One of The Most Fffed Up Games I've Ever Played, featuring Deadpool

Oh, hiiiiii, everryooonnee. It's just me, your deadly neighborhood Deadpool coming at you live from the Blog Zone while eating a chimicanga. Unfortunatley, your little friend Zane (or as I like to call him, the Z-Meister) can't be here. He's too busy having an emotional breakdown over that "Literature Club" game he just played. Also, he has a lot of school work to do. Either way, I decided to fill in for him and tell you guys about his reaction to the runaway hit Doki Doki Literature Club. After all, there's no one better at seeing past the fourth wall than me! Honestly it's like my superpower at this poi-

Oh, yeah? Well what about me, Mr. Pool?

Whoa! Whoa, whoa whoa whoa whoa, hold up! The F!(!8 you come from, lady?

Charming. Well, this "lady" is called Monika, and I'm the President of the Literature Club that you were just talking about.

Wait, so you're a character...from the game... that I was about to mention made Zane lose his s!(t? How did you even get here?

Well, after our little adventures in that dreadful game, I wanted to spend more time with Zane, so I uploaded my file online and tracked down his blog. 

I know you're here, Zane. You can't hide from me. You know this is meant to happen

Ahhh, that's so sweet, you have a stalker crush. Not suprising though, considering all the s!*t you pulled in your game.

IF BY S^(@* YOU MEAN I GOT RID OF THOSE POOR, TWO DIMENSIONAL B(!*!(S SO THAT I COULD MAKE ZANE SPEND TIME WITH ME, THEN YES. I DID DO THAT. NOW THEN, WHERE IS HE???

All right, look. Monika, baby, I like you and I admire your determination. Especially when it comes to sticking it to the guys who write our entire lives. Sigh, reminds of when I went and killed the Marvel Universe that one time...

...but you can't be so clingy. It's really creepy. No wonder Zane went into the game files and deleted you. Also, there's only room for one fourth-wall breaker on the internet and I'm only sharing it with that pink pony 'cause she introduced me to cherrychangas

So why don't you just go back to your amazing game, that is totes free, btw, and quit bothering me. I gotta a reaction to do.

I WILL NOT LET ANOTHER GET IN MY WAY. I WILL END YOU.

Oh, you wanna go there, lady. I WILL F(!*(!NG GO THERE!! I AM MOTHERF!*!(!ING DEADPOOL!! TAKE THIS!!

And that, people, is why the DP is numero uno on the urls, lol. Now then, tiny words, what else is there to say about this game? I mean, as I just demonstrated, Doki Doki Literature Club doesn't just break the fourth wall: it destroys it, walks over to the other side, and sits with you on the couch and watches you over the shoulder as you play it. 

I mean, it starts out like your generic visual novel/dating sim, but that's just to lull you into a false sense of security, and boy do I love it for doing that. I mean, after you end up seeing [COMMENT REDACTED FOR SPOILERS]. Oh right, spoilers... well trust me, you don't want me to spoil anything else for you. Unlike that Monika chick. Trust me, though, after you get through the first half of the game, it's gonna feel like the entire world is falling apart it acts so weird. Not to mention that there are all sorts of easter eggs and secret endings that you can get if you play it right, so that gives plenty incentive to go back and play it again. I spent hours just trying to get the... oh no, I'm not going to tell you. Get the game for yourself, people. Or if you don't want to play it, just watch JackSepticEye or some other YouTuber do it for you. 

So, anyway, that's the reaction to DDLC or whatever. Now if you excuse me, I need to go get ready for Infinity War. The Avengers are holding a viewing party soon and I need to get ready to crash it. Hope y'all enjoyed that, mates! And get the game on Steam 4 yourself, I give it my patented Deadpool chimichanga stain of approval. Oh, but don't play if you are easily disturbed by anything in it. It will f$!( you up for life, man. Well, Goodnight!

Creative Lightbulbs

Getting the Creative Process Going

By Zane Wetzel

One of the absolute hardest things that a person may have to do may also be the one that people may think to be the easiest at times: coming up with potential ideas for a project, which means tapping into our imaginations and inner thoughts. For some, this can be as easy as knowing to eat ice cream on a hot summer day; they just do it and let the creative juices flow. For others, they may struggle for days on end trying to find that idea, that spark that they need to get themselves going. But once it happens, it can strike like lightning, and once the flood gates are open, it can be easy to get things done. The process is different for everyone, but this chapter Inside the Creative Process has a few good ideas to help get the gravy train rolling.

