Belghast

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Stray First Impressions

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Good Morning Friends! Last night I set out with every intent to play through the new Guild Wars 2 Season 1 chapter 3 drop. However Stray, a game where you play a cat in a city filled with robots also dropped yesterday. What originally started out as my sitting down to play it “for a few minutes” wound up being the game I spent my entire evening in. Instead of talking about the story this morning, I am going to instead talk about the sort of game that it is. I am playing this on Steam because it is my platform of choice if I am given a choice at all. You are greeted by a message that this is best played with a gamepad, but if you are a keyboard and mouse aficionado you can safely ignore that. I’ve yet to encounter any sorts of movement that would be hard to pull off on the keyboard if you are not also very familiar with that control scheme.
Stray is firmly placed in the genre that is referred to as “Walking Simulators” where you are set in a world where most of your time you spend exploring, with little to no combat. The key difference is that instead of playing a human being, you are a cat, and your only interaction with the world is through batting things, meowing at things, or scratching on things. There are a number of games that I feel vie for the modern title of “Adventure” game, where you roam around looking for objects to interact with that you then use on other objects. Stray is very much in this same vein where as you progress through the game you will collect various bits and bobs and then will use those to either barter with robot companions for other bits and bobs, or unlock different things barring your progress.
I place this in the modern adventure game category because all of your interactions apart from freely being able to meow at will… are driven by prompts. On the keyboard, the most common prompts are Q for doing some sort of physical manipulation of an option and Spacebar for jumping, and if you can actually jump the spacebar icon will appear hovering slightly over the thing you are intending to jump towards. Most of the gameplay so far involves roaming around a rich urban decay setting and looking for things that can be interacted with. As you begin to reach objectives, the game does a really good job of somehow highlighting where you should be paying attention either with illuminated signs or yellow lighting effects. This is nowhere near as obvious as the yellow-painted rocks in some games… but if you know what you are looking for can be similarly effective.
In your travels, you encounter a drone that has lost its memory, and through interacting with various objects it can begin to remember things. It can seemingly understand you and ends up acting as your translator for both the world and the robot companions that you eventually encounter. This adds a new button to your repertoire which is E on the keyboard, allowing you to have the drone explain things to you or communicate on your behalf. Additionally, you can toggle on a flashlight mode which is helpful for exploring dark spaces. When not in use the drone docks on this nifty backpack that you get outfitted with. I am guessing the drone is also the person who is storing all of the things you pick up along the way because you sorta have to suspend your disbelief that a cat can easily carry some of the items you end up carrying.
While most of the game involves peaceful interaction, that is not to say everyone you will encounter will be your friend. There is an organic menace that has taken over the dead city, and there will be times when you need to avoid swarms of these critters. You can run and you can weave to avoid them, and if my theory is correct I am about to get some sort of device that will help me hold them at bay. However there is nothing that I would refer to as traditional combat, and it is a series of active puzzles that you need to solve. For example, you can meow to draw a swarm to a specific point, and then use your superior navigation skills and speed to distract them while you run to safety. Thankfully there are effectively “safe” areas and “dangerous” areas, so the moments you need to traverse one of these hot spots are clearly delineated.
The best moments of the game so far however have been in the interactions with the robot companions. They have seemingly outlived the humans they used to take care of and now do their best to honor the memories. This is a game where rich stories are being told through the scenery and very limited interactions, allowing you to read between the lines and flesh out the setting, and begin to understand small snippets of what happened to the world around you. For example one of the companions that you meet styles themselves as a musician, and as you find sheet music around the world you can bring it back and they will play the song for you. The game is filled with simple moments of joy like that, and if you are needing a bit more joy in your life then this might be a game for you.
I found myself enjoying the chill vibe of exploring the dead city, and honestly am probably going to mainline this game until I finish it. I’ve heard that the entire game is somewhere in the neighborhood of five or six hours in length. The experience of playing it though has been great for me personally. You all know I am a cat person and I would already die for this sweet baby. The post Stray First Impressions appeared first on Tales of the Aggronaut.

