Henshin Sequence

Is awesome.

Especially if you know what the words 'Remote Viewing' mean.

...Yeah. It's about that. It's based on a true story about army experiments in Remote Viewing.

Run by a hippie.

Did I mention it's awesome and you should go see it?

Thanks, UniversalQueen.

KaTAwa, not KaWAta. KaTAwa.

Played to all of the Good Endings in act 1, and am now adding Shizune to the list of people I instantly fell in love with in this game, not to say that I disLIKE any of the others.

...I have been thinking entirely too hard about this, and, well, triggery cut-rant is triggery.

( TL;DR is that this game is awesum!!1! and thought-provoking and you should play it. )

Off to class. More about internet software applications and thier limitations today. I'll be online.

( Rules, I haz them behind ze kutt )

neko_ja_nai wrote:
Mood: Indescribable
Music: Kodoku na Junrei

...I don't... I don't know what to say. I don't know where to begin.

Tokho's apparently reading over my shoulder, because she just told me "At the beginning. Duh."

So...

When I woke up, I decided that I really did want to meet with Akira today, but I also wanted to try Gakuen Dream. But... I know how I get. If a story is really interesting, it's hard for me to pull away. Tokho suggested that I call my sister Makoto. "Mackie would relish the chance to rip you bodily from the computer," she said with a grin.

I really don't like Makoto. She doesn't like me much, either: says I'm in a fantasy world and that ren-ai games are pieces of crap.

I'll cop to the former, but honestly - has she MET most of the creeps in the real world? In a ren-ai game, you at least have a chance at love.

So I told myself...

Anyway. I called her, and asked her in the middle of her rant on that subject to help me get off the computer at two so I could meet Akira.

"Willingly meeting a human being. Will wonders never cease," she said.

"That's not fair!"

"Yes, it is."

"I beg you for help and this is how you treat me?"

She got all quiet. "...you're serious."

"Yeah."

"...I'll be over at 2."

She was good as her word. Before I knew it (or got to the Keenan ending of Visual Stage), my computer turned off. I looked up and Mackie, in that hideous skanky halter top of hers, was holding the plug to my power strip. I gave her a sheepish grin and she marched me to my closet and made me "presentable." The only thing I really had that looked good was an old uniform bottom and an Archer t-shirt, which... didn't make her happy. But she did help.

When I thanked her, she said "What I want in return is for you to keep meeting this person and have a REAL relationship, do I make myself clear?" I nodded. "Now get out of here."

When I left, I saw her climb onto some sleazeball's motorcycle and wrap herself around him. Ecch.

Akira was right there at the coffeeshop, and he got me a drink. Something with a lot of sugar and milk, you know? He talked to me about some of the art he was doing - he was doing some composition and sketching stuff. Interesting stuff. I said that I wasn't that good of an artist and I showed him some sketches, mostly of Tokho and her friends.

He looked at them for a long time with a strange expression. "Did you trace these?"

"Um... no. I was copying..."

"Freehand?"

"...Yes?"

He looked for a while, then smiled and said, "This is really good."

For all I know, a bug flew in my mouth, it was open so wide.

"These are characters from a ren-ai, right?"

I nodded. He said, "Have you thought of drawing your own?"

"I - I haven't been in love, I couldn't do it right."

Then he put a hand on mine, and I FROZE, both at that and his words.

"It's not too late to try again."

I... I kind of spazzed, there. We talked a little more, but I wasn't in any state to say anything.

I went home and by way of not thinking about it until I needed to got the Keenan, Josh and Nathan endings to VS. Twice.

Tokho prodded me until I told her what happened, and she just... smiled, and said: "Go. For. It."

...I'm so happy right now, you don't even know.
----

Earlier, I managed to wipe out the Ren-Ai obsession when I forgot to play it right. It bothers me that it only takes a margin of 8 points to do it: I'd expect it to lower it a die or two, possibly 1 die plus some Hope. It does bother me, and I'm going to bug Ewen Cluney to revise this game.