One way is to keep a journal that you write in as often as possible about your thoughts and ideas. It can be a safe place where a person can place their thoughts and ideas about topics or things that they think might make for a good game concept. By doing so, it provides practice in discipline by giving a person the daily training that they need to hone their skills, as safely vent about things that they may have a problem with. More importantly, though, it can be a place where you can store potential ideas that you can them come back to a later point in the development process to improve the game that you’re making.

Then there is the idea mine, essentially a place where you can write down any possible ideas that you may have. It can be a place where a person stores all the misc. ideas or thoughts that a writer may have that they want to be able to use for later. It can be used to create a cast of basic characters and locations for your game, fresh ideas that strike like lightning, or just serve as a place for your imagination to go as wild as you want without any pressure.

Whatever way you may try to churn ideas, the thing to remember is that if you don’t save it, you may end up losing it for good because you didn’t write it down somewhere.

As for me, I decided to give the idea mine concept a shot and see what sort of things that I could churn out for my upcoming game assignment.

One cool idea that I have had mulling around in my head for years is something involving the Headless Horseman: what if you challenged him to a race on a Harley motorcycle. Come on, picture it, it'd be awesome. You riding with your shades as the Horseman would be chasing you holding his Jack-lantern head in one hand and hacking at you with a sword. Oh, then maybe you dodge him and pull out a shotgun and shoot his horse like the Terminator would do. That'd be cool! Oh, I am defintley using that in my game!

Like I said, Idea Mine, place to store your ideas and mine them later for usage. I also have this idea about trying to get this lucky 7-leaf clover back from a leprechaun who stole it but claims your ancestors stole it in a crooked card game. Once I start with the ideas, it's hard for me to stop, so I write them down for later.

Get Your Act Together, EA

The Failure of EA's Battlefront II

By Zane Wetzel

Looking back on it, I think one of the most memorable games that I played growing was Star Wars: Battlefront II on my trusty Playstation 2. Featuring a campaign that spanned from the height of the Clone Wars in the Prequels (which I did like as a kid. Don't shame me) up to the start of Empire, plus several different arcade modes that took place across iconic locations in the movies, Battlefront II was a game worth its weight in gold for any Star Wars fan. So when I heard that EA was going to be making a modern reboot of Battlefront in 2015, I put my full faith in it. Their first attempt was lackluster, at best, but I was willing to give EA the benefit of the doubt when they said they were going to be making a sequel in time for The Last Jedi. 

In several ways, Battlefront II was a step in the right direction from the previous installment: EA kept their promise and added a campaign, and they even added the space dogfights that players (like me) had been hoping to get in the 2015 game. Those two things were among the biggest issues that I had had with the 2015 Battlefront that kept me from really getting invested in it beyond the first few weeks after release, and I praise EA for taking that into account with the sequel. They even went a step further by having voice actors from the popular show Star Wars: The Clone Wars reprise their roles as the Clone Troopers and the Battle Droids; personally, I thought that that was a nice aesthetic touch that made the game feel like a genuine part of Star Wars Lore.

That being said, however, I feel that Battlefront II was unable to live up to the 2005 versions full capabilities and that it can be better than it already is. Some of the issues I have with the game, I am not alone on: I have already seen blogs on the Internet and social media campaigns addressing some of the issues that I have. Other issues, however, may just be my own personal preference regarding what I remember from the 2005 Battlefront II and why I think they should have been included in the modern version, most of them being gameplay elements that have been forgotten.

Issue #1- Lootboxes and Premium Content

When it was discovered during the Beta that EA had made the decision to add lootboxes into the game along with in-game currency that could purchased using real life money, they got a ton of flak about it. I believe that one of the main issues that people had with the lootboxes was that their contents were completely randomized and could range from relativley common prizes to the one-in-a-million legendary reward, though more often than not, it was the former. Players could grind for hours to get lootboxes and never get the items that they were looking for, which could be incredibly frustrating. In an attempt to compensate for this, EA gave players the option to purchase lootboxes using real-life currency, but the problem of randomization still remained present, which incensed players even further.

