As said in the previous journal, I want to talk about the fetish RPG rules, specifically issues I have related to luck rolls.


-The Rules-
The rules are inspired by a number of games, but mainly Savage Worlds. Here's how that game, and the fetish RPG, work. Stats and skills are not represented as a number, but as a die size. The higher the better. So the strength of an average man might be a six sided die (d6), a weakling might have a four sided die (d4), or a body builder might have a ten sided die (d10). When the character has to make a strength check, let's say kicking open a door, they would roll the die they have for strength. If the result is 4 or more, they win and the door is kicked open. That's it. Obviously there are other rules, but most of the game is what I've described. Roll a die, if the result is 4 or higher, you win.


-Melee vs Ranged-
One problem I ran into early on was with combat. Turn based systems don't differentiate between ranged combat or melee combat in a way that is fun or balanced. Those that do take place on a grid or board where there are options for flanking, cover, area of effect, etc. Not what I was going for with this game.

So for now I'm having a generic "combat" skill until I come up with a more in depth battle system.


-Luck Rolls-
One decision I'm having a tough time making is how to handle luck. To give a simple example. A female character accidentally gets her skirt stuck in a bus door. The bus pulls away and tears her skirt off. Lucky for the players because they get eye candy, not lucky for the character. If a player makes a luck based character, should the character be lucky or the player?

I considered having a luck stat and a mishap stat, but I'd have to be careful to avoid them cancelling each other out. eg. She loses her skirt due to the bus, but immediately finds a replacement. It would also mean those kinds of characters would have to double dip into 2 chance based abilities. I don't know a good middle ground, so any suggestions welcome.


-Clothing and item gain/loss rate-
There's a good chance that characters will lose things during the game. From shoes falling into unreachable areas to clothing damaged by emeny attacks. I've not decided if I want items to be disposable things your lose and regain constantly. Or have them be rare things that the character has to hold on to. Both ways have their pros and cons.

To use the bus-skirt accident example again. It's going to be annoying to lose a valuable item to a chance encounter like that. Especially if you just got it. But if they're rare it means that character could potentially go a long time before finding a replacement, maybe even have to go on a side quest to get a replacement, allowing for more gameplay, and opportunities for fetishes to happen.

Alternatively, items could be common and easy to replace, this would mean the fun stuff would happen more often (if you're into that). Of course, the downside is that it's less special when it does happen, and any losses will ultimately be undone fairly quickly.

One middle ground idea could be to have items be common, but items can only be replaced between quests. That way, if the bus-skirt accident early in the quest, it would mean that the character would be skirtless for a while. Though how long could you reasonably drag out a quest before it gets boring?

EDF has just come out on PC. I kind of expect productivity to plummet, but I don't know.

I've been lazy recently. Playing games and doing other things while my sleep schedule continues to break. That said, I have made a little progress.

Krystal Game- Nothing new here of note. It's mostly boring stuff like art and menus that needs doing at this point, and I don't want to. Probably why I've been lazy.

Gun Maidens- I started actual work on this thing just before the laziness hit. All I've done is the movement code and litterally nothing else. I originally was going to use Quake or Quake 2 movement code as a base, but eventually decided on Quake 3 movement. Along with being considered the best (I found a forum thread complaining that Quake 2 feels weird), Quake 3s movement system has been well documented over the years. The job is not done though, so I should get back to it.
I'm currently putting some thought into have a Goldeneye and Timesplitters style reload system where the gun goes off the screen for a couple of seconds to reload. This is mainly to save on weapon animations. I don't know yet though.

Savage RPG/Fetish RPG- One side project I've been working on the last couple of days is a fetish RPG. The placeholder name comes from Savage Worlds, a tabletop RPG rule system that somewhat inspired it. I've commissioned an artist to do the "sexy" art work, with free stock assets and my own work filling in the rest.

And that's about it. I want to ramble on about the RPG rules system, but I'll do that in another post some time.

I'm looking for players for an action heavy tabletop RPG set in Silent Hill.

The story is that police from Raccoon City's STARS team have been sent to investigate a cult in the area, but they soon find themselves trapped in Silent Hill. Unlike Harry Mason and James Sunderland, they brought guns, lots of guns. Alturnitively, you can choose to play as a civilian and have to rely on any weapons you can find.

If you're interested, just let me know via comments or notes, or join the discord server at https://discord.gg/Brb6VBZ

-FAQ/Details-

What system are you using?
Savage Worlds. It's fairly straight forward and easy to understand without sacreficing depth. It can be taught in just a few minutes.

I've never played a RPG/Savage Worlds before. Can I still play?
Yes.

Can I play my OC?
Yes. If you want to play as Jenny Hops Donut Steel, you're free to do so.

Can I play my DnD character?
No. I find this question a bit odd to be honest. Wanting to bring your 12th level Bard into a Silent Hill game is like wanting to import your Pokemon Trainer into Mortal Kombat.

As I've worked on the Krystal game one thing I've had complaints about is Krystal's staff. People complained that the placeholder versions looked like she had a penis or was impaled on her own staff. But putting at an angle like a modern FPS would look weird in my opinion, because the projectiles come from the bottom middle of the screen. Part of me wants to chalk this up to other similar criticisms like the claim that Call of Duty character would break their nose if they held a gun as they do in the game. Such criticisms works off the assumption that the character is standing straight, square shouldered to the screen with a gopro between their eyes.

Still, another part of me wants to say these criticisms are genuine. I considered swaping out her staff for a magic gun based on her staff. Something like a SMG version of the zat guns from Stargate SG1. My attempts to paint a sprite to that effect ended in failure.