Still, this is awesome so far. Tune in tomorrow.

Pic unrelated. Sort of.

Veronica called me. Very nice convo - she's calling me tonight. Hoping to see her in the week she's recovering, it being my spring break and all. I'll see if she can pledge some financial assistance in that: I'm saving up myself.

I do rather like St. Valentine's day (and the story of St. Valentine), so long as you remember not to make it more serious or complicated than it is. Just a day to honor romantic love - not OMG MUST BUY CHOCOLATES AND ROSES AS DRAGONFODDER. I understand the reason why it's such a hated holiday, though - my friend Li-Chi calls it Singles Awareness Day for a reason, and the commercialism made of it makes me gag. But I like the reminder to connect and re-connect the holiday provides.

I now have a writerly urge, and want to do comic book scripts for a lighthearted Action/Romance/Comedy thing I'm calling Neon Veda Bodhisattva, at the mo, because the basic idea in my head was "like Evangelion off crack."

( If you don't care about Neon Veda, then why click the link? )

In other news, Dad is going to New Orleans tomorra night on Serious Business. I am envious. Chocolatefrapp, if you can reccommend him a good restaurant, please do.

And how was your St. Vals, everyone?

1.) What is your game about?
::This Game:: is about hot-blooded humongous mecha badassery in the face of an eeevil foe, with the careful (or not) forging of alliances on the way. It is the Tengan Toppa G-Gundam to Bliss Stage's Neon RahXephon Bokurano.

2.) What do the characters do?
Kick the shiny metal asses of the Von Neumans back to the Core, and hopefully into the singularity there, whilst trying to make friends that help you along the way (sometimes this involves impressing them by kicking thier fleshy alien asses). Every star we see is a potential ally!

3.) What do the players (including the GM if there is one) do?**
The players go through combat (possibly in an explicitly combined robot, possibly not), mowing through mooks, trying to outdo each other's Holy Shit Quotients before taking enough damage to withdraw / explode / get killed: impressive maneuvers fill up a collective "Flow" meter (for lack of a better name) in order to power up more and more impressive weaponry. Flow does not need to be spent in order to power up from, say, "Beam Saber" to "Hornet Missile Barrage!" - you just need a minimum amount in order to use an ability ONCE.

Then they spend their Flow on forming various Ultimate Weapons which can be used to complete (and by Complete, we mean Blow Up) true objectives (major enemies, battleships, annoying factory planets)...

And when you win an Objective, you gain points of Glory (or sommat) that can be spent on forging alliances in Interludes.

Strategically, you need to win a galaxy: the GM puts out a galactic map at the beginning of the game, and you need to take locations, sector by sector. He plays the Enemy, and the potential allies, while the players control thier Characters and Allies (if you control a character, someone else controls your personal Ally).

There's some kind of formula for determining how much Enemy Presence there is in a given location: distance from the Core lowers it.

Imagine Risk meets Story-Games by way of Gurren Lagaan.

4.) How does your setting (or lack thereof) reinforce what your game is about?
I have next to no idea. Any suggestions? I'd like to have a transhuman/posthuman diaspora vibe were aliens = former humans, but other than the fact that this gives the players an immediate excuse to help / demand the help of the "aliens" ("You were human once: we have common ancestors: we owe to them to help our cousins!"), I have no idea.

5.) How does the Character Creation of your game reinforce what your game is about?
I'm tempted to make a great deal of the character sheet relationship / motivation based, and have a splat/archtype system (easy to set up) but I don't know why. Certianly having straight combat stats in the vein of Reflexes / Awareness / Tech seems to me to rather miss the point of the genre, though I: having a Courage / Badass stat is right out. Perhaps a Motivation -> Fear system, where attacking a Fear yeilds... results...?Help me out with this one...

6.) What types of behaviors/styles of play does your game reward (and punish if necessary)?
Hot blood and badassery. Plain and simple. ...Possibly angst in tolerable levels?