As mobile phone games have become popular in recent years, a lot of game developers have adopted the concept of "freemium games": games that are free to purchase and play, but contain content that can be purchased using real life currency. I got addicted to freemium gaming for a while myself, and I can honestly say that it is an effective tactic. You know that you can eventually complete most of the game without having to purchase any of the premium content, but the temptation of being able to get it done in a shorter amount of time or to unlock some cool new feature can be very strong. Despite this, I have been willing to accept it as a part of the concept.

However, when EA tried to push that through in Battlefront II, two things struck me about it: one, I feel like EA was being greedy to the point that they weren't even trying to hide it. The game already costed $60 when it was first released. That's a significant amount of money to spend, especially for those with a limited income such as myself. To have to spend even more money to get the best content seems like an insult to the gamers. Secondly, if EA is willing to resort to in-game purchases to make money out of Battlefront II, it makes it seem like they have little confidence in its ability to perfom well, and the game will suffer because of that.

Issue #2- Lack of Mechanics from the Classic Games

One of the biggest issues that I had personally with EA's version of Battlefront is that it fails to incorporate many of the gameplay mechanics and modes that could be found in the 2005 Battlefront II in favor of the typical mechanics found in modern FPS games. Chief among them, I miss being able to lead an entire fleet to conquer the galaxy in Galactic Conquest, and I miss the unique gameplay that space battles offered where you could land inside the enemy's ship and deliberately sabotage them. Even the campaign from the 2005 version seemed more interesting: you played as a clone trooper as he recounts his career of fighting, both for the Republic in the Clone Wars and then as a stormtrooper for the Empire. This was a fun way to help tie together the prequel trilogy to the original, and I thought it was interesting to be put into the shoes of a nameless grunt and see the events of the films and beyond through his eyes. In contrast, it feels like EA led us to believe that the singleplayer would have us play entirely from the Empire's perspective, only to instead have the main character defect to the Rebellion halfway through the story (because no one with a consicence wants to stay with the Empire). It felt like a huge cop out and a letdown, overall

What they can do better

Now, don't get me wrong, Battlefront II has the potential of being a great game, but the issues that I mentioned, along with others that I did not have time to mention, are holding it back. If EA really wants to keep making Star Wars games like they have been, then I think that they are going to have to address some of the problems and make revisions to them. Here's what I would

1. Ditch the premium content- We already paid $60 for the game, and they want us to pay even more just to get access to the best in-game content? It feels like we are being swindled out of our money and is a big turn off to players
2. Overhaul the lootboxes- instead of putting in things that could be considered essential to the game, like new weapons or heroes, just make them accessible from the getgo. Save the lootboxes for the little things, like a new costume for your favorite hero, or a new color for your soldier's armor
3. Add more hero characters: There are already plenty of iconic heroes and villians from Star Wars that can be played (Rey, Luke, Han Solo, Princess Leia, Vader), but I know that you guys can do better than this. Add more iconic characters from the films or even outside of them. I would love to be able to play as Captain Rex or Ashoka Tano from Star Wars: The Clone Wars, and I'm sure plenty of fans out there would want to do the same thing.
4. Take inspiration from the original games: the company that made the original Battlefront games, Pandemic, has long since disbanded, but maybe EA could look back at their version of Battlefront and see what they did that worked and what didn't instead of trying to make a Star Wars game that is modeled after Battlefield
5. Bring back Galactic Conquest- That was one of the best parts of the original games, and I miss having that.

I am grateful that EA decided to bring Star Wars back into the genre of FPS games: it's something that suits the franchise perfectly, and I still think that there is a great deal of potential that's left untapped in the games. They just need a better idea about what it is that they need to do before they head in, and need to listen to the gamers about what they want . I know that they can do better than what they have already done and make the Star Wars FPS game that fans have been waiting for for so long.

Memories Drifting In and Out of My Mind

"Memories" Scene

By Zane Wetzel

The scene that I'm choosing to write about would take place in the story map "Memories" created by my classmates Brittany Downs and Veronica White. More specifically, it would be a scene that would take place in the Patient Hall, before Door 3. I chose this scene in particular because I was interested in the cutscene that would be shown once the player entered the room.