Soulframe Mixed Feelings

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Have you ever seen something and gotten really excited about it, even though you know it is highly likely to be deep in the “not for you” territory? Yeah, that happened to me this weekend with the Warframe TennoCon and the release of the Soulframe trailer. For some reason, there is something in my brain that devotes entirely too many resources to games that I do not understand why I do not enjoy. I guess on some level I keep hoping that they will click and in the case of both Path of Exile and Guild Wars 2, that has actually eventually (a decade later) paid off for me. Warframe is one of those games that I have tried numerous times and just cannot seem to get into even though I desperately want to. I see the way that Digital Extremes supports that game, and I am jealous… but want it to play like Destiny and not whatever space ninja mess that it actually is.
The first problem I have with Warframe is that there is some combination of things about the game that makes me horribly motion sick while playing it. I think it is this unique combination of the weird camera angle that you are forced into, the very tight FOV, and the reliance of the game on the bullet jump mechanic. Whatever the case playing this game for a long period of time, in the manner you should be playing it… aka very fast and run and gun… makes me physically ill. I’ve tried a bunch of things to get past this but have yet to find any combination of settings that seems to lower the nausea induction. The weird thing about this is that under normal circumstances I do not get motion sick. I can read in a car for hours without any ill effect, but there is some specific pattern this game is doing that triggers it in me… and I am not the only one.
Problem number two. I don’t love the art style. There is something about the whole bio-mech thing that I have never really liked. It started back in high school when I first encountered the Anime Guyver. There is just something needlessly baroque about it that bugs me. I really like clean lines and clear silhouettes and almost all of the designs save for Excalibur are overdeveloped. I mean I play a Titan in Destiny for a reason because it tends to look like an 80s mech. Robots are supposed to look like either Gundam or Robotech, and I struggle with engaging with the Warframe design ethic. Over the years it has grown on me, but not to the point of really appreciating it.
Problem number three. The design of Warframe tends to focus on missions often with timers and fail conditions. What I really want is something that is equivalent to Patrol mode in Destiny, where I can just drop in and make my own objectives as I go. I get that there are now “open world” areas in Warframe, but for whatever reason, they do not scratch the same itch. I’ve tried them and I still feel like I am playing through a structured mission… just one that is bigger. I think maybe over time I could get used to this because similarly in Diablo III I used to lean hard into doing bounties as my defacto activity, and now I spend almost all of my time in Greater Rifts… which are not dissimilar to the timed structured gameplay look of Warframe missions. I mostly have been looking for some low-pressure gameplay loop that I can use to level weapons and frames and learn how they play. I also really really hate the sneak-in and get some data missions because I want to go loud immediately.
So it is for all of these reasons that I am both interested and immediately concerned when I watch the Soulframe trailer. I see some of the same baroque design decisions in the armors chosen, but because it is more fantasy based… it feels like something I could enjoy. The movement hopefully is slower-paced and might not trigger motion sickness. It appears like it might be an open-world experience, so that is already angling towards the types of gameplay that I enjoy the most. However, everything about Warframe tells me that this is probably not going to be a game for me. So I am teetering on this edge of being interested but at the same time trying to keep my expectations in the basement. I really like Digital Extremes as a company, and I would love to have a game that is more tailored to my interests that they support because they really do a great job of supporting Warframe. In the meantime, it does have me wanting to give Warframe yet another shot… in the many shots that I have given it over the years. It is a personal failing in me that I have trouble just writing a game off completely when so many people that I love and respect seem to enjoy it. Like I said earlier… this eventually paid off in both Guild Wars 2 and Path of Exile, but it was a long battle to get there. The post Soulframe Mixed Feelings appeared first on Tales of the Aggronaut.

