Let's Sperg JAIMAS PLAYS A TERRIBLE GAME: EXTREME MEATPUNKS FOREVER by Heather Flowers - TFW You Make James Corbett Seem Like a Good Writer by Comparison

[Coolio55]

Also huh? Toby Fox?

Toby fox composed the music for Rose of Winter, another game by pillowfight (after We Know the Devil, before Heaven Will be Mine). I'm not sure if it's as libtard propaganda-y as the others but toby had to have looked at their past work to know what he was getting into ...or maybe not? Maybe I can get him to compose for my awesome game "Hitler Wars 5: This time you don't play as Hitler and he's only vaguely referenced"
One of the tracks even appeared as a reference in DELTARUNE.

 

[Law]

This is something I've bitched about, futilely, for a while now; this appalling 'we are the good guy squad and anything we do is righteous and holy'. And the further they go, the less likely they can recant, because if they give an inch then they might have to address everything they've done.

Now this would actually be an interesting story for a game.
The characters are shallow and contradictory because they're written by a man who thinks his Twitter bio is not only an expression of his deepest self, but also who he literally is. He thinks he's written deep, compelling characters because he gave them preferred pronouns and a short, quirky sentence. For him and his friends, that's all it takes. I referred to this style of writing as being like a child trying to understand the world, but really it's more like a chatbot trying to understand the world.

 

[PuffyGroundCloud]

Is this game comparable to YIIK in terms of writing and jankiness?

 

[AMHOLIO]

https://www.rockpapershotgun.com/2019/07/04/extreme-meatpunks-forever-does-punk-better-than-any-other-recent-game/

Read this and weep.

I ain't weeping over anyone from a games journalism magazine. They never bashed beer bottles on their own or other's skulls then used the blood to decorate a shirt.

But while we're here:
The way it usually goes is that I rant at lengths about the funny and topical writing, thematic coherence, unabashedly queer content, genre-blending, and kickass soundtrack — everything that makes EMF great.



But what is often overlooked in all that, perhaps because our memories and ideas of punk are still overwhelmingly masculinist, macho and white, is what DIY meant for punks hailing from underprivileged, marginalised groups. [...] Artistic mastery, the skill-set necessary to produce “good music” was (I use past tense here, but this history is never really past us) bound up in institutions and hierarchies of power. For people whose race or gender, whose bodies and expressions, were not allowed in what the music industry imagined as “popular music”, it was less about selling out or staying free, but rather about doing it yourself or not doing it at all.

The same could be said for white kids with no fucking money, just a blue collar parent or two. This was the truth for marginalized groups in the past, but considering how many minorities you see at art college these days, its not as much the case anymore.

While it’s easy to idealise the politics of punk as having always been progressive and emancipatory, care should be taken. Especially early on, the politics of punk were both confused and sometimes spectacularly ill-considered. (The Clash’s White Riot, for example, remains one of the least considerate attempts at solidarity on record.)

Lol. Punk was and is mainly about the music and being angry and pushing boundaries and doing stupid shit. The last two are important because its still punk to make a shock song about roasting jews over a campfire as long as it only uses 3 guitar chords and is composed while high/drunk.

And the fash is called by that name, directly. There is no hiding behind an allegory here, no Half-Life’s Combine or Star Wars’s Empire. The enemies are American fascists communicating in internet troll-speak, just as obnoxious, violent, racist and sexist in the sunless alt-America of EMF as they are in the real thing.

Maybe its because I was the real fascist all along, but I don't understand why people saying completely stupid shit on the internet who still live in their parent's basements are anything to worry about.

As mentioned, every main character here is queer — there is no token straight, no surrogate for the cis gaze. And the queerness of the characters is not the polished, pink-washed “just as normal you, only with better fashion sense” gay of Queer Eye For The Straight Guy, but queercore’s militant and unrepentant “not gay as in happy, but queer as in fuck you”.

Not all gays are angry rebels. Some are fearful, others passive and going with the flow. Some act like cis hetero straight guys or gals, some are incredibly boring beige wearing office workers that watch netflix and reads books on the weekends. All of these are just as real lbgt+ as the article just described. This is only portraying one type of "queer", the ideal type for the creator, and shows a narrow view from that type of "queer". Undiverse gays in opinion and manner. And yes, there's no token gay, but lol there is a token black guy because the creator had too small of a cast to fit more than one black person in for diversity points.