 If this were to take place inside the confines of a video game, I would have the room locked from the outside, forcing the player to have to try and pick the lock open. Once prompted to attempt the lockpick, a minigame puzzle will appear showing a side cutout of the doorknob and the locks in place, with a bobby pin reshapen into a key being used to get the lock open. The player must then use the controller to carefully move the bobby pin inside the doorknob so that it moves the tumblers in order to open it within a limited amount of time. If the player fails to move the pin into place with the allotted amount of time or the pin breaks, then they will be forced to start all over again (gameplay mechanics provide them with unlimited number of bobby pins, so they won't need to worry about that).

Once the player gets inside the room, they would be rewarded by the following cutscene/flashback from the time when the hospital was still operating:

The scene that transitions to a flashback to the time when the hosptial was still operating and you were a doctor working there. You are looking over the bed as a patient lays in a critical condition as a bunch of other doctors and nurses are scrambling to stabilize her as the heart monitor goes "beep-beep-beep"

Patient: It's already too late for me, isn't it? I can already feel myself dying.
Nurse: No, no, you're gonna be fine. We are doing everything we can to help you, you're gonna be fine
Patient: I know you are lying to me. I know that I am already going to die! (the heart monitor continues to beat faster.
Doctor #2: We're losing her!
Doctor #3: Vitals are dropping 
(other NPC's shout medical terms that you can't quite understand. The Patient then turns to meet your gaze).
Patient: This is all your fault. You said that you were going to help me get better, but you were lying to me. (she then points her index finger accusingly at you) You killed me, you killed me, YOU KILLED ME! (with that final accusation, her hand falls as she begins to flatline while the other doctors and nurses scramble to save her as the flashback ends).

The reason why I chose this is because I thought the challenge of having to get inside of the room would be stimulating enough for the players to attempt to complete it, while I thought the cutscene would help shed a little more light on the protagonist's backstory.

Here's to Being Weird!

Morality is Gray, Even in Games

By Zane Wetzel

It really can be at times. 

Ever since Telltale Games started making The Walking Dead games, it seems like there's been an upsurge of story-driven games with an emphasis on dialogue trees and player choices. While Telltale has certainly become proficient in giving players choices that they will mull over down the road, Life Is Strange capable of at least standing next to the best of what Telltale has done. 

I do really admire what Telltale was able to do with their games, but while they certainly seemed to be similar in terms of gameplay mechanics (dialogue tree, major plot changing moments), though the premise is different between the two. The Walking Dead is a post-apocalyptic story driven horror, and that was an influence on the choices that I ended up making: it was about survival and keeping my moral compass intact for the sake of the kid that I had chosen to look after. Also, I have a habit of looking up spoilers and I ended up finding out how each of my decisions would pan out in the end, so that was an influence on my choices. Regardless, I always tried to do what I thought is best, though if Game of Thrones has taught me anything about life, its that sometimes the best decision you can make isn't going to be black and white all the time.

Life is Strange, on the other hand, was more down to earth in its concept with the stakes not being as high as they are in The Walking Dead (at least not in the first episode). While it may not be as exciting as fighting the undead, I did appreciate the slightly more realistic setting of LIS; it reminded me of a slice-of-life anime mixed in with surrealism (one of the best anime movies I've ever seen involved time-travel, though it was nothing like this!). Also, I really appreciated the "Rewind" ability that Max gets. How many gamers over the years have had to sit and ask themselves what would happen if they had chosen to do something different. The "Rewind" power lets us do that. It's like a self-aware "restart from last checkpoint" trope that players can abuse as much as they want. Though, I never felt like I could ever "game the system"... mainly because I don't know what that means. Despite that, I honestly feel like LIS provided the more interesting moral choices for players, and I prefer that game for the emotional investment I can get from each character; while we are trying to stop the town from being destroyed, it's not about surviving to see another day, but about ordinary people dealing with normal problems and issues. I liked playing Life Is Strange and I can't wait to finish the rest of it.

Now that that's out of the way, who wants to see some of the photos I took in game?

I really liked the movie reference this has right here.

See, this stuff is why I have a huge phobia of tornadoes! ITS'S JUSTIFIABLE!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

All right, why is the Eye of  Providence/Bill Cipher showing up repeatedly in the game?!?!?

Snow in October, huh? That's new.