They I played the old Doom engine game Heretic after seeing reviews for Amid Evil. Then I realised that many of the weapons in that game are staffs similar to what I was going for with the Krystal game. At least now I have references and don't have to worry about the criticisms mentioned before.


The "big" update is updated walking system. I know that sounds super boring, but the stiff barebones walking controls has now been replaced with a Quake style momentum system. It makes the game feel much better. I'm trying to tweak the values to get it working as I'd like since the default was too fast, but it's hard to judge when I've got it right since I'm looking so closely at it. It's like video compression in that it's easy to become an obsessed perfectionist when in truth might be no one is really going to notice or care about how how many tenths of a second it takes to go from standing still to full speed.

Since I based the code on someone else's port of the quake code, I'm not 100% sure how it works. There's a couple of lines of code I don't understand the utility of. Even the engine throws up a warning about unused variables. It makes me think that said port might be unfinished, or maybe cutting out the jumping and air control code was a mistake. Though now I'm armed with a little knowledge of how it works I can go back to doom or quake's source code and port it myself if needed.

On a similar note, I started to work on Gun Maidens. Nothing much to show now, but I mention it because I used a fan port of the Quake 3 movement code to Unity as a base to get good movement for Gun Maidens. Hell, I'm tempted to keep using Quake code as inspiration for how to do many things in a FPS properly, like how weapons are coded.


On a more interesting note. I've been putting thought into other projects.
Inspired by YouTube videos about the making of old school games where they'd start with a basic concept, and add stuff they thought was cool until they had a game. I'm thinking of taking a similar approach to my Gun Maidens game.
I've also been thinking about tabletop RPGs recently after another attempt to get a game going fell through. Long story short, I'm considering making a game loosely inspired by the Savage Worlds system. And I do mean loose inspiration, basically keeping the leveling up by getting bigger dice instead of abstract stats plugged into some formula. Outside of that, it'll be mostly a new system built for the game.

And there's about it. There is more stuff I could mention but I'll call it there for now.

So E3 is happened. Many of my opinions are with the general consensus, so I won't bother repeating those. But there is a few things I do want to talk about.

First, if you're ever watching a stream or in a discord server that is talking about E3. Ignore the chat. It's all complaining and cynicism. It's not even funny jokes, just whining about how every game that isn't some bullshot FMV trailer "looks like a PS2 game", every trailer that isn't non-stop explosions is "BORING!", and anything that is not a sequel is a rip off of something else.

Second, I don't get the hype around dragons both at E3 and outside of it. Especially since they are held up as some god-tier bad arse but all they seem to do is get killed. There was an old cliche/trope called "The Worf effect". It was a reference to how Worf in Star Trek was talked up as some tough guy, but in almost every episode he was beaten up by the villain. In theory this was meant to show how much of a threat the villain was, but in practice it made Worf look inept. Dragons are much the same for me. A low tier boss, an early game road block, a thing that exists to get stabbed.

Third, game journalists are still awful.

That is all. Next I think I'll post a Krystal game update.

It's June, and it kind of snuck up on me. May seemed to go on forever, then around the 23rd it seemed to skip ahead to June. That's also the time I was being lazy and my sleep schedual was a mess. Maybe they are related.

Anyway, while I've been slacking on the Krystal game recently, I have made progress. It's still not a game yet, but the key components are in place, now it's just a case of how much I want to refine it, how much content it should have, etc. I've had issues, most noticeable was a physics issue that caused the player and enemies to change height when bumping into each other, ultimately breaking the game as players could end up above the stage. I think that's mostly fixed now. While it's still not what you'd call a game, and I still have a lot to learn, I'm feeling confident enough to start work on my Leanna game. I also have other ideas I want to talk about, but I'll wait until tomorrow for that.

Remember how I was talking about Due South a little while back? Well, someone who runs a TV channel must be reading my journals because Due South is back on the box! Yay!. It's on True Entertainment if you get that channel.

Speaking of Due South, WolfN85 said he liked the show because it was a morally good character without rubbing your face in it. That stuck with me for some reason. Recently a YouTube commenter made the argument that a Mary Sue isn't just a competent character, but the world revolving around them. Villains have no real motivation other than to screw over the Mary Sue. Side characters have no purpose other than to stand in awe of the Mary Sue.

I like this explanation not just because it gives me an out with my own arguably Mary Sue-ish OCs. But because it explains why we can like Mary Sue esc characters like James Bond, while also explaining a lot about why so much writing these days is bad, especially when it comes to "woke" media. As the commenter put it, political beliefs or ideologies can be Mary Sues. When a story exists just to prove a political belief correct, it becomes a Mary Sue. As I watched the pilot for Due South, characters are morally good but people have things they are doing that don't involve the main character. Not only that, but his nice-ness bites him in the arse when he arrives in the city as he's tricked by a con man and cheated out of a taxi.

I don't know if I'll adopt this as any kind of "official" writing standard, but for now it's a better guide than worrying if a character is a Mary Sue or not.

Over the last couple of years I've noticed a trend with physical goods. How it used to work was a thing would come out, it would get cheaper over time, and might be worth something decades later. Now, something comes out, it's sold for a week, at which point it either goes on deep sale or the value skyrockets.

I first remember this happening with Senran Kagura 2. Releasing at £30 or £40 and only a few months later it had gone up in price. Over the last 6 months to a year, I started collecting Masamune Shirow books. Appleseed, Tank Police, that stuff. They were still sold at local comics shops, book shops, and online for the cover price of £10 or so. Now the books are sold for 6 times that, used. New copies go for £100+. I'm kind of tempted to sell the ones I have because of this. Another author I've been collecting is Morinaga Milk. Their books are still sold for cover price on Amazon, including Gakuen Polizi vol 1. But Gakuen Polizi vol 2 goes for a ridiculous price despite being released a year later.