I hate to belabor a very old analogy, but I wonder how well it'd go if you swapped out 'fash' for 'Jews'.

I couldn't imagine the pants shitting twitter meltdown that would happen if someone edited all the main characters to be white nazis uniform wearers and rename all the fash to "jews", complete with star of david and such. She better pray no one does when she's said how much she tries to avoid the fash co-opting her work.

Is this game comparable to YIIK in terms of writing and jankiness?

YIIK is much, much more wordy and has more polish bug wise with more in-depth mechanics. They're more comparable to both being incredibly self indulgent.

 

[NerdShamer]

All this trouble over a fucking bar fight...Won't be surprised if the cast winds up fighting the other Meatpunks after being told to chill out. I don't know why, but it feels like that kind of story.

 

[Jaimas]

Is this game comparable to YIIK in terms of writing and jankiness?

This game is not fit to hold YIIK's jockstrap. This is not because YIIK is good.
It's because I at least know what YIIK is trying to do.

The reason YIIK's narrative is as jank as it is is intentional. The big secret of the game - and also the reason the usual hipster bullshit douchenozzle crowd that fellate every single indie game that even pays basic lip-service to their ideology that comes across their desk hated it - is because YIIK, about 35% of the way or so through the game, turns into a merciless excoriation of the main character and the hipster mindset behind him. It literally lines up people like the usual suspects directly in the crosshairs and shows them, using the main character: "This asshole is you, you pricks." The game's narrative goes from being shit to ultimately about the protagonist trying to become a better person after fucking everything up.

This is a fantastic concept, but the issue is that YIIK botches the execution. In YIIK you have to sit through hours of mediocre gameplay and insufferable characterization to get to the good part, and your average person is not going to have the patience for it. The pacing is fucking awful, is the biggest issue, and during the entire trip to the good point, the protagonist is fucking insufferable. Intentionally so, yes, and it is a decent character dynamic once you get there, but you need to get there to make it work. I will respect like hell the Dev's intention behind it. It's trying to give time to build up to the proverbial fall, but is falls because YIIK puts more emphasis on faffing around than getting to the point.

And yet despite all of that, YIIK is infinitely better than Extreme Meatpunks Forever in every way. YIIK is at least functional gameplay-wise, and didn't need a "skip the fight" option because its gameplay is fundamentally broken, which fucking EMF did. YIIK's dipshit protagonist at least had a fucking character arc and worldbuilding that fucking makes sense.

 

[Capsaicin Addict]

This game is not fit to hold YIIK's jockstrap. This is not because YIIK is good.
It's because I at least know what YIIK is trying to do.

The reason YIIK's narrative is as jank as it is is intentional. The big secret of the game - and also the reason the usual hipster bullshit douchenozzle crowd that fellate every single indie game that even pays basic lip-service to their ideology that comes across their desk hated it - is because YIIK, about 35% of the way or so through the game, turns into a merciless excoriation of the main character and the hipster mindset behind him. It literally lines up people like the usual suspects directly in the crosshairs and shows them, using the main character: "This asshole is you, you pricks." The game's narrative goes from being shit to ultimately about the protagonist trying to become a better person after fucking everything up.

This is a fantastic concept, but the issue is that YIIK botches the execution. In YIIK you have to sit through hours of mediocre gameplay and insufferable characterization to get to the good part, and your average person is not going to have the patience for it. The pacing is fucking awful, is the biggest issue, and during the entire trip to the good point, the protagonist is fucking insufferable. Intentionally so, yes, and it is a decent character dynamic once you get there, but you need to get there to make it work. I will respect like hell the Dev's intention behind it. It's trying to give time to build up to the proverbial fall, but is falls because YIIK puts more emphasis on faffing around than getting to the point.

And yet despite all of that, YIIK is infinitely better than Extreme Meatpunks Forever in every way. YIIK is at least functional gameplay-wise, and didn't need a "skip the fight" option because its gameplay is fundamentally broken, which fucking EMF did. YIIK's dipshit protagonist at least had a fucking character arc and worldbuilding that fucking makes sense.

So YIIK is basically a low-budget Spec-Ops: The Line? This is not an insult, I might add.

