Goldkin @Goldkin@awoo.space

@dodec @Felthry Tryclyde, Mouser, and Fryguy did make major appearances in the Super Mario Bros. Super Show, but that canon has mostly been forgotten in mainline series games. Kind of wish they'd revisit it now that we're beyond the awkward era of Philips CD-i games based on it.

@Dex I'd add one more, which is solving (or working around) VR sickness for large segments of the corporate market.

From messing around in VRChat on the Index and sideloading apps onto a Quest 2, comfort for daily use is _probably_ the most solved problem right now. With a little aftermarket tweaking with weighted and comfort headstraps, and lenses that reduce glare, going whole days in VR is definitely doable. Future iterations will have these standard.

@Felthry What it did offer is a more cinematic and immersive experience, which felt amazing at the time and still plays well now. But it definitely wasn't the same game as Z1, and was definitely more rough of an experience than its predecessor or games that followed it due to having so many moving parts.

@Felthry The main thing is that while all of these elements are serviceable and blend together okay, they weren't as refined as their genre-specific counterparts.

So you have this loose bag of gameplay elements that remind you of other games, with constant context switching (from overworld to underworld, from gameplay to menuing, and from the start of the game or dungeon every game over) instead of the smooth transition Z1 provided. Plus manually running back to town or resetting to heal.

@Felthry Just replayed it on the new Zelda Game & Watch thingie, so my memory is fresh. It's mechanically distinct from the rest of the series, and a bit clunky even compared to Z1, but not a bad game by any means.

Its main thing is it lacks a distinct identity, borrowing from other popular games of the time instead of being inventive. Castlevania combat? Check. Dragon Warrior magic system? Check. RPG random encounters and town scenes? Check. Platforming and lives system from Mario? Check.

@Kaffe@chitter.xyz @kat I healer LB3ed and literally saved the run once by bonking the boss with my staff to 0% when the tank died again in A12, 0 commendations.

DPS queue immediately to some random dungeon, 3 comm.

So yep, this. This this this.

@kat https://www.lulu.com does small print runs, and folks I know have used them in the past for small syndication books and zines. Dunno if it fits the budget for your project, but they have a price calculator that you can check.

@Dex Weird, because during my playthrough, it did let me teleport between any teleporter during cleanup (the teleporters also gain a flashing effect signaling this, and it boots up the map to select any other teleporter).

I don't think PBs unlocked it though (it wasn't the final boss either); maybe it unlocks somehow when you load into the final region?

@kat Gods, all of the speedbooster puzzles in this game @..@

Continuing the tradition of my weekly sleeping-in-on-Saturdays giving really cool dreams:

This one was heroic coming-of-age story. Most of the details were pulled from other identifiable sources, but the main protag is cool enough to write out.

They're a gender-ambiguous (female-leaning) person who discovered they could shapeshift by accidentally becoming their own (adorably small, anthro orca-dragon) OC. They quickly identified they could become anything else they wanted within the same approximate mass range, with a catch: they need to actively focus on it.

Their personality is distinct enough that I need to noodle on it a bit more to describe them well. The villain also had vague ideas on how they work and may point to other-than-human origins.

While the dream had them doing hero things, they're more into chilling out to chiptunes, signalwave/vaporwave, and playing variations on 80s and 90s videogames with friends.

They also chose a name for themselves, but it has a conflict with someone I know, so I'll need to find a good alternative for them. Still, very neat little fictionthing.

(Also meant to post this earlier, but lots of random other things happened in the meantime.)

@kat Echoing what others have said: setting a sane per-hour rate is a good starting point, and you can probably charge more given the quality of what you're posting here.

Also interested!

@qdot Ouch. Same thing happened to @Veladynee. I gave bad advice on using lens wipes and the plastic lenses and seal really didn't like it.

We'll definitely be interested in hearing if aftermarket lenses are better.

This is a few days after a different stranger in a dream said this when I asked them why they do what they do:

"I am you. You have agency here. I'm just part of the script."

Then I woke up.

Either I have very coherent dream gremlins, or someone has a fun sense of humor.

A stranger in a dream posed a good question to me right before I woke up:

"Why do many cultures have specific names for gremlins and monsters, yet Florida has no (specific) terms for the time it takes for hurricanes to make landfall?"

... huh.