u/VagusTruman

Bah, I'm just fucking with you all. I'm not that sad, yet, but I'm here for a different reason altogether. This was just to get your attention like a Bullfighter with a Red Cape. If you are struggling with this, I'll leave a medley of advice on how to get yourself out of this mess of emotions. Not a guidebook, advice. These are people you're dealing with, not automatons designed to your every whims.

Anyway, I did all this to ask a few questions of you, the students of York who I am willing to bet have Streamers or YouTubers on in the background while you toil away at assignments and studying.

I'm busy getting some marketing traction for my games, Broad Daylight and Graftage on Steam, in time for my updates and overhauls to them to be set off for big horizons, and I don't watch enough streams to know where to look for potential limelights. If your choice of streamer has a penchant for games with a cozy vibe, story driven, puzzle, psychological horror, or simply have a preference for small games, can you please point me in their direction so I can set about getting in contact?

And as for my other question, some of you might have gone ahead and searched on Steam for the two games I have named above to check out the merch for yourself. What are your first impressions? Do you have any questions on these two, concerns, perhaps you maybe looking to get a copy for yourself to burn through as the summer is ending? And yes this is also my attempt to garner a bigger audience while I'm at it. No better place to look than local, right?

Thank you for your time and attention. And as promised, my advice for the lovelorn. This is gonna be universal, so I'm not gonna go using he, her, or they (outside of crowds, general population, and the entity/strawman).

Le Advice

So the first thing you have to understand is they are their own person. They have an internal experience, a history, a life that did not involve you up until now. you are looking to insert yourself into their lives. In the age where intentions are misconstrued, acts of friendliness can be mistaken having ulterior motives, looking for something to gain, I say you're better off saying it outright.

Not with a dumb "I am in love with you", that is far too extreme for a first encounter. Strike up a conversation, get the ball rolling, and use that chance to gauge whether or not they're comfortable with you around. Body language, gestures, behaviors, that sort of thing.

Ask if they've got a second to talk, be natural about it, and figure out if they're with someone else already before you risk being a homewrecker. If you ask and they say yes, you can sigh and back off, knowing now the gamble was a failure and you didn't bet too big that you have destroyed yourself. If they do happen to say yes, and this is importaint, ask if they're looking for a relationship. Just because they're available does not mean you can mozy on in.

On the off chance they are looking for one, it's then you ask for contacts. Then you have a solid chance, but it can always turn awry, like family matters, something about their history they haven't opened up about, your clashing values, worn down tolerance for your antics that they got sick and tired of. Hell, it may even be they think you're too good for them and bail because their self esteem is at an all time low. Whatever the case, if you manage to click, know it can always click apart, so cherish what you got now and make it worth it, and if you can, make it last.

This does not apply to you if you're an abusive asshole and they all left because of you. Eat shit.

That's all from me tonight, folks. Be sure to give me directions to your favourite streamer if you got one that might be interested in my games, and don't be afraid to get them yourself for when I finish the updates! Peace!

Hi, solarpunks. I'm the sole developer behind the solarpunk-themed game, Graftage, and I'm here to announce that I'm working on a much-needed update to the project. As a show of good faith, I've brought forth a trailer showcasing what the game's about and what you can do in it, in the hopes of garnering an audience amongst you all.

Thank you for your time and attention. The Software Update is coming to Steam within the month, and I hope for a great turnout, as we all do. That's why we're solarpunks, right?

For the uninitiated, Surf Dracula is a phenomenon that was brought up with the rise of streaming and bingable content since the 2020s, where instead of "Adventure of the Week" for the titular Surf Dracula, the entire story is dedicated to Surf Dracula becoming the titular icon, and only to surf at the finale. Examples of Surf Dracula media lie in Madame Web having to "earn" the title, Mortal Kombat (2021) with the tournament happening in the sequel, or even the first Sonic movie with regard to Dr. Robotnik becoming Dr. Eggman only in the post-credits.

Now, why do I say that First Light works as a case of Surf Dracula?

We only know Bond as the static icon, the stoic womanizing MI6 agent with the wacky gadgets and dry humour; we don't see much of his development throughout the movies outside of the Daniel Craig movies, so the idea of seeing a young Bond earning the Number and the License to Kill was a bit jarring at first. But then we see a new side of Bond throughout the story of the game; we see him make friends, have mentors, fail. lose those he cares about beyond the "Bond Girl" archetype that's found in these movies, and grow from an arrogant wee shite into the seasoned veteran that we know and love. I doubt we've seen anything like this from the movies outside of Casino Royale.