Fun with Brands

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Good Morning Friends. I spent most of the weekend playing Path of Exile, or at least the part of the weekend I was functional. I ended up getting some generic crud that started on Wednesday and then knocked me out of commission for most of Thursday, Friday, and Saturday. It was only on Sunday that I started to feel much better and even now I am not feeling amazing. We took a number of covid tests throughout this so we are pretty certain it is not that. My wife started getting sick on Friday, so whatever it appears to be contagious but the strange thing is… I was not really around anyone for the last two weeks.
I think since we last talked I have finished the main campaign of Path of Exile and my Explosive Arrow Champion is now level 73. I’ve begun dipping my toes into maps and I have to say… I feel super freaking squishy right now. I think the core problem I am having with Path of Exile is that the gear is nowhere near as straightforward as my beloved Diablo III. I know in D3 that in order to make X build work I need these ten items in these specific slots. The collection of specific items grants me the ability to get progress further with the build, and subsequent fine-tuning and acquiring better versions of said items… also then make the build more efficient. I understand none of these levers in Path of Exile. My gear is effectively a pile of stats that I do not fully understand the interactions with, and as such I do not know how to make myself feel less squishy.
In part, due to this sudden friction… and also in part because I have not felt well enough to engage with my friend Grace who is also at the maps phase… I have been spending some time trying other classes. I have a mess of a character that I built without a guide that mostly works but it is also deeply inefficient, and then I have the Inquisitor that I am building towards Righteous Fire. One thing of note… for whatever reason at the time of writing this POE Vault seems to be down so that link may or may not work. Wintertide Brand is ridiculously fun and does some really dumb things. Essentially I cast this spell and it spreads throughout the map of NPCs and kills them with a frost disease sort of thing. The only problem here is that wintertide brand is not the final form of this build, so we will see if I also like running through things while self-immolating.
I think the ultimate problem I have with Path of Exile is also one of its strengths. You have these mechanics stacked on top of other mechanics, and if you have been around you maybe learned them all individually. However today a new player trying to unpack everything is not only having to understand core concepts but also learn the remainder of thirty-seven, soon to be thirty-eight league mechanics. This means that the game has grown significantly and is constantly changing, but also has just layer after layer of madness stacked loosely on top of the layers below it. The seasoned players understand how to solve the problems that I am running into with survival, but it is much harder to grok than “equip Aquila Cuirass”. That is not to say that eventually, Path of Exile won’t feel the same to me… just that I have a large lift to get there. There are times when I feel like I need a guide to reading the guide I am trying to follow.
Ultimately I am wanting to spend the remainder of 3.18 trying to figure out what exactly I want to do for 3.19. I like Explosive Arrow just fine, but it doesn’t feel anywhere near as good as the original Splitting Steel build that I ran until I could switch over to Explosive Arrow. Similarly, right now I am loving the way running around with Wintertide Brand feels, but I am concerned that I won’t enjoy the final Righteous Fire form. I know there are pure Splitting Steel builds that exist, and pure Brand builds that exist, so I might also create some characters along those play styles at some point. Essentially my time spent in Path of Exile is more or less preparing for August when the new league starts. Ultimately we won’t know what 3.19 looks like until the live stream on August 4th, and at that point, I will probably consume a flurry of information and try and pick a path to go down then. The post Fun with Brands appeared first on Tales of the Aggronaut.

Introducing Blaugust 2022

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Good Morning Friends! It is that time again for another Blaugust, or at least it will be very soon. Several years ago I started challenging my blogging friends to post something new each day during the month of August. Over the years this concept has morphed and changed as needed but remained as a focus of trying to stir up bloggers. Blogging has been called a dying art many many times in the press, but there are many of us who keep doing it and have been doing it for over a decade. The hope is with each Blaugust that we might spur some lax bloggers back into action and also spread the art form to a new generation. There is something deeply therapeutic about scribbling down a bunch of words and sending them out into the world for others to read.

Why We Do Blaugust

The “why” of Blaugust is relatively straightforward. The blogging community is nowhere near as large as it once was. Many of us have aged out of blogging with real-world responsibilities and others have just moved on to other time-consuming hobbies. Blaugust gives us a chance to infuse the community with a fresh lease on life as we court new bloggers to join the fray. Those of us who have been carrying the torch of blogging for decades now can sometimes lose hope as our blogroll loses a few voices each year. I personally find getting out and mingling with other bloggers to be a deeply beneficial thing when it comes to my own creative processes. We’ve also branched out to support others who do serialized content in any format, the focus being on regularly engaging with the creative process. The bustling Discord Community has helped to keep the energy up the other eleven months of the year.