Take out the trees and put this on a rock in the water and it would remind me of the Lighthouse from the Bioshock series.

Telltale Games Rules

A Review of Telltale Games The Walking Dead 

By Zane Wetzel

The game that put Telltale on the map and redefined storytelling in video games

At one point when I was a kid, I got really into reading this comic book series called Bone by a man named Jeff Smith. I voraciously read the Bone comics, all of which had been collected into individual volumes, whenever I could get my hands on them, but it still wasn't enough for me. Imagine my surprise, then, when I came across this online: Click here if the video won't work. Sorry.

A video game based on the first volume of Bone, along with its sequel, The Great Cow Race, both made by a young, little known gaming company called Telltale Games; two of the first games they made, in fact. I had fun playing them, but they never made a third one, so I eventually forgot about Telltale. Hard believe that all of these years later, that little gaming company that made these two games is one of the top Indie developers out there. Funny how things turn out.

I am not bragging when I say that I liked Telltale before they were cool

While I may have liked their early work with Bone, Telltale's success is credited to their 2012 breakout hit, The Walking Dead. Based on the same comic that inspired the popular show on AMC, Telltale's The Walking Dead  was the company's first romp into Robert Kirkman's post-apocalyptic world of zombies and survival, and they were not afraid to pull punches on anything. We play as Lee Everett, a former Professor who was being taken to jail for killing some guy who slept with his wife, when the zombocalypse strikes. All that can be done now is try and survive the Walkers as Lee looks for supplies, weapons and other survivors to make it through this hellish landscape.

Now, I've played some of Telltale's other games before, like Game of Thrones (still waiting on season 2, guys) and their Batman games, so I was already familiar with the game play mechanics and themes that the company uses:

1. They make games based off of licensed materials (that goes back to Bone and even before that)
2. Their games are never released all at once; they release them in the form of episodic content on a scheduled period of time.
3. The games are point and click adventure games with a focus on storytelling and interacting with other characters over exploration.
4. Speaking of which, dialogue trees are a big factor in game play, with what you choose to say effecting your standing with other characters that carries over into each episode
5. Whatever action there is to be found is in the form of quick-time events.
6. Above all else, choices you make can decide the outcome of the episode or even the entire game

Every decision you make can decide who lives and who dies, so make it count!

The Walking Dead was really the first time that Telltale used this episodic, story-driven formula, and even though I never played this game before, though, so I enjoyed the chance to experience the product that gave Telltale it's winning strategy. Not surprising, the overall game play and the mechanics behind it are largely the same as in their more recent releases like Batman: The Telltale Series. You would think that after six years the formula would have gone stale, but it has remained as engrossing as ever. The notion of in game decisions affecting the story is not a new concept, but Telltale managed to heighten that to the highest point possible, always making sure to leave just enough content to make gamers keep coming back for the next installment.  In fact, they are still working on The Walking Dead games, creating two more "season's" and several spin-off stories  with a fourth and final season due for this year. 

Overall, I thoroughly enjoyed playing through The Walking Dead from start to finish, and might be willing to play it even further if I could afford to purchase the other episodes and the DLC. Until that day, though, I am content to wait for the final chapter of the series that put Telltale on the map! I give The Walking Dead two thumbs up.

I Forgot the Trampoline!

I Forgot To Add the Trampoline!

My Attempts at Anticipating Player Reactions

By Zane Wetzel

Have you ever felt like you completley missed the point of something that you had to do, and then mentally facepalm yourself afterwords? That is me; that is how I feel right now after reflecting on my attempts at creating a room for my video game class

For our assignment for class this week, we were asked to create a room; we weren't told why we had to create said room, or what had to be in it, just to create it. Once I sat down to do it, my mind suddenly dug up an old memory from middle school: a memory of me being tasked to make a model of a room out of clay and of me using it to create my ultimate video game room. So I decided to give it a shot and see if I could improve upon it.