About 5-10 years ago, I got a lot of stick for having a "good riddance" attitude to certain shops going out of business. Most famous was GAME, but it applied to other shops as well. My logic was simple. If they don't want to sell what I want to buy, why should I pay out of pocket to support them? The counter arguments were all about local jobs for local people, but if they care about that why don't they shop there? I'd get excuses or non-answers.

I've been told the market for physical books collapsed years ago, but I doubt this claim. Local book shops are still open and doing business. Some like WHSmiths closed down, but I still see book shops and comic shops in town. But as with GAME and the others before them, I don't shop there any more because they don't sell what I'm after. I'm not interested in coffee and a jigsaw. I'm there to buy manga. But I have to go online because they don't sell the books I want.

Which brings me to another point. If Masamune Shirow books have been sold since the 80s, or at least the manga boom of the mid 2000s, why is it now they are suddenly no longer available? This is especially strange in this era of "print on demand" book sellers. If I can get a 50 year old RPG modual printed and mailed to my door for a little over the cover price, why not have the same with manga?

The conspiracy theorist in me wants to say that this is an effort to push the kindle or digital versions, but I doubt kindle is going to suddenly take off now, especially since a kindle device still goes for triple digits. Hell, why faff around with kindle or desktop apps when there's websites that allow you to read most manga in your browser? I'm reminded of board games that force players to install apps on their smart phones. If you're going to be playing on your phone, then play phone games. No one wants to break out the cardboard and paper to play a sub par phone game.

By far the most likely theory though is that the publishers have lost the rights to specific books, or they aren't printing them anymore for whatever reason. While this is the age of print on demand, it's also the age of scaplers and artificial scarcity. If there's an audience willing to pay triple digits for a 2 year old reprint of a book from the 80s, then I'm sure that still some audience willing to buy these books. Maybe with the smaller books in a compilation or a print on demand version. Just saying.

I don't like milk once it's warm. Even if it's put in the fridge again later, it doesn't taste the same. Odd, since milk is boiled in the refining process. Anyone I told this too thought I was mad or picky, until I met someone else who felt the same way.

Which brings me to pizza.

One of my favourite foods of all time was the fresh pizza from the take away around the corner. They had so many options but I always ended up choosing 3 meat pizza. It was glorious. I could eat a whole 10 or 12 inch pizza myself given the chance. Though even if I didn't manage and had to warm it up the following day, it was still good. Unfortunately, the place was sold and now it is some Italian place that doesn't do pizza. Shame.

"But don't be sad Sabre" say the hypothetical amalgamation of various people I don't want to name "the local supermarket sells pizza."

But it's not the same. At least to me. There's frozen pizza. I don't mind that. It's nice, but not really the same thing as fresh pizza. As for supermarket "fresh" pizza you put in the microwave. No. It's not layers of cheese, tomato, and meat on a dough base. It's the result of a scientific experiment to make something that is completely tasteless that sticks to your teeth. But no-one seems to understand, except maybe my brother or his gf.

So the question. Can you tell the difference between fresh takeaway pizza, "fresh" supermarket pizza, and frozen pizza?

If you've been following my game development for a long time you'll know about my various attempts to make a fetish game. These games usually run into 1 of 3 problems.
-"I can't fap to this!" ie. The graphics are too basic and low res for anyone to give the game a try.
-The game would take too long to make, and I wouldn't have the skill to make it. eg. A level of detail in the art I can't provide, or an exponentially growing number of outfits and animations and features.
-The gameplay is bad and not worth playing, and it might as well be a comic or something instead.

The engine I'm currently using has advanced 2D animation tools. Including (but not limited to) cutout animation. ie. The kind of animation used to make Legend of Krystal and Furry Fury: Legend of the Twin Orbs.
https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-tdVdarUV.....lishSplash.jpg

But this raises a fairly stupid, yet obvious question. Should I bother? The Krystal Wolfenstein clone is coming along well, and after that there's lots of other games and projects I'd like to make.

There's nothing stopping me working on multiple games at once of course. At the end of the day it's just a case of time and effort put into it. But that also takes time and effort away from other projects. It's tempting to ask people to do some of the work for me, but that can lead to me letting them down or them letting me down.

I think it's also worth mentioning 3D. I want to make a throwback to PS1 fixed camera survival horror. While PS1 era 3D often falls into the "I can't fap to this" territory, it was also the generation of gaming that gave us Lara Croft and other titilating characters.
http://www.hardcoregaming101.net/wp.....ungeon97-1.jpg
https://www.the-arcade.ie/wp-conten.....ngle-boobs.jpg
https://i.gifer.com/LEAU.gif
3D has complexities and problems of it's own, but there is a lot of potential there if I ever get to that level. Be it extra outfits like Resident Evil games used to do, or clothing damage like in Resident Evil 1.5 and Heavy Metal Fakk 2. Plus many of the types of games I like work better in 3D.

Anyway, let me know what you think.


Since I mentioned clothing damage. Since I know some of my watchers are into that I might as well mention there is a mod for Resident Evil 2 Remake that has it. It's subtle, but I thought I'd mention it. It's called Battlesuit mod (basically a zero suit)
https://www.nexusmods.com/residente.....22019/mods/146
https://youtu.be/rfozmNsL2Io

Couple of questions for those following my Starfox fan game. One is about the font, and the other is the AI and enemy design.