7.) How are behaviors and styles of play rewarded or punished in your game?
You fill up the Flow meter by impressing the GM and other players: and the Flow meter is what wins you objectives. You must literally entertain or die.

8.) How are the responsibilities of narration and credibility divided in your game?
Player Intent, Initation, and Execution cannot be blocked: Effect can. Fortune in the Middle, definitely. Players describe the actions of thier characters and of the personal Allies of other characters: the GM narrates the actions of enemies and "Potential Allies," alien foes as opposed to Von Neuman robot bastards.

9.) What does your game do to command the players' attention, engagement, and participation? (i.e. What does the game do to make them care?)
The Von Neumans are perfect, cold, calculating villians. Possible quote: "Against cutting steel and icy if-then statements, our best weapon is smouldering lust and incandescent rage!"

...What if each player created and statted thier own Potential Ally race and the strength of the Potential Allies could wane, making it possible for the Vonners to decimate thm? Seeing your own personal race, the accomplished empaths known as the Ng'anda, die in droves, screaming at the pain of their brothers on the front would get your attention...

10.) What are the resolution mechanics of your game like?
Players have to get as much Flow as a group as quickly as possible, but this is done by spending dice in/risking mecha components and allies. How much daring is enough, and when does it get dumb? Probably going to end up very similar to Bliss Stage. Also: Forming Blazing Sword and blowing the holy hell out of a bad guy requires an action but is automatic at foo Flow (and I need to solve for Foo).

...Possibly the act of burning points in a Motivation will add more Flow to the system, but at the cost of making a Fear check?

11.) How do the resolution mechanics reinforce what your game is about?
Help me figure it out? Maybe making them even more bad-ass because they're getting Chumbawumba-ed ("I get knocked down...")?

12.) Do characters in your game advance? If so, how?

Objectives completed in combat go into a pool shared by the party: they can be spent, by individuals, on (for lack of a better term) Interludes. Interludes can snag you Allies, which give you additional abilities / limbs for your mecha, or improve ones you already have, or wear away at enemy Influence on an alien race or individual.

13.) How does the character advancement (or lack thereof) reinforce what your game is about?

It emulates the genre, that's for DAMN sure.

14.) What sort of product or effect do you want your game to produce in or for the players?

Unabashed, guilty-pleasure fun, people quoting TTGL (whether they realize it or not: "WHO THE HELL DO YOU THINK I AM!?") and dropped jaws.

15.) What areas of your game receive extra attention and color? Why?

The enemy, the better to hate them with. The history of Earth, so people realize the lost glory and the "They used to be human..." angle, and respond accordingly. The mecha, by contrast, are deliberately left fairly undefined, as are the nature of the lost colonies: possibly Earth/the PC homeworld is far better defined, to ground the players in culture and place.

16.) Which part of your game are you most excited about or interested in? Why?

Seeing how redicolously, suicidally audacious people get.

17.) Where does your game take the players that other games can't, don't, or won't?

Into the cockpit of a super robot.

18.) What are your publishing goals for your game?

Small print run, sell and demo at Anime cons (as opposed to gamer cons), PDF for slow trickle of sales, word-of-mouth advertising and cheap viral advertising.

19.) Who is your target audience?

Anime fans, Super-Robot fans in particular, who probably haven't gamed before. If making a reference to "Captian Garlock" or reciting "My hand holds a great POWER! It's burning GRIP tells me to DEFEAT you!" makes someone grin uncontrollably, that person is in my audience.

Thoughts on my bolded questions?

( Mmmn... may contain lyrics and romantic notions. Now fat free. )

Mmmn... I entirely blame my preoccupation with matters romantic right now on a combination of overdosing on Ori Ochi Onoe and Elven Relations; the Lust/Love post a new friend made; the fact that I haven't seen her in a year: and having just written a ren'ai game.

...I'm not sure if I want it to pass or not.