And yet, it is still a Surf Dracula type story, where James goes through the arduous process of becoming 007, and only gets the title at the end of the game. It works because we saw how the man came to be. We were never on the ride with him in the movies, moreso we are just witnesses to his wacky escapades and missions. In First Light, we are Bond; we go along for the ride, go through the same motions as he does instead of just watching him feel the feelings. We see the rough outline of the suave icon in this young Bond, and over the course of the game, we see how he came into the quirks we see in movies and books, like his penchant for "Martini, shaken not stirred.", his banter with Q and Moneypenny, his relationship with M, how he hardened and put his guard up after having his heart crushed, and his core — going against what is said and doing what must be done.

Now, cue the Philharmonic Orchestra. I'm done here.

Wally has been called many grand titles. The Indifference, the Void, the Man in the Wall, Walbrect, etc.

But the Indifference bothers me. Because, while yes the antithesis of his existence/composition is love and care and any feeling in general, he is not at all indifferent.

Even the Drifter calls it out, asking if Wally is so nihilistic and "this doesn't matter" then why is he trying so damn hard?

Wanna know what I wanna call him? The Petty.

He's a whiny little bitch that got big mad when Entrati closed the door when he was in Walbrect form and got his fingers chopped off, among them being the magical finger of Khra/Time, and has made it humanity's problem ever since. All this, with Rell, 1999, Lotus Eaters, Zariman Deal, Whispers in the Wall, and now Tau, all to get his fucking finger back because he's stuck in the very concept of Cause and Effect like us chumps. I know this term doesn't mean much these days, but he is literally tilted.

I'm not calling him the Indifference anymore. He is now the Petty.

Good day, evening, and night, you poor tortured souls of the Unreal Engine! I got a curious dilemma today for you. Allow me to provicd background context.

Using [this fine tutorial](https://youtu.be/1mkYHKC8\_rw?si=zseq55hNYDKOAZEh) here for the basis of my UI widget (and after making a couple of my own modifications like a blueprint interface and tweakable parameters like justification, text styles, type speed), it is a looping function that runs on a "Set Timer By Function Name" node that runs just fine when the game is unpaused, and unlike the previous iteration, it doesn't choke up as much memory as the previous nonsensical method I was using earlier. If it helps, I'm also using the Common UI plugins, and they are a treat!

How I use it is that I forego a typical text widget and use the widget blueprint instead. Then all I need to do is pull from the widget, fire off the interface message, and it works like a charm! No need to fuss with multiple variables, using event tick, none!

HOWEVER. As soon as I apply this stuff to my pause menu, it stops the "Timer" from doing anything at all after it initiates, and the text doesn't roll out in the slightest.

And I tried to find anything. There was a "Set Tickable When Paused" node I found, but it only applies to actors, so that is a wash. There's also the animation with event tracks that I tried to use, to little success, and now I'm lost. Any suggestions?

UPDATE Use a delay, and link up the "Start Typewriter" event to a play animation. Within the typewriter timer function, make sure to play the animation at the end of the sequence so it can continue to play.

https://preview.redd.it/rmkra9ykn3fh1.png?width=147&format=png&auto=webp&s=a9ea87d7fa0819d1b31e56065714728010c0a2b6

I'm working on an overhaul of my first published game, and I'm stuck trying to get this pricking Steam Achievement system to work properly. More specifically, I wanted to get used to the system's progressive achievement stats.

To explain, I have, in the game instance blueprint, a custom event that is fed an Enum, each entry named after the achievement's API name, like "AllBranches_ACH"

https://preview.redd.it/ktp35lg2o3fh1.png?width=1501&format=png&auto=webp&s=d6e2cf921118804f807d6dd928a9b06c41c37a70

For simple "Yay you did it" Achievements, I just make it go through the routine of a "did you already finish this" boolean, and it... hasn't worked out either, so I have to manually get it written, or I'm doing something fundamentally wrong.

But now for the stats maintenance, notice how I routed all the "All" achievements somewhere else?

https://preview.redd.it/69b1mn1eo3fh1.png?width=792&format=png&auto=webp&s=58ad76ae3b11e5510d7c589349afc4839e28d2ed

Here I was hoping to just simplify the process, but yet again, I somehow did something wrong. Even though. In the tutorial, it urged me NOT to do all the saving and writing in a sequence, so I split it into another custom event, and guess what? Even though it says I changed the stat, it did nothing in the Steam Overlay afterwards.

https://preview.redd.it/ohxyk3jio3fh1.png?width=883&format=png&auto=webp&s=83799fa46e227fe14e0928bf906e27f31e6efc7b

I'm losing sleep over this pricking system; why did they make it so damn complicated?

Any help will be greatly appreciated.

I have been burning my entire summer overhauling my first ever game. I am so close to getting it done, and I'll announce a date soon.

If you want to get a dev series of this stuff going during the last few streches, I'll try and provide. Can't promise much.

In the meantime, hope this trailer helps out, just know it never always looked like this.

Right. 21M here, gonna enter my final year of Forkland to finish my degree in Digital Media, and I am... Royally fucked, to say the least.

