Rynling R&D

> Often, the loudest and angriest voices are given center stage, thus pushing aside the softer and quieter and more marginalized voices.

Sorry, I'm still thinking about this.

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So part of the problem, I think, is that it's the people who aren't hurt by this, and who in fact get energy from conflict, who end up thriving on social media. Conflict is good and necessary, of course, but social media algorithms often serve to transform conflict into cruelty. And I guess I just think that people who have a low tolerance for cruelty should be able to participate in the conversation too.

A Prominent Accessibility Advocate Worked With Studios and Inspired Change. But She Never Actually Existed.
https://www.ign.com/articles/a-prominent-accessibility-advocate-worked-with-studios-and-inspired-change-but-she-never-actually-existed

In 2019, the games accessibility community mourned the death of Susan Banks. Now, evidence suggests she may have never existed to begin with. [...] Each of Craven’s partners embedded themselves into varying marginalized communities, with each allegedly being Deaf, a person of color, queer, and having some form of major health episodes like cancer. And through Craven’s varying social media accounts and presence in the industry, he was able to ensure each partner remained visible. Their work, whether written or through social media advocacy, reached thousands. From AAA studios to different community spaces, Banks, Hamid, and Vaughan entrenched themselves into the gaming industry.

Don't get me wrong; all accessibility is good accessibility.

At the same time, this is what I mean when I say that I'm skeptical of how conversations surrounding sensitive issues tend to play out on social media. Often, the loudest and angriest voices are given center stage, thus pushing aside the softer and quieter and more marginalized voices.

And again, all steps toward accommodating diversity are good. But it's still frustrating to think about the real people who were pushed away from the conversation because of the existence of an aggressive network of sock puppets.

I actually just listened to an Irish RTÉ podcast miniseries that covers a similar case of someone using the persona of a disabled person to advocate for disability rights who was then caught out by her fans on TikTok, and it's wild: https://www.rte.ie/radio/podcasts/series/40750-the-real-carrie-jade/

Animal Well is a no-combat puzzle platformer with an open-world Metroidvania structure. You play as a small seed navigating a mossy system of underground tunnels. The game has no dialogue or diegetic text, nor does it need any. Your job is simply to explore.

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Is the cleverness and charm of Animal Well worth the frustration of getting lost and not knowing what you’re supposed to do? That depends on the player, of course, and it’s worth saying that this isn’t a casual game. Still, although I wish Animal Well were less opaque, I appreciate that it’s not actually difficult. Moreover, exploration is always rewarded, and I never stopped being surprised and amazed by each new bit of the game I managed to find. Every single screen in Animal Well is a work of art.

Mr. Saitou is an Undertale-style narrative adventure game (with music by Toby Fox) that takes about two hours to finish. You play as Saitou, a white-collar worker who finds himself in the hospital after a failed suicide attempt triggered by stress and overwork. While sleeping, Saitou dreams of himself as a llamaworm (a comically extended groundhog) who goes on an adventure with a cute pink flowerbud named Brandon, the dream persona of a young child Saitou meets in the hospital.

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Mr. Saitou is a sweet but still surprising game that’s entertaining to read and engaging to play, and I feel that its story earns the right to state its final message clearly: The world is filled with interesting people and beautiful places, and there’s more to life than slowly killing yourself for your job. Good health is a blessing, so you might as well make the most of your time on this earth while you’re still young.

Deepwell is an Undertale-style narrative adventure game that takes about two hours to finish. You play as a blank slate character called “the Cartographer” who has recently arrived in the small forest town of Deepwell, which clings to the southern rim of a massive hole in the ground. Oddly enough, anyone who descends into the hole beyond a certain point gets “blipped,” meaning that they appear at the top of the hole as if nothing had happened. Generations of mystery hunters have sought the solution to this puzzle, but perhaps you might be the one to finally figure it out.

