[waffleking23]

Ossu! Mornin' all! Time's come round again, no?





This week we're having a look at:

The quicksand woods - AureliusMagnus
Caja De Sorpresas - krufo_6
Platforms - GranthamAMP
Getting crafty! - Brina1813
Beyond imagination 2 - muleRR

Errr....yeah, this is a bit of an interesting set list for us. There's definitely one level in there i think we can all agree is good. The rest? Well, ymmv, i suppose. Hopefully there's something for you in there, though. Thanks for all the support and feedback, and i hope y'all have a great day.

Behind the Curtains Stuffs
So, yesterday the chat was going really well. i think we had like four convos going on at once, and i was doing pretty well juggling game and chat. Had a couple of good Gungeon runs that didn't pan out, and one where we were able to actually clear the Convict's past (and getting the W against the Dragun was one-hit touch-and-go, very tense). And then, right at the end, some jaggamuffin rocks up to chat, and apropos of nothing starts talking about...well...nothing i'm much comfortable having in my chat. It's not as though my streams are language- or topic-wise 100% G-rated, but still...it really burnt my toast. i suppose i should be happy that in 2years of making videos, and...i think 4months of streaming, this has been the first time it's happened, but i'd rather it hadn't happened at all, right? At least i know how to bounce someone from chat now, which also removes their comments from the chat window (though not, unfortunately, from the UI in the video itself).

i've started a second Isaac stream, because i have some kind of mental damage i guess. This one's in English. The funny thing is the first video in the series picked up more views than any of the 800some episodes i've done in Japanese. Weird, that.

Umm...we're at least getting R15F episodes produced on time. We're going to try and get an LBsP episode out today or maybe tomorrow depending on how the editing goes. i should have gotten the recording done for it last night, but by the time i got some other things i needed to do done, i was just too tired to focus.

[waffleking23]

Ossu! Tuesday Takeaway Time!

The quicksand woods - AureliusMagnus
There's really nothing to say about this one. The hazard could be worked into an actual level, i think, though it should probably be a bit faster in killing the player. Otherwise it's going to chunk the pace of gameplay. Still, the effect was decent enough, i suppose.

Caja de Sorpresas - krufo_6
The pace of this one is just all over the place, and it ends up feeling overlong in the end (or by the time you die enough to end the level, which i did, again). The enemies were nice in their inclusion, though pretty frustrating in their execution. The spinning electrical hazard on the top hat ones is really tough to figure the timing on; and the triple-braincase things are really tough to pop in one go without getting hung up on their spikes. Also, they've got a really weird recorded noise they make that gets old pretty quick. It's not a bad level, per se, just frustrating and, ultimately, disappointing.

Platforms - GranthamAMP
Meh. Meh. Me~~h. There's just nothing really going on in this one. i have to admit i liked the intro with the stairs dropping into place, but after that? Well, y'all saw the video. The environment's sparseness could have been forgivable if we'd gotten more in the way of gameplay, but in the main it's a lot of simple horizontal movement across vast spaces. The jumping bit at the end could've worked if it'd been a touch shorter, and there was some other gameplay element between the bounce pad portion and the regular block bit. Again, it's not exactly a bad level, but i think your time could be better spent elsewhere.

Getting crafty! - Brina1813
This one's probably the best of the "bad" levels. Some thought is given to a cohesive, if abstracted, environment. The gameplay bits were frustrating, yes, but at least not over-long. i do think the order could have been switched up to better effect, though. Maybe 1>3>2, or 2>3>1. Just to give the gameplay a bit more of a feeling of variety. i did like the companion's tableaux toward the end. Brina1813 dropped a line to say they were more of a movie-maker, than level-builder, so it might be their strength is in setting up scenes. That is something i can definitely understand, being basically a good description for where i'm at in LBPcreation.

Beyond Imagination 2 - muleRR
This one was the gem in the donut. Or is it jam? How's that idiom go, anyway? Whatever, bad choice, i hate donuts with fillings, whatever they may be. What i'm trying to say is, this one was the cream of the crop for this week's episode. It kind of makes sense it's a recreation (or perhaps republish) of an LBP2-era level. It might be just me, but while i love a lot of levels that could only have been done with the LBP3 toolset, i think LBP2 probably most consistently gives us great levels. i'm not sure why that is exactly. Maybe just having a more robust toolset (though still with limitations like layers) combined with a much more active community so you have a lot of people bouncing ideas off each other. i don't know, but the LBP2 community levels are special. i hope we get a similar situation once dreams gets its feet on the ground and starts running.

So that's the that this go about. A pretty fair amount of dross, but that last one makes it worthwhile, in my opinion at least. Hope you found something in there to float your boat. Thanks as always for the feedback and support, and have a great day!

Behind the Curtains Stuffs
i've been struggling to carve out the time to finally finish up my LBsP episode on Chronos453's Chapter Zero. i've got principle level recording done, but haven't been able to get around to PiP recording. Part of that is getting behind in my hub set-up for Friday's R15F and behind the streams (since they're scheduled) that has to take priority. Part of it is just being a little low recently, no particular reason. Or enough reasons that you can't really point to any one and say that's it. i dunno.

Went out looking to rent Girls' Last Tour, since i've been reading the manga and really liking it. None of the video shops has it, unfortunately. i even (drunkenly) signed up for Netflix on the off chance i could watch it there. They ain't got it either. While i was looking around, i stopped in a i don't know what you'd call it...a sub-culture-adjacent shop? They stock manga, and a whole lot of other weird bric-a-brac. Didn't find Girls' Last Tour, unfortunately, but i did stumble across Joshikohei, which i'd read about ages ago, made a mental note to check out, and then promptly forgot about. Picked up a couple of volumes and...it's weird.
So...humanity has migrated to another dimension (because we've screwed up Earth, i think? It's a few steps above my reading level, really). Anyway, we get into a war, and the only way to really fight is...to pilot giant bio-mecha which (for reasons that completely escape me) look like high-school girls. It sounds absurd, and it is...except...the art style doesn't really present it that way, like, visually it reads like it's playing the conceit perfectly straight. It is completely brutal, in almost every aspect, and there are very, very few of the softening aspects present in some manga (like abstracted, detail-light, character/facial design). Midway through the first volume they're fighting some giant beast that can mutate/absorb the Girl Fighters into itself until it's some hideously deformed flesh-crafted monstrosity. Oh, and did i mention that if the pilots are active too long they start to think they're actually high school girls (albeit armed with giant guns and fighting hideous monsters)? Because that's totally a thing in the story, and it's about as disturbing as you'd think. i'm still not sure how i feel about this manga yet.