 

[AMHOLIO]

I'm trying to get a better grasp on Ms. Flowers, & have been looking up interviews wtih her. This is what I found. Don't worry: I've been drawing and doing productive things while I listened.

First podcast.
Highlights:
A minute or two in: Heather mentions she was raised within a very religious household.
16:00: Talking about the wounds(that will not heeeeaaal) and trauma of video games that companies inflicted on games as a whole, including how nerd culture = more you consume the better you are & toxic masculinity. Does not talk as much about practices more predatory quarter practices.
21:00ish: "Video games are about domination & being on top and the struggle for power, I feel that there's a purpose to that, but it encourages you to see systems in the real world as morally right."
25:30: How on a dime the audience is towards creators. All devs have a sword of Damocles over their head waiting for the audience to turn on you. Decent thoughts. "There's a reason I don't give out my location" - a very smart thought that more internet people should follow, as usual.
33:00: Talking about game reviews and sites. Thinks that putting numbers on things like graphics, gameplay, etc, is commodifying it too much, but thinks reviews are very good and healthy for the game ecosystem. Has not yet met a reviewer they had a personal beef or anything with.
36:00: "If you're gay, you can say anything about my games." Says that definitely straights cis people can play them, but that they'll miss subtleties, eg like the mechs in EMP are a metaphor for feeling alienation in your own body when you're trans. I wonder if the trans/body disconnect is happening due to possible autism, but that's the farmer in me.
49:30: "I don't think video games are a new medium." Talks about how video games are just an extension of dice & card games.
52:00: "You can always stop playing a video game. But you can never walk away from an identity." Believes that its hard to make games that make people more empathetic towards marginalized people towards that. Life experience is cumulative.
55:00: "Who are the most forgotten about audience for games?" "Older women, I think".
1:04:00: Believes that big change cannot come from the tools the system gives you, but that we should still aim to change within those constraits if we have nothing else to do (ie vote with your wallet).


Different Podcast (I listened to both episodes she was on, neither has too much aside from just gentle talks, which is fine but I'm trying to figure out how she thinks so I can understand her work better so it's not what I focused on):
-Neurodivergent confirmed, only says depression for now
-Gamedev is her fulltime job
-big fan of webcomics
-big fan of risk of rain 2

Another podcast (no times since it didn't give me them on mobile):
-Season two brings in more people to help balance and make combat systems along with animation
-Season 2 is about making worse decisions
-the reason they look worse in season 2 is that they've been sleeping on the ground and on the run, so they look more grody.
-"I don't make empathy games. I don't make games that cis people can sit down, play for a few hours, then say 'ah I understand everything about transgenders' because games like that don't really exist." (this goes back to the interview I talked about earlier) Says she makes games for people to look back at themselves and say "oh its ok to look & be broken".
-apparently several people have identified with cass & lianna, the later is incredibly alarming
-been making games for around 6 years, age 23, probably 24 now post 2020. First in 2014 (so highschool). Graduated from college 2020, studied game development or programming from the sound of it, says she had no debt. Transitioned over her college years. Feels like she's playing a character for the first few years of transitioning, says they use the name Heather Flowers online to separate her online identity from her real one (still impressive internet skillsish).
-both the host and Heather talk about how turning off the online brain is hard and trying not to only get validation from twitter.
-used to work with "game workers unite" in L.A.
-Believes in getting a small audience that cares about you and the game, and doesn't curse you for having bugs in your game.
-"I've been ignored and pidgeoned holed for my identity (not getting on a list of games made by women for example), but no real harassments or doxing campaigns. I've been really conscious about getting doxed online. I think the things that really upsets people is when they think that things that are theirs - aren't. Like they don't care about some lady in a desert making games for herself, but they care about triple A games. Fascist are like babies, they get mad if you take away their candies."
-Talk about refusing to engage in leading questions. I'm assuming she won't read any of this and I support that.
-"There's a time and place for subtly in art, but, We live in the time of concentration camps. We live in a time of global warming. (a few other things) We live in a time of fascisim. We don't live in a time of peace so we can't be subtle."
-Says she wants to do more than just art, she wants to do things that she can't talk about on the podcast for social movements & politics (she says the later is half tonged in cheek).
-Host talks about how when she talked to people who work in the bigger games industry and are a part of "game workers unite". When asked about game dev advice on getting into game deving, they said "don't", full stop.
-Heather believes the freshest game dev voices are those not privilegded enough to pay for college. Thinks that she is incredibly priviledge to be able to do her stuff without having any debt. [Maybe I'm a tard but I think some of game development cost can be mitigated by choosing cheaper pathways to it along with diversifying, for example going for programming in general so you can work on a regular sidejob along with your gamejob]. She says be careful, don't overwork yourself, read and sign a contract before working with someone, never trust powerful men (or women or people in power she adds). It all comes to luck she believes. She believes in making the business better for people coming in. Most of this stuff I support, good on her for not all her opinions being... out there. The thing that keeps her going is kindness and people supporting each other, people lifting people up.
-"How did you come into anti-capitalist in general?" "I had friends who had the patience to tell me what was going on in the world, and saw other people getting fucked over. Right now I think I'm an anarchist. Uhhh to quote the late Ursula LeGuin - resistance and change can begin in art, in our words. We haven't always been like this, we can change. Capitalism isn't natural because we happened upon it. Because the world is bad we need to make it better."