First, I looked up the Starfox font. There is a free fan made starfox font, though it doesn't have numbers. Not that it matters because the screenshots of Starfox Zero which use a similar font for the numbers are hard to read at a glance. The other games use a generic sci-fi font that's easy to read.
http://archive.videogamesdaily.com/.....assault/18.jpg
There leaves me with 3 options.
Option 1- Generic sci-fi font. Lots to choose from.
Option 2- The Starfox 1 font. It's either ripped from the game or a copy of it. It's pixel art which might fit the look I'm going for, and it's easy to read.
Option 3- LCD display. Seen in the beta of Starfox Assault.
https://www.unseen64.net/wp-content.....xarmada019.jpg


Another thing I want to talk/ask about is the AI. Specifically pathfinding (how the enemy navigates around the level). Originally, I was expecting to have to find a way to generate a navmesh from code, or build a path finding system for the ground up. None of which sounded fun but had to be done. I was surprised to learn that the kind of path finding I was in the engine as a sort of hidden feature. Cool. Saved a bunch of work.
However, even without any kind of advanced path finding, the way the physics work mean the enemies are surprisingly capable of following the player simply by charging towards their position. Obviously, such a system is easy to exploit, but it might be enough for what I'm trying to do. I could even build on it a little. If they lose sight of the player, charge towards their last know position, and if they still can't see from there, stop chasing.
I was also surprised to learn that games like Wolfenstien 3D and Doom aren't that much more advanced than that. But that's the thing, the enemies in Doom don't chase you all around the levels, but they are still a threat and fun to fight due to their design.


Finally, I want to ask about bringing people on board. Specifically, any suggestions on who to ask about commissions? JecBrush does great Starfox work, but I'm not sure if I could afford their rates. The big problem is I don't know anyone who does sound effects for games, and even people who used to make Starfox remixes have likely moved on long ago. Hell, if anyone can recommend any simple music creation tools, I'm all ears.
The big problem I've had in the past is keeping people on a project. Evenone is excited at first, but as soon as the honeymoon has worn off even money won't keep them on board. Others will talk a good game, but when it comes time for me to put money in their paypal they suddenly get gun shy and change their mind.

Not done one of these in a while. Go go gadget review!

I don't know how I feel about Teh Mammy Returns. There's a lot I like about the film, but a few things I don't that bother me more than they should. My dislike of many of these things make me a hypocrite. I guess the best I can do is to try to be honest.

The plot of the film is basically a rehash of the first. Imhotep has been resurrected, the heroes have to stop him. This time he's trying to take over the army of The Scorpion King for reasons. I can overlook most of the minor plot holes like him being an all powerful sorcerer in the first film but now he needs an army. What I can't overlook is the inclusion of an annoying kid character. Seriously, has this "Let's have an annoying brat so kids will like the film" ever got kids to like a film they otherwise would've hated? Even as a kid I hated these kinds of characters. To their credit, he isn't as annoying as he could be, but he's still annoying.

I did like the villains henchman that IMDB says was called Lock-Nah. He's cool, intimidating, and the actor does well in the role. Though it could be I liked him because he wanted to kill the kid character. I find it strange he didn't go on to be an action star.

One thing I didn't like story wise was the heroes are retconned to be reincarnations of Imhoteps previous foes. Evelyn being a rival to Imhoteps girlfriend, and Brendin Fraiser being a reincarnation of some kind of magi warrior. For Evelyn we get to see a flashback to her (or at least a body double) in few clothes doing an acrobatic sword fight which is nice. But I think overall the reincarnation plot detract from the film, because once "fate" and "prophesy" come into a film you might as well turn it off. Saying "you must fight because destiny" doesn't make sense from a writing standpoint either since the heroes have plenty of motivation to stop the villain. Their son was kidnapped and by the time they rescue him Imhotep is close to summoning an army to take over the world. And at over 2 hours long there was more than enough content to make the film work without it.

But let's talk about the elephant in the room. The action scenes and special effects. The action scenes I kind of liked. The fight with mummies on a double decker bus speeding through the streets of London being a highlight, but early 2000s CGI is rampant in this film to the point where it removes a lot of the tension. The big cgi version of The Rock as a giant scorpion being a common go-to example of bad cgi for good reason. On an artistic level the designs and effects look great, but they don't mesh with the film at all. This is another example of my hypocrisy because I like 80s practical effects, even if the monsters were oversized puppets and guys in floppy rubber suits. It's a shame because cgi can be used well. I'm still not sure if they hired lots of extras for this film, used cgi, or both, but there's no shortage of people running around during crowd scenes.

As I said at the start, I don't know how I feel about this film. Some scenes are great like the afore mentioned bus fight, but then something pulled me out of the film like the annoying kid character, bad cgi, or the reincarnation plot. It's not a bad film, but when I care little about what's going on I'm thinking about writing this review during what is meant to be an exciting fight scene, something has gone wrong somewhere. I guess it's not a bad film, but you aren't missing anything if you choose to skip it.

I remember a tweet saying that a guy watched Terminator with his son. He understood killer robots, time travel, but didn't know what a phone book was.

You know how comedy films have that moment in the trailer where someone says something dumb and there's a record scratch and the music stops? Do kids these days know what that sound is referencing, or do they see it as just something from bad comedy trailers?

I was watching Red Letter Media's Best of the Worst and they mention Early Edition. They seem to say it was an obscure TV show from the 90s.

The thing is, I don't remember it being that obscure. If I was to compare it to modern TV shows, it wasn't exactly Game of Thrones or Dr Who level of popular, but I would put it around the popularity of. Monk, The Mentalist, or Burn Notice.

