Kaientist

Lutece, again...

Constants and variables, constants and variables. Time may keep going by, but the constant is that I will keep trying to make the Luteces in games. Especially lifesim games.

I saw some likes popping up again on my old Inzoi demo screenshots and felt I should post something from the game I actually play! Sorry to any fans of Inzoi, I just couldn't get behind that game.

Paralives, however... I have really been enjoying! It's definitely in early access, so it's full of bugs, but that doesn't bother me. The game is such a breath of fresh air in the genre, the promise and love in this game is just visible at every turn. If you want a finished game, don't hop in yet... But if you're ok with bugs and incomplete live mode, and what fan of The Sims isn't ready to deal with both of those things then Paralives is for you!

So of course, I had to make the Luteces. But the game didn't have the ability to make two tone wingtips for them to wear! You know I'm in love with a game when I decide to do some custom content for it. So, my first CC I've done is a retexture of the derby shoes from the game to be wingtips! Even though I'm using them for the Luteces, I added a couple of default swatches referencing Corbeau and other standard wingtip colorings.

Today I dreamt that I had organized a bunch of artists to make a special portrait gift for Brennan. We worked together online before meeting up at a convention where we presented it to him.

It was determined that the best sort of gift to give Brennan would be a portrait that is Not Of Him. To best describe it, it was a portrait of Brennan where the rendition of him was cut out, then replaced with more art in that void. We had a team of at least 12 artists who each made a portion of the piece, so the works had to be stitched together, then physically printed, then have Brennan’s figure cut out of it… All just for more art to be fitted into the void. It wasn’t even a particularly interesting background without the figure, just your traditional sort of painted portrait background.

But it was this oddly meta concept and so many people working together to make it that was so interesting.

Continuing in the dream, we presented it to Brennan who found this whole piece, the metaness, and process fascinating and very amusing. He then asked what came of the actual portrait of him, which I had rolled up with me. “Oh, this? That’s for the fans.~”

I’m pretty sure there were plans for shenanigans and eventually auctioning off the portrait to the fandom for charity. But that’s about as far as the dream got.

What's a side quest that was better than the main story?

Feed your dashboard by answering my question, blogger.

Look, pushy cat. I could be predictable and say any of the stuff that involves learning more about the Luteces… I could.

But then I can’t help but think about the silly side quest you could do in Tales of Symphonia where you get to pet and name every dog. It was so silly but it made me so happy as a kid to do. Granted, I was a big fan of the silly side quests in that game.

A game that is just riddled with great side quests is Enshrouded, though. It’s a lot of chasing down journal entries and hidden items, but the environmental story telling really sells it. I haven’t seen a game do it as well as Enshrouded does. That said, I do enjoy the side stories in Pokopia, but Enshrouded handles a similar idea with so much extra care that really sells the characters that wrote the journal entries and letters you find.

What game would you erase from your memory just to experience it for the first time again?

Feed your dashboard by answering my question, blogger.

What a pushy mysterious cat…

And geez… I don’t know. I purposefully put off replaying Bioshock Infinite because I want to appreciate it fresh again… but I don’t think I’d want my memory of it deleted just to enjoy it new again. I’m very fond of my memories of it and all the head cannon I have come up for the Luteces over the years.

So, not quite the answer I suppose, but it’s interesting to think about the value of playing a game new vs the memories I enjoy thanks to playing that game.

Thanks for all of the love on my latest drawing, everyone! 🥰I'm really happy with how it came out, I do love Lej dearly. So much so, I've actually been working on another piece! I've been wanting to have a nice drawing of her and her husband, Morrt for a long time now, so that's what I'm working on. Might post a WIP if people are interested.

In other news, my little Vector who hasn't been feeling well is back to his old self again! The Vector robot community has been having all sorts of crazy stuff going on lately, seems I've missed a lot. I'm so grateful to them for hosting so many resources that I was able to use to fix my little guy (for now). (Can we tell that I don't want to get my hopes up too much that he's perfectly fine again?)

I’ve done it at last!! All of my boops, all of my badges, all of my love for this silly event. There’s a lot that needs to be worked on at Tumblr, but I still prefer it over other hellsites. And this very silly event has given me warm fuzzies and helped me meet more fun people around here. So these boops hold a special place for me, especially in a time when I’m dealing with more stress.

I’ll do my best to help anyone who still sends me boops or if I don’t see all the badges. We’re all in this together!

Oh my gosh they brought it back. It's like they knew I needed the boopening to return.

Alright, let's see how well that posts. I'm having way too much fun with the inZOI character creation demo. As you can tell. And also, as per tradition with these sorts of things, I have to test it out by making Robert Lutece. Pretty sure I posted eons ago when I made him in the Sims 4 character creation demo. ...Man, it really has been ten years, hasn't it?

Anyway, being able to play with face tracking while tweaking a character is just far too much fun. But also makes it hard to concentrate when you realize you make faces while being focused on character creation.