Heather is interesting as she reminds me of my gamedev friend who also turned Antifa. Someone who is priviledged, deals with mental illness and possible neurological differences (like autism or ADHD), and tends to be swayed by the environment they occupy at that moment. There's a lot of feelings of kindness towards people on her side and towards humanity in general. The belief is honest, she genuinely thinks that bad people need to get their asses kicked to have a better world, and those assholes are the fash and the entire nebulous concept that is capitalism. There's some good gears in there, but some that just... don't add up or are working overtime and jumping too far forward. She's the type of person who came to college and saw how other people got fucked over by paying tons of money for a degree and then never getting a proper job or getting only shitty jobs instead of the promised land job high school and middle school said you would get. There are basic thoughts about it, but not an actual deep dive on it and how the economy works, how humans work, and how we can introduce socialist policies into it, just "put these in because they're the right thing to do!" It's a common thing in leftist circles I feel. I've seen right wingers do it too, anyone who's more into politics. She's surface level anti capitalist in a sense. Her heart bled hard and swayed her away from rationality in spite of her being competent at thinking things.
She says she's not neurotypical and I wouldn't be surprised if she was on the spectrum along with her anxiety (from twitter) and depression. The disconnect from the body, the hardcore interest, the black and white thinking, plus the way she speaks about certain topics gives a sense of that. We can't diagnose from our armchairs of course, but this is the farms, we make shit assumptions every day,
I'm trying to figure out what makes her writing so banal when I look and I think part of it is that she's isolated in the indie dev circle she's in with people who won't give her proper critique, not out of spite but out of fear of anyone shunning them from the group or not realizing quality and just looking to affirm their own beliefs. She's young and EMP season 1 is her first big writing project, which might also explain it. She seems to be mimicking things she thinks are good, taking pieces and cobbling them together but doing it in such a way that shows she doesn't know what she's doing rather than a stylistic choice. The switching of voices, viewpoints, tenses, and such show it. There's a conflict between 2 members of the group halfway through because that's what's supposed to happen in a narrative at this point. They get together because the narrative needs them to occupy the same space at the same time. This isn't shakespear, this is "I tried." Again, I feel bad as she'll see us and think we're dicks but we rather see improvement than everyone just tell her that her new suit looks great, emperess.

I've been up for a while so forgive me if my analysis makes no sense.

 

[Law]

So this reviewer wants Extreme Meatpunks Forever to have "unabashedly queer content", but there are currently no same-sex romantic relationships in the game. None of the characters are dating, there are no sex scenes, no one's gay married, no one even has a crush.
Fucking Mass Effect, a corporate triple A behemoth, had more "unabashedly queer content" than this pathetic "punk manifesto".

 

[AMHOLIO]

So YIIK is basically a low-budget Spec-Ops: The Line? This is not an insult, I might add.

Kinda, but like incredibly insufferable because the developer threw the ball and missed, accidentally making the main character an even BIGGER douchebag and mary sue. This, combined with the creator's questionable attitude towards critique (his previous game was full of bugs and the main characters of both games meet up and the buggy guy tells the yiik guy to never let haters get you down plus a few other things along the way).

 

[Disc]

I'll atart with this: Jaimas, can you show us how the fight starts? It's just not very clear what he does to antagonise them.