I don't remember much about the show as I've not seen it since I was a kid, but the gist was there was a guy who got tomorrows newspaper today, and he's use the knowledge from it to prevent disasters or crimes or whatever. I think there was one episode where he had to stop a multi car pile up that was going to happen on the motorway, and another where a cat fight (the paper always had a cat sitting on it) destroyed the paper leaving him with only vague clues to go off of while he tried to put the torn up pieces back together.

I want to talk about some ideas I've had for the Krystal FPS. Unlike the platform game, I have a few ideas for what I want to do and how to do it. I would ask for opinions, but I rarely get a responce. One guy said he wanted the game and he said "lots of big dick lizards". I'm not sure what giant reptilian detectives have to do with Krystal, but I'm sure it makes sense to someone.

Seriously though. It's a Wolfenstein clone. Think Catacombs 3D, Corridor 7, Rise of the Triad, Super Noahs Ark 3D, and of course Wolfenstien 3D. I could add some more advanced features fairly easily due to it being a modern engine, but for now I want to keep it simple for the sake of getting it finished.

Theme wise, I have a few ideas. Krystal vs Xenomorphs is a favourite. Krystal on Dinosaur planet and Krystal vs Warhammer 40,000 are all good ideas as well. As I joked about in the opening, the only person to give me feedback seems to want an Adventures of Krystal sequel, but the limitations of the gameplay likely won't make it very good as a porn game. Plus I'm not really interested in making a hardcore porn game anyway.

On a related subject, I want to talk about outfits and the HUD. I can have Krystal wear anything. Power armour, canon outfits, or even contrive a reason to get her to spend the game running around in her underwear if that's your thing.
But it's largely irrelevent due to being a first person game where you're basically in a neck brace. All you'll see is the HUD and her hands. It's important to choose an outfit so I can draw her hands, and maybe a Metroid Prime esc helmet hud if she wears one. But there's no real reason to play dress up.
I could include innocent people that need rescuing. That offers a lot of potential for fanservice. But it would still to be limited to sprites or basic 3D graphics.

As said before, most of what I'm doing now is "unsexy" stuff that is boring to most people. Things like making the item pick ups work, getting the hud to work, that kind of thing.

Recently I booted up my PS3 (the first time since 2016) because I wanted to play some old games. Specifically, I was going to play some PS1 games on my Vita. Why on the Vita? Partly because I can, partly because I find the Vita easier to read text on than my TV, and partly because I find the Vita more convenient as a gaming system.

To put it another way, I like the idea of playing Resident Evil 3 on the go instead of digging out my Dreamcast.

However, I ran into a little snag. See, I have a US PSN account because the US PSN has a better selection of games, including games that never came out over here. I also want to buy american versions of games like Parasite Eve 2 (I own the pal version on disc, but the US version runs faster).

So what's the problem? Well, the Vita only allows 1 PSN account on it. To change accounts you need to wipe the system clean. There is an option to create backup files so you can basically keep all your saves on the PS3 or even a PC. While a PS3 can play any game installed on the system, the PSVita can't do that because you wipe the system clean with each account change. It's a pain and leaves me with 3 options.

1- Buy games multiple times where I can.
2- Faff around swapping backups back and forth depending on the game.
3- Don't bother and stick to playing PS1 games on my TV.

There are multiple variants of those options as well. eg. Do I re-buy games in the US format, or do I re-buy them in UK format? Do I swap saves back and forth often or do I cut my losses since only EDF, Super Robot Wars, and Bullet Girls 2 are the only saves I currently want to keep.

For anyone who cares, the games I'm wanting to play are-
Resident Evil 2
Resident Evil 3
Parasite Eve 2

While not really my thing, I've seen a few Resident Evil 2 Remake themed bondage/damsel in distress pics appear across various sites.

My question is, how many people have actually played the game?

I ask because there's a scene in Claire's campaign where Irons makes Cherry tie up Claire. Clair escapes about 20 seconds later, but Irons manages to escape. It seems like an obvious scene to pick if you're into DiD/bondage, but instead people go for generic scenes.

I'm a fan of "pulp adventure". Most people these days would know the genre as Indiana Jones, The Mummy, and Uncharted. People going in search of lost treasure in exotic locations while getting into nail biting chases and action scenes.

After a couple of false starts at my own adventure comic, I've been slowly refining the ideas. I was watching a YouTube video about Star Wars when they mentioned that a key component of a good adventure story is sex and/or romance. This sounded dumb at first. but as I think about it's kind of a good point. Some lean into it more than others. Romancing the Stone has more going on in that area than The Last Crusade, but most of the good ones I can think of include it in some way.

It's not exactly spoilers to say I was going to include some skimpy outfits as eye candy. Maybe 1 short fetish scene at most. Now I'm wondering if having a romance plot or even a bunch of sex/fetish scenes is the way to go?

Now, I know asking that on FA is like asking a fat kid if they want ice cream, but I am curious to know what you think and what you'd like to see.

A day or 2 ago, Capcom released the free DLC for Resident Evil 2 Remake. The few comments I saw about it were negative, so I wanted to give my opinions on it.

I'm not calling this a review because it's more Resident Evil 2 Remake. If you own the game you might as well play it, and if you don't own the game then this is unlikely to make you rush out an buy it.

Looked at cynically this is about an hour of recycled content that should have shipped with the game as an extra mode given how quickly it came out. Alternatively you can be optimistic and point out how this would have been exclusive to a later port of the game like Extreme Battle Mode from RE2 classic. Personally, I land somewhere in the middle, seeing it as a nice bonus.

