but there are a lot of option formations available but that's about all I remember.

Redux: Dark Matters ($2.59) This is R-Type stripped down to the absolute basic mechanics. Uninspired level design, some okay-ish bosses. Tends to be really easy OR obnoxiously difficult as the higher difficulty level just takes away some of your resources. Weird sound design that sometimes makes it hard to tell if you're hitting something or absorbing stuff with your bit, so dumb, unexpected deaths do occur.

XIIZEAL ($5.99) Vertical shmup that has a side-shot mechanic that you access by rapidly wiggling your ship from side-to-side. You're supposed to wiggle your analog or arcade stick to wiggle the ship, but in the PC release you can bind that to a button. The side-shot and enemy spawn patterns encourage you to use more of the screen real estate than most shmups but gameplay is pretty standard besides that. Has well-crafted sprites but the design is standard sci-fi military stuff.

Astebreed ($9.99) I played this for about 30 minutes and for the life of me I cannot remember anything about the experience beyond "I didn't like it." Uh, you pilot mechas instead of ships and I think meleeing enemies is involved?

★ I finished up a bunch of paperwork for job related stuff today, then started studying for my phlebotomy class tomorrow...and ended up falling asleep for two hours W H O O P S. I got a call from the pharmacy for a refilled prescription during that time frame as well, so I started errands at, oh, 8:30 this evening. I also managed to get all the way to the post office before realizing I'd left the mail at home, so I had to drive back home then back to the post office. Also also, some of the main roads were washed out from the melting snowbanks and rain today, so I had to take several detours each way.

Then, because I'm a basic bitch at heart, I stopped at a Dunkin' Donuts to get a pumpkin spice coffee but they had closed, like, 10 minutes before I got there. I probably should have gone straight home after that, but I felt like I had to get SOMETHING I wanted but didn't really need tonight so I drove 5 miles down the road to a different Dunkin' Donuts that I knew would be open because I used to stop by there when I had an overnight shift in the area. Then it took 15 minutes to get home because of the aforementioned water issue. I might not be making the best life decisions right now...but at least the coffee was nice and I had a lot of it.

★ Game stuff: I did part of the tutorial in Blazblue Cross Tag Battle, and even though it uses a 4 button layout with only two of those buttons meant for attacking (the other two are dedicated to tag-related stuff) I still found it difficult to grasp beyond, like, the basics of autocombo and dedicated instant overhead moves. ~_~

I don't expect much from the story and nothing in the prologue suggests that I was wrong in this assumption, but I am glad to hear the dub voices for Blazblue again. I disliked Centralfiction's story and I think some of that is because I had to read its' vast amounts of stupid exposition instead of listening to it. Like it's a bit easier to tolerate walls of boring text when someone is passionately trying to sell it to you. And I've always preferred Noel's dub voice.

I played a few rounds of Overwatch and Soulcalibur VI. Nothing particularly exciting happened in Overwatch although I had a few games where dudes were mildly toxic about me picking Ashe >:| Also I headshot a blinking Tracer!!!, so now I have to quit Overwatch forever because I'm sure that will be my peak.

I was just grinding out the "play x number of matches online" type achievements in SCVI and ended up with an exactly 50% winrate, a rank up and a ragequit. Yay? ¯\_(ツ)_/¯

★ I've been...thinking about writing fic lately. Which doesn't amount to much, I suppose, but given that I haven't considered fic for months (years?) until Kinktober this year, it's a significant change for *me,* lol. It mostly boils down to no one writing the porn I want to read but tbh that's always been my single greatest writing motivator.

wrt writing explicit material, I remember reading a tweet somewhere that suggested starting with the sex scene first which sounds like maybe a good idea? I often give up writing a thing because I lose motivation to get to 'the good part' which is always the strongest scene in my mind when I'm starting...so maybe starting at the part that is most interesting gives enough motivation to slog through the rest of the fic. Maybe something to try for next month.

★ Overwatch will be free to play starting tomorrow and the free play period runs until Nov. 26. I made a battle.net account to see how it feels on PC when compared to the X1, despite complaining about getting burned out on the game literally yesterday lol. I feel like simultaneously loving and hating a game is inevitable after you've put so much time into it, though? You get exposed to stuff that you wouldn't ever encounter in something you play infrequently. And your opinion on what is good or bad becomes more influenced by the community so you think about your experiences differently...I remember having similar feelings about Resident Evil and Borderlands after literally hundreds of hours sunk into them.

★ Dead or Alive 6 released a character reveal trailer and I am ALL OVER IT because:

-BEST GIRLS LISA AND KOKORO ARE CONFIRMED so now the roster officially has every character I care about, also the casual clothing Tina and Kokoro are wearing looks SO GOOD ♥
-The brand-new character NiCO looks fucking ridiculous and I love her already. what is a lighting technomancer anyway???? i really enjoy that DOA6 is going all in on the crazy science angle, it's a series that just...doesn't do serious shit that well.

I could have started homework for my phlebotomy class and started cleaning up the house, but instead i stayed in my pajamas and watched the end of the Overwatch World Cup before going out for drinks with my sister and brother-in-law. In my defense, it was cold and rainy and a good day to sit in and watch something trivial.

