Halfway don't even wanna post art anymore after Tumblr's recent soup-brained update, but fuck it. This looks good, so you're gonna see it!

Winter is a Kariian, one of @apexulansis closed species. Decided to put a body on him after making him on a whim a year or two ago. He's an eyeless boy with a bit of amnesia. Doesn't remember who he is; not even his name. Whatever the word for "winter" or "cold" is on a given world, that becomes his alias.

i turned to face her, put on a stern face, put my hands on my hips, and said to her ‘Unacceptable.’

she then stood on the armrest and licked me full on the mouth.

You ever hear of “the Beaglerush strategy?” In the XCOM 2 beta, popular tactical Australian Beaglerush cheesed the stealth system by having a solider stand out in the breeze in order to get a free ambush on the enemy’s turn, instead of using his turn for an ambush. This counterintuitive strategy was so powerful - as it gave you all the benefits of an ambush without conceding the safety of your own turn, that the devs had to hotfix it - now the aliens will occasionally just shoot any revealed soilders. Sure, they’re out in the open, but you’re down a man, or if they're still alive, you’re down a majority of your actions for the next turn if you want to keep them that way.

The Beaglerush strategy can also be used post-sequel-release to describe Beaglerush’s approach to XCOM 2012. In a similar fashion, Beaglerush would walk his soldiers out in a line without regards to cover. To put it simply, have everyone follow the footsteps of a “leader” precisely, so that only the first movement would alert enemies (ideally). Then put everyone on overwatch incase the enemies walked into him. In a simpler fashion, one could simply... overwatch camp. To address these problems, the devs introduced Meld in Enemy Within, and turn limits in XCOM 2. But at some level, the main problem still exists.

The tactically optimal way to play the game is not the fun way to play the game.

Now, fun here is subjective, because fun is always subjective. This is best illustrated by characters of different power *cough*munchkin*cough* levels in tabletop RPGs, where the fun of one or more player(s) goes against the fun of the others. But while Beaglerush can stand slow and cautious gameplay, I cannot. I play pyro in TF2, and while I hate to admit it, I need constant aggression to survive (and die). I burned out on XCOM 2012 after 300+ hours due to trying to emulate his tactics. (I burned out on XCOM 2 after 300+ hours, 200+ of which were in character creation). 

And while fun is one casualty of min-maxing, there is another - the time spent. Obviously, the Beaglerush strategy of XCOM 2012 is a good example. But I’m sure Beaglerush himself knows his limits and restrains himself, as in a recent twitter thread about his wariness of Phoenix Point’s first person aim system, he considered how much time in game would be spent finagling with a crosshair.

(Source: https://twitter.com/beaglerush/status/1141129847525085184 )

Most of the people who grew up with videogames can now afford multiple titles, but can no longer spend seemingly endless hours perfecting a game’s mechanics, systems, or number crunches. I’ll vouch for a game that respects your time, and yet... I still want to achieve peak performance. 

I spent a whole afternoon going through Super Robot Wars OG: The Moon Dwellers, Space Stage 7. Simply put, the stage has a secret and a gimmick. The secret is that if you defeat all the enemies, you get a powerful item. The gimmick is that, if all your units aren’t back at a specific point by the end of your 5th turn, you lose. The problem is at this point your resources are limited, and your base lineup of units doesn’t quite have the speed to get in range of all the enemies, kill them with counter attacks, and get back all in 5 turns. Unless, of course, you switch pilots and teams around. I counted squares. I did the math. I found out you needed 2 eight movement units with “Raid” and 1 seven movement unit with “Accel.” With enough tinkering, I had my lineup. I botched it the first time, and immediately reloaded the save, but I got it soon enough.

The Kicker? When the last unit is destroyed, you get a victory then and there. No need to retreat back. I could have done it with my base lineup.

Was it worth it? All that time spent?

...