The DLC adds a bonus mode called Ghost Survivor. These are "What if" scenarios in which a certain dead characters survived. Though the story is little more than excuse material that mostly exists as some loading screen text and a couple of stills at the start and end of the mission.

Gameplay wise it falls between 4th Survivor and the campaign. Like 4th survivor the goal is to get from a to b with various monsters in the way. But unlike 4th survivor there are items to find and collect. There are backpack zombies that drop items when killed and capsual machines where you get to choose one of a set number of items. Each character also has a new enemy type, though I'd say only 1 counts as new.

I'll go in order because why not.

Kendo's mission is fairly dull. You have to get from the gunshop to an extraction point that is in the sewers for some reason. The zombie type here is a poisonous zombie that poisons you if it bites and explodes into a poof of poison gas when killed. It's kind of bland and poison is no fun.

The second one is by far the most interesting. Playing as the mayors daughter, this scenario has her manage to kill chief Irons and escape. The goal is to reach Ben in the police station, but it feels like wasted potential for a story. The new enemy type is also the best. "Pale heads" as a new kind of zombie similar to the regenerators from RE4. ie. Those things that creeped most people out. These zombies look weird and regenerate really fast. Meaning the only reliable way to kill them is to use a powerful weapon like a magnum. It's even atmospheric/creepy at times. By far the best of the set. Though needing to kill specific zombies for keys kind of lets it down a bit.

Third is Umbrella Security Service man named Ghost. One of the black ops team sent to get the g-virus but was killed by Berkin. Your job is to get the g-virus and get to the rendezvous. If this sounds like a retread of Hunk's story, it is. The new enemy is zombies with bullet proof armour on parts of their body.

Complete each of those and you unlock the 4th character. The cop from the gas station at the start. You have to fight waves of zombies including the 3 special types.

As said, the mayors daughter had the most potential as a "what if" scenario. Personally, I would've liked if more work had been put into her mode to make it a mini-campaign with key items and a story.

In gameplay terms, I liked Ghost's focus on combat and capsule machines. Having to choose between having, say, a magnum or a grenade launcher this run is interesting.

Last night I sent a note to Tierafoxglove and went to bed.

Woke up the next morning and was inundated with a message saying I posted the note as a journal.

Dunno how that happened, or why only 1 guy mentioned it. I guess that's the benefit of no one reading my shitty journals. :P

There was nothing too embarrassing. Typical commission stuff, so if I've ever got something from you, or you've seen my gallery and favorites, you know what to expect.

Having finished Leon A and Clare B, I think I'm ready to give my thoughts on the game so far. I still have Clare A and Leon B to play so no spoilers for those please, though I doubt there's going to be any serious changes.

One thing I want to mention is that RE1 Remake was RE1 with better graphics and a twist, RE2 Remake is almost a different game that happens to be related to RE2.

What I liked-
-The graphics. Damn this game looks great. Horrifying, but great.
-The remixed RPD. While seemingly a little cramped in places, the layout and backstory make more sense and it's more believable as a real place where people would do police things before the zombies appeared.
-The way the game messes with RE2 fans. One example is the way Mr X appears in scenario A. That's one way to clench your bum hole. I normally wouldn't spoil that but I need to for later.
-The changes to Mr X. He doesn't just appear at scripted moments. He can't be killed (just stunned) and can open doors. He can (and will) chase you all around the game. It's really tense standing in a tiny, dead end room with the sound of his heavy boots outside hoping he doesn't walk in the room. Great stuff.
-Blue herbs now have a use beyond curing poison. They make you more tanky for a short time when mixed with red herbs.
-The footstep noises. They did a good job with it.
-Being able to shoot the arms and legs off a zombie and it having the expected results, and is actually a viable strategy. One time I hit a zombie with an acid round and all his limbs melted off, leaving him as a limbless stump. He was still trying to eat my brains though. Kind of creepy.
-There's a mini clubman in the police car park. 10/10 GotY of the year all years.

What's both good and bad
-The performance. The game looks great and runs well, but it hitches up when loading in textures or auto saving. This is most apparent in the intro which can be a stuttering mess but once you reach the RPD it's fine.
-The story changes. Some are well done and make sense. Others are worse. eg. The original B scenario ended with Leon turning to the camera and saying "It's up to us to take out umbrella!" cut to credits with rock music. Cheesy but satisfying. Now it's a generic walk into the sunrise. Marvin and the other police were working on an escape plan before you showed up.
-Ammo is in short supply. I get this is survival horror, but this is stingy and then some. On normal it's almost as if they expect you to get a perfect run at times.
-Changes to weapons and ammo. The return of the RE3 gunpower system (minus the need for that reloading tool) is nice. The grenade launcher being limited to acid and flame rounds is also nice, especially since explosive is now covered by the hand grenade defence item. But Clare 2nd had too many guns and ammo types. 3 handguns, 2 use 9mm which needs to be crafted, 1 uses .45 ACP which needs to be found, and 1 can be upgraded to use 9mm power shot rounds. Then there's the grenade launcher with 2 ammo type, plus 2 more weapons with their own ammo (and 3 defence weapons). In contrast, Leon 1st has a pistol, a shotgun, and a magnum, 1 ammo type each (plus the defence weapons).

