DLC lately have been seeing a decline in quality. Many have noticed that lots of DLC have been just skin packs, or highly hated by the community. As James Thomas writes on the Cultured Vultures, "Many times I have found myself shaking my head at the sheer cheek of some of the gaming companies that charge you £10 just to buy an additional outfit for your character to use in-game. As anyone who knows me can attest, they are constantly reminded by me that I genuinely hate that aspect of the gaming industry today." Some of these DLC don't only do that but make the game actively worse. [caption id="" align="alignnone" width="965"] This DLC is $20 without sale which is half of the game's cost.[/caption] That does not mean we need to lose our hope for DLC done right. There are instances where downloadable content has successfully enhanced games and provided meaningful additions that resonate with players. When DLC is thoughtfully developed and offers substantial content, it can greatly enrich the gaming experience. DLC done…

There is something different about Eastern storytelling. Someone who doesn't watch anime or read Eastern literature might not notice at first glance. This doesn't stop there it can be seen in many games, especially JRPGs.   Plot, Plot, Plot Western storytelling is obsessed with progressing the plot as fast as possible. As if the only way a reader can be enjoyed or can take something away from the story is if something happens. The important difference to compare the two is how they handle conflict. While Western storytelling often focuses on external conflicts and the resolution of those conflicts, Eastern storytelling places a significant emphasis on internal conflicts and the personal growth of characters. In an article by Kim Yoonmi (김윤미), she highlights that "Unlike most 3-act and 5-act European stories, it[Eastern storytelling] heavily is based in self-realization, self-actualization, and self-development. Anything short of this in this story type are usually pretenders. It also often thinks of time itself as a circle." Moreover, Eastern storytelling tends to embrace ambiguity and open-endedness. It leaves room for…

I had fun recently remaking my drawing of Mount Fuji but now in four seasons. This was done in Illustrator.   And as always here is the PDF version. Fuji_FourSeasons

Co-op games are a more underground type of multiplayer experience nowadays. Especially with the advent of the internet, couch co-op games lost their advantage of only needing one copy to play. The internet did revolutionize multiplayer though as each player had their own screen and it allowed for a more detailed (and secret) multiplayer experience. As MakeUseOf puts it, "it is much more difficult for developers to make a game that has more than 30FPS, high-resolution graphics, expansive content, and includes split-screen... it is much more financially beneficial to developers, publishers, and console manufacturers if they don't include a feature that allows you and your friends to play with each other on the same console." Some games add non-split-screen multiplayer as an afterthought and one of those games seems to be Risk of Rain 2. The problems with multiplayer in Risk of Rain 2 highlight the generic problems with co-op multiplayer games. Slapped in Modes Lots of single-player games in the current era have slapped in multiplayer modes. These are commonly unbalanced or do not…

I'm sure many have heard the famous phrase, "Those video games are going to rot your brain." A famous argument for why people should play fewer video games. But is that argument baseless? Well, many have turned out for the worse with video game addiction. As the APA puts it, "research demonstrates a consistent relation between violent video game use and increases in aggressive behavior, aggressive cognitions, and aggressive affect, and decreases in prosocial behavior, empathy and sensitivity to aggression," but it is important to recognize that this is not the only thing videos games can do. Video games can instead be an incredibly powerful tool for education: helping to develop critical thinking skills, foster creativity, and even teach social skills. And these benefits aren't just limited to educational games - even popular games like Minecraft can have educational value. Critical Thinking in Video Games Many games require players to analyze situations, make decisions, and other problem-solving skills. This helps to develop those abilities and encourages players to think critically about the choices they make.…

A few days ago the Nintendo eShop for the WiiU and 3DS closed permanently. But that does not mean that the 3ds is a brick, far from it. Enter homebrewing.   Homebrewing Homebrewing is very simple on the 3ds, in fact, one of the most simple consoles to soft mod. But you may not know what homebrewing is. Homebrewing can be defined as cracking through a system's security in such a way that allows you to execute custom code. This typically refers to gaming consoles as personal computers and most other computational devices allow you to run custom code anyways. What of it? You might be wondering, okay, I can run custom code on my 3ds easily, but what is the point? The point of homebrewing your 3ds is that it allows you to do things that were previously impossible or restricted by Nintendo's proprietary software. The 3ds can handle emulators for some more classic games like GBA, NES, and SNES. You can also install custom themes and back up your game saves. One of…

and here is the original I based the vector on. PDF Version

ChatGPT has been really popular lately. After it came out many have worried that it may replace a lot of jobs (like writing articles like this one) but luckily there have been a lot of AI detection services going around and generally, ChatGPT writes really stiffly. That does not mean that you can't use ChatGPT to help you in your next creative project.   What is ChatGPT? ChatGPT is an AI text generator that is trained to understand and respond using human-like text. This uses data across the internet so it has references and knowledge of almost everything before 2021. This is due to the fact that ChatGPT has read through the entirety of Wikipedia and a lot of other major sources like stack exchange. Coming up with topics ChatGPT is pretty smart and you can ask it to come up with topics for you. You can also give it previous information like other things you have written. While not all of these ideas might not be in your interest, there might be a few…

Factory-style games are renowned for their addictive gameplay. These types of games typically involve starting with nothing, then building up to a factory that builds things millions of times faster than you can do by hand. But the main problem that happens with them is that you start at 9 am, build a few things, look up, and it's 8 am! How does this happen? The core of the game lies in its game loops, which are defined as the parts of the game that make up the central gameplay experience.   The Game Loop A game loop is defined as the parts of a game that make up the core of the game. An example of a gameplay loop would be in Pacman, you try to gather all the dots in a stage while avoiding the ghosts. There can be more than one game loop in a game and games that are more complex typically have more than simpler games. A popular staple of the factory-type game is Factorio. The game loop in Factorio…

iTunes is a terrible program. If you haven't tried to use it in the last few years, let's say it might as well have never been updated. While the Apple Music program proceeds it on macOS and iOS, Windows and Linux are left picking up a scrap of an unusable program. That's where Cider comes in. Cider is an open-source version of Apple Music that works on all desktop platforms. It has the ability to load in your own plugins and has a nice shiny UI to boot. [caption id="attachment_163" align="alignnone" width="405"] A screenshot of Cider's UI[/caption] Features Cider has a lot of the missing features from Apple Music that iTunes never had. Excluding those, Cider has the following features. Podcasts Cider combines the features of Apple Music with the Podcast App, allowing you to listen to podcasts in the same application that you listen to your music. Just like the podcast app, Cider lets you download podcasts and listen to them offline if you would prefer. Remote The feature is currently in beta, but…