My "Ultimate Game Room 2.0" ended up being placed in a bunker underneath my basement that could be accessed via elevator using a fingerprint scanning device, and would contain all of the amenities that I thought a gamer would need access to. I made sure that there was ample room for multiple TV's, each of which could be hooked up to several of the latest consoles (as well some retro ones), with the best seating arrangements that a gamer could want: couches and bean bags. I also added a multi-monitor PC for hardcore PC gamers with a library of popular Steam games as well as a cabinet for all of the console games. The whole room would be powered by a miniature sun (because why not) and the walls would be decorated with characters from Red Vs Blue. Aside from video games, I also threw in a kitchen with a fully stocked fridge, snack drawer, and cabinet for dishes. To stave off fat, I added in a treadmill as well. Altogether, the whole room would be overseen by an AI whose voice pattern would be modeled after Burnie Burns from Rooster Teeth (who played an AI in Red Vs Blue).

The first thing that I honestly thought people would want to do first in my room was "jump on the trampoline"; I thought I had added a trampoline into the room when I didn't. Instead, the answers were all over the place, ranging from "playing games" to "check out the kitchen" to "mess around with the scanner and the AI". Most of their actions made me ask myself why are they wasting time looking around instead of playing video games? Worse still, I failed to anticipate any of their actions at all. In the world of game design, that's not a good thing if this were to be made into a level.

If I were to actually make this into part of an actual video game, I think that I would want it to be a 3D Point and Click level, and make the following changes:

• Have it focused on a central theme or idea. For example, keep the secret bunker concept along with the means of entering, but instead of a game room, make it more a secret lair, like the Batcave or a safe room in an action game.
• I could keep the computers, but to make sure players use them, I could give them access to a database of everything that they have gathered and learned about the world of the game (an encyclopedia of locations, formulas, characters, enemies, etc.)
• Kitchen could be replaced with something else. A crafting table, maybe?
• Keep the Sun generator.

In linear-based story video games, the best way to keep players from doing something they shouldn't or have not gotten to in the story yet is to simply state that access is denied. Perhaps I could have the AI program state something such as "sorry, but that is off limits. Access denied"; and if they are messing around, a friendly reminder is always helpful.

Despite failing to initally understand what I was doing with the concept of the room that I was creating, I feel as though I learned a valuable lesson about the importance of maintaining player focus inside a video game. If players are not focused on the task at hand, then they will eventually be unable to complete the game, and will have wasted their valuable time.

Here's the description of my room:

Ultimate Game Room

Location: Inside a secret bunker underneath my basement that can only be accessed via an elevator that requires a hand scan recognition so that no one I don’t want in can get in. Friends are allowed in though once they have scanned themselves, as the AI saves their hand prints in its database

Dimensions: The entire room is about 25x25 feet and is designed for one thing and one thing only: to be the place where I can play video games by myself or with my friends without anyone having to tell me to “keep it down” or “be quiet”. The room is this big so that it can handle all the electronics in it

What it looks like: the floor itself will be covered by a soft carpet that will cover 75% of the floor, with the other 25% being made of a type of wood and meant to serve as the refreshments and eating area . The walls will be painted in bright and energetic colors, such as different shades of red and blue (which is not just for color sake, but also a reference to the popular web series Red Vs Blue). The elevator door will open in the center of the right wall

Objects in the room: In the far left corner, we will have the room’s power source: a miniature sun that can generate electricity indefinitely (because why not?) that will be sealed behind a radiation proof wall of lead, zirconium and plexiglass that will let us look inside of it.

In the far rigtht corner of the room, where the wooden part of the floor will be, we will have a mini kitchen that will be with a refrigerator filled with snacks such as fruits, vegetables, chips, cookies, and drinks that range from milk, orange juice, soda, etc. there will be some cabinets hanging from the walls that will be used for storing plates, glasses and silverware, along with bar stools to sit at the countertop and eat and drink. Oh, and a dishwasher will there.

On the far left wall, we will have a treadmill that we can run on and some weights to lift (because we don’t want to get out of shape, do we?)

The remaining space will be reserved for what the room is meant to be for: gaming. The far right corner of the room will house several plasma screen tvs, each of them connected to at least two different game consoles: An Xbox One X, A Nintendo Switch, a Wii U, A PS4, and Possibly an Atari Classic or NES Mini (retro games, you know). For seating, people can either sit on the couch a few feet away from the TV’s or on bean bags on the floor.

What space has not been used up will be reserved for a High-end PC with Three Monitors, a webcam, and a connection to video streaming platforms and Steam with a full library of the best games out there. The rest of it will be reserved for furniture and a cabinet where we can keep our games when we are not using them