What I didn't like
-Scenario A and B (called 1st and 2nd) don't line up any more. For example. Mr X is killed in Leon 1st, but he is also killed in a completely different way in Clare 2nd. Annette has 2 different but identical fights with William. I'm not 100% sure, but I think she dies in Clare 2nd but is alive again for a later scene in Leon 1.
-Various weapon nerfs. The shotgun has been nerfed. In the original game you could kill a zombie with 1 headshot, and with the upgraded shotgun you'd blast off half their torso. Not any more. Even when fully upgraded, doesn't kill a zombie in 1 shot any more. It's not really effective against lickers, and bosses you want the extra punch of the magnum, so the shotgun isn't that useful any more. Made all the worse by ammo being rare and I wanted to save the gunpower for magnum ammo. I'd understand nerfing the shotgun or limiting the ammo, but not both. Acid rounds for the grenade launcher seem to have been nerfed too. Though they are still effective and fun to use. They have area of effect and damage over time now, and it's cool watching a zombie melt to peices. It's also possible to craft a shit ton of them which is likely why they were nerfed.
-The Clair nior outfit isn't a femme fatale, isn't a skirt suit, and doesn't have nylons. 0/10 worst game evar.

Now time to play the canon Clare A and Leon B, let's see if Leon has a horrible time like he did in the original.

I remember back in the 90s and 00s when people were trying to ban games. The supposed logic was that people would play GTA, Manhunt, or Mortal Kombat and that would turn people into killers. In the 10s they tried to argue that playing Dead or Alive Xtreme or Senran Kagura would turn you into a rapist. And just recently we've seen crackdowns on "alt-right" sites and Pepe memes. None of them ever proved any harm. They FELT that these MIGHT cause someone to MAYBE do something.

I say all of this because of Bird Box. A popular film on Netflix about people wearing blind folds. I've not seen the film my self, but it has resulted in people copying the film by doing things like walking down train tracks blindfolded or driving down the motorway blindfolded. This has had the obvious outcome. Death and injury.

So why hasn't the film been banned?

To be clear, I don't think it should be banned, but I was a kid I remember a Tango advert where a fat orange man ran around (the footage was sped up) and gave a double slap to a man. Kids started to copy this double slap and the advert was banned.

Now we have this is a film that, directly or indirectly, is telling people to drive around blindfolded and people are dumb enough to do it. Personally, I'd make any damage or harm caused by people doing this challenge to be paid for by the person doing the challenge. I'd also make it carry an attempted murder charge because that's what it is when you decide to drive on the motorway blind folded. I'm tempted to make any crimes against them null and void, but that could easily be exploited.

But my point is that these people are a danger to themselves and everyone around them, and I think it's bullshit that everyone else has to pay the price because some brain dead idiot wants to be "like Sandra Bullock off the tele".

Now, maybe I'm playing into the media's hands here. Part of me thinks this is media paranoia like "rainbow parties", or that these stories are fake as part of some viral PR campaign. In that case, jokes on me I guess.

But if people really are this dumb, maybe they should start with the challenge where they jump off a cliff ...blindfloded if course.

For many, New Year is a time of reflection. I do that all the time anyway so no difference here. Still, a quick overview of my current thought procress with the games I'm working on.


-Krystal 2D-
Drew a couple of sprites for an enemy. They are not good. I'm kind of tempted to just use them for now, and either re-draw them later, or commission someone to make them pretty once the game is more complete.

I'm beginning to think I over complected the jumping physics somehow, but on the plus side the game already controls much better than more of the "platform game jumping tutorial" type things I've seen. For example, you can vary the height of your jump by releasing the jump button mid jump. Sounds simple but a bunch of games I've seen tutorials for don't have that.

Still not sure what to do with the game mechanically though. I'm tempted to rip off/remake a level from some DOS game like Bio Menace, Jill of the Jungle, or Duke Nukem (the 2D ones).


-3D Level Creation-
One of the issues I've had with 3D engines I've used so far is level design. The stock answer is "Do it in a 3D modeling program" which is slow, clunky, and far from ideal. Others like Godot and Unity say you should make 3D objects that snap together on a grid. This kind of works, but has limitations.

I'm kind of sort maybe perhaps tempted to make my own. I know I've said that before but it really is daunting as I've never done it before. The alternative is to design levels on paper so I have a few ideas for how I want the tiles to be.


-Leanna Game/Classic Survival Horror Games-
One of the "easier" to make projects is the Leanna game, or classic Resident Evil style survival horrors in general. A small number of assets compared to other games and mechanically quite simple, though requiring a lot of polish to work right. Outside of grapples (enemies that grab the player) I have a rough idea for how the game would work on a programming level.

One mechanic I'm thinking of messing with is the weapons. No knife or other melee weapon, and instead having the handgun be infinite ammo. The shotgun would be the "standard" weapon and is usually the gun in those games that's fun to use and doesn't require careful planning. My rational for this is that unless you're on hard mode or are trying to kill every monster, handgun ammo isn't really a concern. Also, most horror games are designed with more than enough ammo to kill everything in the game if you're effiecent. While I will maintain that tradition, this change could allow me to be more stingy with ammo overall.

I've had lots of variations on the Leanna game in mind for years. School setting, mansion setting, office setting, village setting, sea side town setting, multiplayer, and the most recent variant is mini quests. Basically the same game but on a smaller scale. A great example would be the Silent Hill 2 Maria scenario which is half an hour long, and 15 minutes of that is cutscenes, and is set mostly in 1 house.


-FPS and Mech Sim-
I'm kind of tempted to jump in at the deep end and try to find my way. As with platforming, bare bones FPS movement can be made pretty quick but there's a lot of subtle things that players expect that can be tricky to make.