The Base Game

This year we are shifting things up a little bit to make it more clear what is required and what is purely optional content. Blaugust at its heart has always been about celebrating the creation of content on a regular schedule. The original challenge was to post 31 times during the month of August which is 31 days long. This can be posting every day or doubling up on some days to make the schedule a bit easier. However, we also want to award anyone who starts down this path, because deciding to blog in the first place is a victory in itself. As such we give out awards based on the number of posts that you manage to knock out during the month of August.
  • Newbie Blogger Award – You did it! You joined Blaugust for the very first time and we are extremely happy to welcome you into this raucous community. As a result, we are going to recognize your efforts just for signing up.
  • Bronze Award – You made at least 5 posts during the month of August 2022.
  • Silver Award – You made at least 15 posts during the month of August 2022.
  • Gold Award – You made at least 25 posts during the month of August 2022.
  • Rainbow Diamond Award – You beat the challenge and posted 31 times or more during the month of August 2022.

The Expansion

Something new that we are introducing this year is the concept of Blaugchievements. Essentially anything from this point forward should be considered optional and will be considered to also be on the “honor system”. There have always been a number of assorted trappings associated with Blaugust like a schedule with specific weeks called out for various purposes. Additionally, some years back we made a pretty ill-fated attempt at doing a shared topic web ring. These concepts are moving forward but being packaged up as extra achievements for those who wish to go through the additional effort.
Each individual Blaugchievement has its own associated achievement “toast” patterned loosely after those from Xbox Live back in the day. By reading this blog post you have already heard the very first one. You can view the extended list of Blaugchievements where I explain each of them in detail, but here is a short version of the list.
  • Reading the Manual – Read the introductory blog post with the rules of the event.
  • Joining the Cause – Sign-Up for Blaugust.
  • Recruit a Friend – Convince another blogger to participate in Blaugust.
  • Spreading the Madness – Promote Blaugust on your blog or through your social media of choice.
  • Friend of Wumpus – Join the Blaugust Discord.
  • Sharing is Caring – Post your content in the “Share Your Content” Channel.
  • Forum of Friends – Take part in a discussion in the “Post Discussion” Channel.
  • The Pet Tax – Post a picture of an animal friend on the “Stuff and Things” Channel.
  • Friend Like Me – Answer a question posted on the Blagust Discord or help out a new blogger.
  • Shared Thoughts – Comment on a blog post from another Blaugust participant.
  • Getting Inspired – Write a blog post inspired by a post from another Blaugust participant.
  • Pickup Group – Play a game or take part in an activity with one or more Blaugust participants.
  • Hot Topics – Write a blog post based on the Blaugust Prompt List.
  • Welcome Wagon – Write a blog post based on the first week’s theme of Welcoming Folks to Blaugust.
  • Introduce Yourself – Write a blog post based on the second week’s theme of Introducing Yourself.
  • Creative Appreciation – Write a blog post based on the third week’s theme Appreciating the works of some Creative or Company.
  • Staying Motivated – Write a blog post based on the fourth week’s theme of how you have managed to Stay Motivated.
  • Lessons Learned – Write a blog post based on the fifth week’s theme explaining some of the Lessons you have Learned through Blaugust.
  • Going Platinum – Complete All of the Blaugchievements for Blaugust 2022.