I have made the terrible mistake of going into Game Development, because I wanted to get creative and also learn comp sci as a fallback, and even after trying to get ahead of the curve by publishing to games on Steam, I don't have experience for this fucking industry like UI/UX, which I applied to SO MANY GODDAMN STUDIOS FOR, and Concept Art which is apparently the generic pool of applications, and 3D environments. I even tried oddballs like video creation and editing for trailers and such, and no dice!

I can't get even get a part time job for the now rapidly ending summer to add to my resume for a deadend 9 to 5!

I am stuck living at home working on an update for a game no one will play, I don't know the first thing about how to market my games to pull in new players, I am terrified that I will never make anything of myself, and worse, that it's my fault.

How the fuck am I gonna get myself out of this one?! I graduate this year!

With Edgerunners 2 coming up to issue a new dose of depression and agony for the heart, I realized a glaring issue among fans that came from both the original show and Cyberpunk 2077; overestimating the importance of one element and thinking the entire world runs on that element.

That element being Cyberpsychosis, a core conflict for David Martinez's story. Because Edgerunners was many people's first impressions of the world by Mike Pondsmith, it's not unreasonable that they think Cyberpsychosis is the end all be all of Cyberpunk, but I get worried they think it's going to be the only issue.

And with the appearance of, what I hope and dread is, a Rogue AI from beyond this setting's barrier between our world (named the Blackwall) and Cyberspace in Edgerunners 2, people who've played the game's DLC think "oh so this character is exactly like [SPOILER]," but it's so agonizing to see them completely fly over the conflict regarding [SPOILER] and Blackwall, treating what is a dumbass attempt to play God with forces beyond their control like how people typically look at Warlocks who are haunted by their patron. That attitude being "Bro you get powers, what's the big deal?"

Talking as someone who read the lore about Blackwall and the Rogue Natives beyond it, NO! THE BLACKWALL IS NOT OUR FRIEND! THE AI BEYOND THERE ARE NOT OUR FRIENDS! THEY ARE OUT TO GET US AND THAT THING IS THE ONLY REASON WE ARE NOT SCREWED! YOU CANNOT TAME AN ROGUE AI INTO A FRIEND! IT HAS ITS OWN AIMS AND YOU CANNOT REASON WITH IT!

Rant about the lore of Cyberpunk aside, I noticed also a lot of cases with this in other media.

Space Marine 2 being a lot of people's first impressions of Warhammer 40K's grand universe has some people thinking the Ultramarines and Titus are the, so to speak, "protagonists" and "poster child" of 40K, which is a bit of a disservice to all of the Legions and the Xeno Armies out there that are rich with lore like Salamanders (they're my favorites). There's also the semantics that 40K is a spin off of Warhammer Fantasy, who was originally Warhammer, but that's a big big BIG can of worms.

Apex Legends is also a big instance of this, with players thinking nothing much on the lore of the universe and barely giving the Titanfall games a passing glance. Fucking BR genre.

Also, goes without sayings, Marvel Movies. The Ultron being made by Tony Stark thing is still annoying and now movie onlies will hear Hank Pym was the creator and go "heh?", and they focused on Wolverine during the X-Men movies (up until Days of Future Past) and made everyone else feel like side characters. So much so movie-onlies have the impression that Cyclops is some guy who shoots lasers up until X-Men '97. In fact, what makes Marvel Movies more annoying is that attempts to bring new characters to the spotlight are either hit or miss, like Eternals with the Celestial conflicts.

There are a few series and spin offs that are immune to this sort of issue. Fate and Final Fantasy, where their DNA is so varied and vast that getting a few details wrong wouldn't affect the grander series, and it can be its own thing. Tokusatsu has made a name for itself by having a unique story each season, it's gonna be fine so long as it maintains the pillars of each series, like Godzilla being a metaphor for nuclear power, Ultraman being an educator, and Kamen Rider having his mask, belt, and bike.

Guess my point here is that it's not bad to hone in on a few elements and details of a grand big setting, but if they're gonna be a popular first impression, the misconceptions are gonna be annoying.

Ladies, gentlemen, everything in between and beyond, the time is upon us. And more so, this is to shut the whiny little gnats up about how the teaser "is just as bad as 5's" when 5 was school chairs and ball'n'chain with nothing else in it for us to look at, accompanied with the question of "You are a slave. Want emancipation?". They gave up much more than that.

Without further ado, let's preface with what the store description has to offer in terms of insight into the story, with the assumption it's not going to be subjected to change over time.

Navigate the rhythms of everyday school life and build friendships, pursue romance, and cultivate memories that matter. But beneath the surface of familiar streets and quiet neighborhoods lies something darker: strange rumors, unsettling urban legends, and occult incidents that only you and your closest allies can face.