The first problem is levels. I'd need a lot of them and while the model based tile system can work, I don't know how well. Godot did include a brush editor for prototyping, but it's not intended for the final game and unlike the horror game I can't hide things behind clever camera work. However, I'm confident I can make levels at a decent standard due to my Half-Life mod.

A second problem is assets. I'm bad at 3D models, though that might be me being too close to it, or having high standards because while many classics of the era have great models, others have really ugly models. Again, I could have the game be ugly then pay an artist later on to make it look pretty.

The final problem is mechanics. I keep going back and forth on specific important decisions. eg. Regenerating health, or not, or health + shield. These would have important knock on effects for the gameplay.

Over Christmas I've been watching Lazy Game Reviews, specifically rewatching his old PC build videos.

To cut a long story short, I've been considering building a retro PC. Over the years I've heard of many great old PC games. I'm talking MechWarrior 2 and 3, Earthseige 1 and 2, Starseige, Interstate 76, Shattered Steel, and even games I owned but never got around to playing like Call of Cthulhu. Most of these games will run on modern hardware, but often with tweaking and compatibility issues. eg. Call of Cthulhu apparently has a bit on a ship where distant enemies are invisible on modern hardware.

I do have a windows XP and Vista duel boot machine. It seems to have a tough time running these days, but it does what I need it to do and I like having it around for when there's a problem with my main machine.
However, I'm kind of temped to swap out the hard drives with a new one, and put a fresh install of winXP on it. Bring the machine back to life as a retro game machine.
Now, I know Steam recently dropped support for old operating systems, but I think (I hope) the older games don't use Steam DRM.

But the thing I'm really thinking about is maybe building a windows 98 machine. Nothing super amazing, but something that would be a typical gaming machine at the time. Again, to play games like Earthsiege 2 and Starseige. Windows 95/DOS could be an option as well, but having a windows machine will allow me to play those early Windows games that are hard to get running, while also allowing me to boot up DOS if needed. I do have a 1024 CRT monitor though. It came with my first computer and I used it until I pretty much had to upgrade.

The big problem is space. I don't really have anywhere to put it, and certainly nowhere I could actually set it up.

Merry Crimbo Everybody. Have an underrated Christmas song. https://youtu.be/BpfHSqLXePI

Also this.
https://cdn.discordapp.com/attachme.....BBWsAE4lyj.png

I've gone back and forth on my opinion on the Hitman games. When I first played the demo on PS2, I thought it was boring and clunky. Then I learned you could shoot a guy with a loud gun, and casually walk away and the security would ignore you. After all, killers don't walk away from a crime scene, right? But then I went back to not liking them as they seemed to rely heavily on trial and error. Sure, you can beat a man to death with own golf clubs and drive away in his car with no one the wiser, but that often took knowledge of the maps.

When Hitman Absolution came out, it was hated for being the game that "dumbed down" the series, adding an "instinct" feature that allowed you to see through walls, see where guards were walking ahead of time, and avoid people seeing your face by, say, adjusting your hat as you walked by. But critically, it gave hints to things you could do so that, in theory, you could know what a button did or what area was off limits before you ruined that particular run. However, these noob friendly features were up my street.

If you're reading this you're likely already familiar with Hitman, but if not a quick overview is you're dropped into an area. Be it a hotel, a town square, a nightclub, whatever, and have to kill a certain person, or certain people. You can go guns blazing, but this being a stealth game that's not always wise. Instead you make use of disguises, traps, and other tricks to get the job done.

When it works it's amazing. You feel like a bad arse when a plan comes together, casually walking out with no one the wiser and the targets death being chalked up as an improbable accident.

Unfortunately, even with the aids there's still a fair bit of trial and error. Knowing where someone is going to go, what they do there, and when is often key to setting up a good kill. When you do know what do to, there's often a lot of waiting for them to get around to doing the thing you want. You can slow down time but not fast forward, which can lead to minutes of waiting. This is made worse due to the focus on getting a perfect run. The game gets better when you ignore points and ratings and roll with the punches.

Going loud is fun, but as said, it's discouraged, even when it makes sense plot wise to do so. The epilogue level seemed to break with me being unable to leave the map as the guards spawned endlessly and never stood down from high alert. The disguises are also poorly done as all people of the same profession recognize each other. This makes sense when you're disguised as one of a dozen friends, but doesn't make sense when every cop in the world knows each other and can pick out a fake from across a crowded train platform. This means disguises can sometimes work against you since without one you're at least free to walk around public places. There are also scripted converstations to sit through that state as you approach, and you have to wait each time for the guards to go back to patrolling.

Like many stealth games, the ending is bad too. Unlike other kinds of games stealth games have no real escalation. Sure, patrol paterns can be more difficult, but there's no tournament to win, cool action set piece to do, or dragon to slay. There is a plot with you killing various bad guys, and while the villains are horrible people you kill the last guy how you kill everybody else. Sneaking up behind him with a garrote. The mystery is predictable, and while the game has some weirdness like a guy with a robot arm, or a team of BDSM nun assassins, but it never doesn't do anything with them.

But the main issue with the game is that it just doesn't work. Bugs are bad in most games, but they are worst in stealth games. In the strip club there was one woman who would run across the map to find the body as soon as I killed a specific guard. In another level a guard stood staring at the only exit to a room I was in and would not turn around, I no items to use to distract him and he spotted me too fast if I tried to use a gun. I had NPCs notice bodies I was dragging but not me dragging it. The contracts mode is completely dead due to the servers not existing any more.

Hitman is at it's best when you're put in a location with a target and various means of taking them down. The linear sequences aren't bad, but they're not as interesting and not really replayable. Ultimately, the game has too many tedious elements to make it worth seeking out.