The Schedule

As is often the case with Blaugust, we have a series of “themed” weeks. This is a purely optional feature and designed to help give folks some scaffolding the shape their ideas, and not something strict. August has five weeks and as such we have five different themes.
  • Welcome to Blaugust Week (August 1st – August 6th) – The idea behind this week is to give a specific time to be actively talking about Blaugust and welcoming new members to the fold. This could also count as promoting Blaugust for the “Spreading the Madness” achievement. The hope is that drumming up some heavy activity of talking about the event might allow us to pick up a few more stragglers.
  • Introduce Yourself Week (August 7th – August 13th) – The idea behind this week is to have some structured time around getting to know the other bloggers. I realize that those of us who are veteran bloggers might have already written half a dozen introduction posts by now, but it is a great time to share anything interesting you might have in your arsenal.
  • Creative Appreciation Week (August 14th – August 20th) – Developer Appreciation Week or the D.A.W. was an event that took place in the blogging community independent from Blaugust but eventually died out. The more modern idea is to show appreciation for the things and creators that we love. This could be authors, musicians, developers, artists, or even other bloggers, with the focus being on sharing something that we love so that maybe others might appreciate it as well.
  • Staying Motivated Week (August 21st – August 27th) – As we get towards the end of the event, the activity can often trail off a bit. The goal of this week is to share some of your own tips surrounding how you keep motivated and stay focused on creating content. If you are new to the event, you might share some of the things that have helped you stay engaged during Blaugust.
  • Lessons Learned Week (August 28th – August 31st) – This week is a reminder that the goal of Blaugust is to refresh the content creators out there for the coming year, and not to burn them out in the process. Some folks are going to cross the finish line and immediately go dormant and others will want to process their thoughts about the proceedings. This space is reserved as a bit of a cooldown lap so that you can share your own experiences.

The Prompts

As hinted at earlier in this post, in 2020 we tried something a little different and created this whole “promptapalooza” event since we had already done the traditional Blaugust style event as Blapril that year. It was honestly a bit of a failure. I am not sure what it looked like from the outside, but trying to keep that event running was sheer chaos as no one seemed to grok the concept. The good thing that came out of it however is that we have a pretty nice list of prompts for those who might need help trying to come up with something to write about during this month. Again this is a purely optional thing but there is a Blaugchievement associated with it.

Mentorship

One of the benefits of having done this at least once in this same style… is that we have existing infrastructure! We already have a batch of mentors ready to help the process, but if you feel like you would be best served in that role we are always open to more. Ultimately mentors should have at least two years of blogging experience under their belt in order to gauge the ebbs and flow of content creation in front of a live studio audience. We aren’t expecting perfection, just a willingness to share the lessons you have learned along the way with fledgling participants. If this sounds like you, please reach out to me on Discord and we can talk about your desire to become a Mentor.

The Details

That my friends are the details for Blaugust 2022. There have been a few tweaks here or there, but largely it should function in a similar fashion. As is always the case I close out the yearly information post with a quick bullet point rundown of the information.
  • The Sign-Up Form for Blaugust 2022 can be found here. Since logging in with a Google account has been a source of consternation for some, I have removed that functionality. If you still cannot for whatever reason sign-up but want to participate please let me know. Only those that I am tracking will be assigned awards.
  • The invite link to the Blaugust Discord can be found here. Participation in Discord is entirely optional but also a great way to bounce ideas off the existing community.
  • If you feel inclined to do so please use the hashtag #Blaugust2022 for tracking purposes and to make your content easier to find for those watching the proceedings.
    • We also highly suggest that you utilize the Share Your Content” channel in the official Discord.
  • Mingle with the participants of Blaugust 2022. Get out and see the blogs, read the posts, and comment frequently! These folks represent a social structure that you can lean on for advice in the coming years. I deeply value the ties I have made with other bloggers and started this process as an attempt to cement those and build new ones.
  • If you are so inclined there is a “Gaming Together” channel on Discord for those impromptu grouping activities. I believe there was even some discussion of doing a one-shot D&D adventure this year.
  • If you find yourself getting stuck at any point feel free to rely on the weekly schedule or the prompt list for inspiration or you can hop on Discord and talk through your issues.
  • You can also check out the new Blaugchievements list for anything that might spark your creativity and check one of those off.
  • Welcome to Blaugust 2022. As always if you have any questions please feel free to ask. My door is always open but I might be slow to respond because I have a bad habit of idling on pretty much all the social platforms at once.
  • If you want an archive of all of the various logos and such from this year or past years of Blagust, please check out the Blaugust Media Kit page.
The post Introducing Blaugust 2022 appeared first on Tales of the Aggronaut.