#inktober 9: parasite https://www.instagram.com/p/B3Zx8RTnkjw/?igshid=xmis4nzaiqpm

deep sea gremlin

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♥UNDERTALE♥

HALLOWEEN!

Eiko and Quina are the next duo to be announced for Square Enix’s “Final Fantasy IX Bring Arts line-up! Lovers of the original game will adore these two, as well as the accessories aplenty included. Add them to your collection today!

Indivisible is finally out!! Blessed to have been a part of Lab Zero for the past two years. Congrats to the team and everyone involved!

Kenseiden (Sega - Master System - 1988)  

Indie Game Spotlight: Going Under

Ready to become an intern all over again? Going Under is a satirical dungeon crawler that explores the cursed ruins of failed tech startups. You play as Jackie, an unpaid intern in the dystopian city of Neo-Cascadia, whose assignment it is to fight monsters in the dungeons beneath the company campus, and repossess their powerful, business-enhancing artifacts.

We chatted with Caelan, who is the writer and programming lead, and art director Nick, about the wondrous world of start-ups and more. Read on!

 What’s the story behind the game?

Caelan: Nick and I have always been pretty attracted to the idea of a satire game. I think our exact phrasing was “This will be a game we can throw all of our stupid memes into and call it content.” We’ve both lived our lives in Seattle, and we’ve seen it change quite a bit. We saw a great opportunity to make fun, not only of the startup culture around here, but also of what it does to the city, its inhabitants, and the people involved with those companies who aren’t the ones getting rich.

Are there any personal stories that inspired particular levels in the game? 

Caelan: All the dungeons in Going Under are themed after different startup concepts that have blown up in the past decade or so. There’s a freelance labor app which enables you to hire a goblin to do your bidding, a dating site run by demons, and a cryptocurrency called “Styxcoin” which is mined by the undead. So while the concepts behind them aren’t really personal as such, they’re all based on premises that are very familiar to anyone making their way in the modern age. We can’t name names, obviously, but the nods towards real-world inspirations here aren’t exactly subtle. Subtlety is for cowards.

What types of weapons can we use? 

Caelan: Pretty much everything you can think of! The combat in Going Under is supposed to feel like a goofy office brawl. Pretty early on, we realized we weren’t gonna get that feeling without letting the player pick up and use random junk they find lying around in the office. There are real weapons, such as swords and spears, but you’ll frequently find yourself scrambling around making use of whatever you can get your hands on. You might wind up tossing mugs at a succubus from behind a desk or smacking a goblin with a broom. Sometimes you can drive a car.

Which other games does Going Under take inspiration from?

Caelan: Between the physical interactions and the fragile weapons, Going Under’s combat could be described as a bite-sized, faster-paced Breath of the Wild. The weapons you find in the dungeon break quickly—you’re not meant to get too attached to them, but instead constantly be picking up something new, depending on the situation. The game also has rogue-lite elements, with dungeons generated procedurally each time you play, so we took a lot of design inspiration from popular games of that genre, such as The Binding of Isaac, Enter the Gungeon, and Dead Cells.

Out of all the characters in the game, who is your personal favorite?

Caelan: I think my favorite character is Marv—the Project Manager and Jackie’s direct supervisor. He’s a huge dickhead (can I say that here?), but like, the kind of dickhead who’s always smiling, and appears charismatic to most people, while you absolutely hate his guts. So it might be weird to describe him as my favorite but I just really get a kick out of writing characters that I know people are gonna love to hate.

If you could have any character from any cinematic or game universe appear in Going Under—who or what would it be, and why?

Nick: Definitely Fat Yoshi from the Super Mario Bros. series. Not regular Yoshi, you know the one I’m talking about. He’s cute like our game, he’s funny like our game, and his extreme girth echoes the themes of capitalist gluttony prevalent in our game. Nintendo, if you’re listening, I think we have an opportunity here to give this character the prestigious treatment they deserve. Our DMs are open.

Well, time to get to work! Going Under will be available on Steam and all major consoles in, like, a year. Yes, that includes Switch. Keep up to date by following things over on their website.

a mess

this is THE BEST explanation of this aspect of mental illness i have ever seen

Updated compilation of the first 8 characters so far for my WEAPON GIRLS 3 zine!

Look at you, hacker, a pathetic creature of meat and bone. How can you challenge a perfect, immortal machine?

In MGSV if you ogle Quiet, she “poses” for you suggestively. In Death Stranding if you stare at Sam’s crotch, he punches you. The framing of both of these are bad. One is framed as a reward, the other is framed as “no homo!” despite the player’s action in both being the same. I don’t care if you worship Kojima, we REALLY need to talk about the “male gaze” perspective in his games, and stop giving him a pass because you love his games.

I agree that this an issue from the outside. I preface the file statement with this; I love Kojima games. There is some “weirdness” to his work, but honestly, I think this is more about who these characters are.

Quiet very obviously feels a certain way about Venom Snake (through who’s eyes you’re viewing Quiet) and you get to see an intimate moment between these two characters. It’s in poor taste and blatant fan service but it’s at least part of the narrative and how you as a player affect storytelling (maybe your friend didn’t get this scene bc D-Dog is the objectively better companion)

That being said, maybe Norman Reedus’ character in Death Stranding behaves this way. Just a dude being a bro. I don’t agree with this reaction in light of how the Quiet scene plays out, but maybe that’s how this character is. It’s too early to draw a full conclusion as we don’t have the full picture of Death Stranding.

The thing is, I don’t see a problem with characters behaving a certain way. What I am concerned about, and what I would hope gamers would do, is ask questions about HOW is this framed, WHO is it being framed for, and what are the cultural implications of a game pushing this perspective? Yes, she’s posing for the in-game character, but YOU are the in-game character so she’s really posing for YOU. It’s certainly framed that way from the camera’s perspective. So why is it framed that way? I don’t want to take away your fun of the game if you like it. That’s fine. Enjoy it! It’s okay! I just want gamers to think more critically of the things they like and stop brushing off stuff as “it’s just a joke.” Every other medium can be discussed critically, games should too.

What I see from Kojima’s work is a very juvenile straight-male perspective. And when he’s one of the most recognized video game designers out there and his games sell millions of copies… that’s a lot of influence he holds. So how is he using his platform? What kinds of message is he sending? How does he view women and men? Why are they presented this way? Does this have any impact on culture and how?

Just… ask questions. Think critically. And when some people say “hey, this content makes me feel uncomfortable” I would hope people would be empathetic enough to say “yeah, I can understand why, maybe we should talk about it.”

is he doing this right??

i’m actually so sad that no one uploaded this clip from Penny’s birthday stream video even tho it made me cry laugh on the spot

lol

We need to have employer-based insurance because then what else are employers going to dangle over a shredder to force immediate concessions during union contract negotiations?