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Deepwell is akin to a short story anthology that’s easy to pick up for twenty minutes at a time, but I ended up being so fascinated by the overarching narrative that I played the whole game in one sitting. The writing is exceptionally good. It gives me immense joy to know that something like Deepwell exists in the world, and I honestly feel that I’m a better person for having spent time with it.

Deepwell is free to play on Steam here:
https://store.steampowered.com/app/2803660/Deepwell/

I just finished the fourth panel in my "trees in video games" minicomic. This one is about the Sleeping Forest in Final Fantasy VII.

I've been modeling these illustrations on my own screenshots. The next panel is going to be about Animal Crossing: New Horizons. I played the game on my first Nintendo Switch Lite, and I actually played it so much that the left control stick stopped working. This means that, if I want to get an original screenshot to work from for the next panel, I'm going to have to download Animal Crossing onto my new Switch and start a new game...

...please keep me in your thoughts and prayers.

For the sole purpose of low-stakes escapism, I started playing Final Fantasy VI Pixel Remaster on Nintendo Switch again. I picked up where I left off, which was right outside Zozo. Zozo has always been something special, but the remaster team really went out of their way to polish it even more.

I guess I've lost a sense of the pacing of the early Final Fantasy games, and I was surprised to be in and out of Zozo in fifteen minutes.

I wanted to spend more time in that sort of grungy postmagical rustpunk world, so I started Ender Magnolia again from the beginning. The game is still in early access on Steam, so only the first three hours are available to play. But man, what a marvelous three hours. I think I like Ender Magnolia even more the second time around. It's so nice to have such a meticulously constructed Metroidvania that's moderately challenging without being brutally difficult.

I went through all of the available content in Ender Magnolia in one sitting, and now I don't know what to play next. I'm thinking about Animal Well: https://www.animalwell.net/

1 Hour Hyper Light Drifter Rain Ambiance
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Mcq0ubhzyew

This isn't a remix; it's just a playlist of the game's actual music with a nice overlay of rain noise. Along with the ambient tracks of the Elden Ring OST, this has been another of my staples for stress-free writing.

I always love when a brutally difficult grimdark game has a chill ambient soundtrack. When it comes to facilitating a state of flow, whatever works is good I guess.

For me, spoilers are really important, especially when it comes to video games. If I'm going to spend 50+ hours with a piece of media, I need to know that it's worth my time. I also like knowing what the final destination is so that I can take my time getting there.

To give an example, I enjoyed Tears of the Kingdom precisely because I didn't have to worry about the story. It was good to go into the game knowing that there's no narrative payoff. I was upset about the story to begin with, and I can't even begin to imagine how I would have felt if I'd put more emotional investment into the game while rushing to finish it.

Thankfully, I'm getting completely different vibes from the Shadow of the Erdtree spoilers I've been able to find. This is a good story, I think. The (main) final boss is heartbreaking, as is the short cutscene that plays afterward, and it's going to be an interesting journey to figure out what's happening there. Even with spoilers, it's probably going to be months (or even years) before lore experts manage to put everything together.

Idk, I just think the anxiety over spoilers and the fear of missing out is manufactured by corporations to keep the consumption cycle moving as quickly as possible. Consumers are pressured to preorder everything and play/watch/read it as soon as it comes out, which in turn primes them to be ready to move on to the next thing immediately. I totally understand the thrill and joy of discovery, but it seems there's no longer any middle ground between "no spoilers at all" and "having complete access to a full wiki." That can't be healthy.

While I've been writing the essay about Ender Lilies, I realized something interesting about its sequel, Ender Magnolia. Ender Magnolia is currently only available in an abbreviated early-access version on Steam, so I can't say anything definitive, but the game has a lot of subtle (and not-so-subtle) references to Final Fantasy VI.

What's really cool to me is that I think Ender Magnolia is meant to be speculation on what the world of Final Fantasy VI was like in the immediate aftermath of the War of the Magi. That's something I've always wondered about, and it's cool to see that fantasy realized in such a visually beautiful game that's also a lot of fun to play (and, mercifully, not punishingly difficult). Also sword lesbians