( cut for match results )

Some scattered thoughts about compositions used and the general state/balance of characters and meta in high-level play:

-The recent change to Lúcio's Sound Barrier (grants 750 shield HP instead of 500) felt extremely oppressive. Ofc the purpose of a defensive ult is to keep your team from wiping, but the increased HP has changed the way Barrier is used in a subtle way. The old barrier was used reactively against high-burst ults, but due to its short duration and cast time it was not as reliable as Transcendence. Now it seems to be used most often in situations after ults are expended to deny any advantage the enemy team might get from using ultimate combos or committing to a deep push and instead of feeling like a clutch save for your team, dropping the beat feels like a death sentence for the other team and just feels...unfair?...in a way the old Barrier did not. 750 HP, even though it decays, is an enormous amount of HP to burn down in a single fight and that's not even considering Sound Barrier usually comes on top of Rally and its 100 armor HP. I think the old Barrier just needed a cast time reduction or should have charged faster instead of what exists now.

-All of the support characters saw substantial playtime in the Cup, even though there's been a lot of complaints by...certain segments of support players...who feel the number of nerfs Mercy and Brigitte have received have made them substantially worse. Which is nice! I'd actually say out of all the supports it's Moira who is the weakest at high level play because she does not offer much outside a metric ton of AOE healing and the lowest DPS in the game and Ana and/or Mercy offer utility outside healing (sleep dart, nanoboost, res, damage boost) and have better synergy with the off-supports as well. But her kit's still really strong in ladder/solo queue play.

-It doesn't look fun to be Reinhardt but it looks super-fun to be Winston. Mobility helps a lot i guess.

-McCree was used to great effect by several teams on Control-type maps and I have no idea why he's become so strong in this specific situation so suddenly (he's generally been a poor pick against 3/3 comps which is what is most commonly run on control maps) This is probably why i've never been higher than platinum in competitive mode.

-Wrecking Ball appeared to be the counter-of-choice for double-sniper comps but didn't get very consistent results...still seems like the best counter out of all the tanks for snipers at high leves since D.va and Winston can get burned down so quickly when trying to contest snipers.

-Tracer's in a bad spot :( At least no one on ladder plays as a team so she's still strong there lol.

hello everyone! (assuming there are people still here?)

i've started streaming like all the cool kids now. i only stream shmups once a week (Tuesdays at 8PM Eastern Standard Time) but I hope to do it regularly going forward. of course, if history is any indication, that won't happen...but I've been consistent for uhhhhh 3 weeks now!

i stream at https://mixer.com/janejana

come and watch me struggle to git gud at hard games with weird translations. or not. it's your choice!

SoooOOOOOoooo the Steam Winter Sale is live, and a lot of other digital game storefronts are also having winter sales because if something proves to be popular it must be copied relentlessly. Thanks, capitalism.

I didn't buy anything during the autumn sale so my wishlist has had some time to lengthen, although there are quite a few games there that are perpetual 'maybe' purchases. Not in a rush to make decisions this time since daily and flash deals aren't happening...I admit there's a lot less excitement around the sale because of that, although I was really frustrated with the limited time deals because I usually missed them. :P Still, they definitely gave me a reason to check Steam every time I had a chance. Now, it's just a matter of determining what's worth buying and what isn't.

On the "almost certainly will buy" list:

-Resident Evil 4 HD
-Undertale - well, I think I'm actually the last gamer I know to play this, so I probably shouldn't give a summary? lol
-Why Am I Dead At Sea Got recommended over at NeoGAF, apparently you're a ghost trying to figure out what killed you while heading off some potential tragedy threatening the ship? Also described as Earthbound-like, which may be becoming its own subgenre of indie gaming.
-Sunless Sea The trailer and reviews sound amazing, and a few friends have it on their rec lists as well. A Lovecraftian RPG taking place in an underground sea sounds fascinating. I've passed on it a few times but 50% off is the biggest discount I've seen so I might as well take the plunge.
-Suguri/Acceleration of Suguri - doujin horizontal shmup that I've been meaning to get for a long time but have yet to pick up. They're going for $2 and the sequel is coming out in January, so that's probably a sign to get it.
-Eschatos/Judgment Silver Sword/Cardinal Sins - I uh, already have this game on my 360 but I've become one of those people who is slowly digitizing her physical game collection. It's a shmup collection with Judgement Silver Sword and Cardinal Sins being from the Wonderswan handheld, and Eschatos a 360 release. Eschatos has a really neat chaining/multiplier mechanic that's significantly less stringent than DoDonPachi's, and a timed mode that's fun as well--you have a very short amount of time to complete a stage (less time than you need) but time is added on depending on how well you perform. Cardnial Sins is really neat--each stage is loosely based on one of the seven deadly sins, with different scoring mechanics and enemies; you have to figure out what you're required to do to pass to the next stage. It's kind of like Wario Ware, but...a shmup. And uh, I honestly can't remember what JSS is like, but it's included in the bundle so I'll find out eventually.

My full wishlist is here, if anyone is interested in offering opinions on what else to buy. If you have your own wishlists feel free to link to them in the comments so I can bug you about what you should/shouldn't get too!

I'd offer to do some gifting but I heard international gifting isn't possible anymore on Steam, which is super lame and bleeeeehhhh. I'll see if there's some kind of work around but if not, boo. BOOOOOO. :(