What can be gleaned from this is that the occult is active in this new story we're stepping into, stuff like voodoo, ritualistic practices, dark arts, that sort. Many others think this to mean eldritch horror and Lovecraftian entities like the Führer (iykyk) playing a part in this story, but I think it's a bit more abstract than that. In fact, from what we saw in the trailer, I think I can nail how the conflict is gonna play out through the story.

Gravestone Clusters

Firstly, this arrangement of gravestones is impossible in reality, so it's likely not a showcase of the location this story is set in, but an allegory. Maybe of hopes and dreams, ideals, or more likely than not, legends that have come and passed through the eras, and it is from these we draw Personas from. Consider such familiar faces as Seigfried, Oberon, Jack Frost, Vishnu, Odin, and such being bygone icons, now laid to rest, as they no longer have stories to tell.

Headless Statue + Silhouette

One thing I like to point out is the dead trees in the setting. Might be a reach, but consider the Alae Cemetery in Hawaii, and how vibrant and vigorous it grew from getting nutrients from the buried corpses. If there are so many graves here, why are the trees dead? Assuming I'm right on the mark about the graves being legends, it could be that legends are no longer enough to keep the waking world going, and that it has begun to deteriorate for lack of icons to look up to.

Moving on to the more pressing matter at hand, the headless statue. I bet that this is the Fool's Persona, but whether or not it's the Headless Horseman, as many have suggested, is up in the air. After all, what better representation of the clean slate that the Fool is than an icon with no recognizable face? Would be cool. Also, those claims that this is the Dullahan might be on the money too, as the head is the defining feature of those creatures is their head, which they hold by their side, and that is noticeably missing from the statue.

As for who is here to deflile the statue, I can only guess someone who seeks to spark the past anew on the chance the world will be better for it. Otherwise, why come to the graveyard of legends?

Silhouette of figure, unsure if defiler or not.

People say this is Maya. I got a bolder delusion; this is someone we thought we would never see again after Persona 2: Tatsuya Suou. But then the jumble of facial features threw me off the scent, leaving me to think the antagonist is more of an idea that many people wear or embody than a single entity. As V, Hugo Weaving, once said, under the mask is an idea, and ideas are bulletproof.

Jumble Sample 1

Jumble Sample 2

All of them are still creepy, though.

Finger Points

Notice the red hands

This is where the mention of the occult plays a heavy role in how I read into this. Consider a scenario involving the occult where people would point intensely in one direction, or maybe even at one person. Where do the two cases line up that can be applied to our modern era?

Lost? I'll answer: Witch Hunting and Accusations.

It's not hard to imagine now, is it? During the days of the Salem Witch Trials, all it took to kill someone without drawing blood yourself was an accusation that they were a practitioner of witchcraft. The same can be found in our current times, with how fast the "Exotic" and "Spicy" news can spread about someone. Imagine how easy it is to ruin the life of a man if he was branded with the mark of a rapist, or a woman with the mark of a whore, or an exhausted parent for being neglectful and hate their child they love so much. And those red hands are most definitely the ones who struck first, with the blood of the accused on their hands, and thus our antagonists for the story. Our Palace Rulers, our Shadows, our Other Selves. It's not that far-fetched, right?

Hello, old friend

And it is here, I believe, that we see the return of a familiar face after being reduced to a mere blue butterfly throughout Persona 3, 4, and 5... Okay, 5 is mostly Lavenza, which I will concede, but you get my point. Maybe it's just the fact that this entry is bearing a much more gritty and dark tone like Persona 1 and both Persona 2 games, but I have hope our golden butterfly is coming back. In fact, if you remember Persona 1, the very first question he asks is "What is your name?" as a test to see if you have a sense of self. Consider, then, what the trailer asks through its many flashes and glimpses of images and texts.

WHO

ARE

YOU

Maybe it's just Igor going through another routine as he did with Yu in Persona 4, and I'm reading into this too much. Maybe I lost the plot, and the question is there because the protagonist, like the Headless Statue, forgot who he was and needs to remember. Someone who shook history and yet is forgotten by it, losing sight of himself in the process. I guess we'll just have to see.

A fan rendition by me of 6's Velvet Room

Before I leave you off, I want to give my two cents regarding the Velvet Room for Persona 6. I believe that, in tune with the presence of graves and the idea of bygone legends, the Velvet Room this time is most likely going to be a mausoleum. Consider why mausoleums are a choice of burial: to protect the entombed from the elements, give them a final resting place, and can be visited by loved ones, house a generation or a family in one place, and act as a lasting legacy. Doesn't sound like the worst place to be laid to rest, does it? Would make for a killer Velvet Room, though.

Anyways, that's all I got for now. If you have differing opinions, support for my arguments, comments about my rendition of the Persona 6 Velvet Room, or questions that let me branch my thinking, feel free to send them my way. With that, good day, good evening, and good night.