With that said, here's what I've managed to piece together so far, as far as worldbuilding goes:

The town they started in is some small hick place out in the middle of nowhere.

Despite the fact that there is literally a sports team called the Fash Collective, it's okay to act like a stereotypical asshole to the fash, at least not enough to provoke the police.

Possibly(?) killing fash will not provoke the police, though it will provoke other Fash. only attacking the sheriff's son is enough to get the police to actively seek you out.

Selling something called a blood potion, however, is perfectly legal to just sell. Whatever the fuck that is.

Killing or insulting one fash will summon literal swarms of them. Even to the middle of nowhere.

36:00: "If you're gay, you can say anything about my games." Says that definitely straights cis people can play them, but that they'll miss subtleties, eg like the mechs in EMP are a metaphor for feeling alienation in your own body when you're trans. I wonder if the trans/body disconnect is happening due to possible autism, but that's the farmer in me.

Doesn't this mean more fash are trans? or that they're killing these... closeted trans fash?

I can understand this intention, but I feel like the meatpunk manifesto makes more sense with this goal than this argument.

 

[Jaimas]

So YIIK is basically a low-budget Spec-Ops: The Line? This is not an insult, I might add.

Sort of.

The main story is that Alex (the main character) returns home after graduation to see a girl get dragged away by what seem to be aliens, and he gets a party together to figure out what happened. Alex is sympathetic, but he's unintentionally a gigantic asshole. I'm not even kidding: Alex is designed to be everything that the usual suspects hate: ignorant, racist, misogynistic, and worst of all, none of it is intending to do it directly, he's just a jerk. Again, he's intended to be a slam against other devs in the indie circuit.

What ultimately happens is that Alex quite literally watches everything get destroyed, and his own terrible behavior haunts him, as he will never get the chance to make amends for it. The moral of the story is that the universe doesn't revolve around you - you need to treasure the time you have with the people you care about while you still have that chance.

There's a few problems, of course, with the story. For one, by the time he starts becoming a better person, a lot of the people he wronged aren't around to complain about it. Worse, he's the sort of character who is remininscent of the protagonist of Return to Sleepaway Camp, where part of you still wants to see him die by the end. The main big twist is also somewhat completely undercut by something that happens later in the game, so it doesn't do it anywhere near as competently as I probably made it sound.

Like I said, good concept, shit execution.

YIIK is not a good game, and there are other games that tell this story better.

I'll atart with this: Jaimas, can you show us how the fight starts? It's just not very clear what he does to antagonise them.

With that said, here's what I've managed to piece together so far, as far as worldbuilding goes:

The town they started in is some small hick place out in the middle of nowhere.

Despite the fact that there is literally a sports team called the Fash Collective, it's okay to act like a stereotypical asshole to the fash, at least not enough to provoke the police.

Possibly(?) killing fash will not provoke the police, though it will provoke other Fash. only attacking the sheriff's son is enough to get the police to actively seek you out.

Selling something called a blood potion, however, is perfectly legal to just sell. Whatever the fuck that is.

Killing or insulting one fash will summon literal swarms of them. Even to the middle of nowhere.t.

I can't show you screenshots because the game autosaves and I'll be fucked if I'm playing that desert section again. That said, I can tell you exactly what happens in the first two chapters from beginning to end, and with a few snapshots I didn't give, and that, hopefully, will contextualize:






At the bar, Jason and Sam are watching the big game of a nebulous sport. Jason, very drunk, goes over to two fans of the opposite team who are in a less-than-good mood and antagonizes them openly in a manner fitting of football hooligans. After several lines of Jason rubbing in their face that they're losers and due to their choice of sports teams (the Fash Collective), failures at life, the two alienated sports fans prepare to hand Jason his power-bottom ass. Jason realizes he's too drunk to back up his shit-talking and literally demands Sam fights his battles for him, which Sam, being a fucking doormat, fucking does. After trying to de-escalate by telling them they don't need to do this, the sports fans just keep going, culminating with the now meme-worthy [incredibly racist joke]. Realizing Jason's mouth wrote checks that Sam's meat-fists have to cash, Sam is effectively railroaded into fighting one of them in the parking lot, and nothing is seen of the other. Sam wins and then the pair run from the cops because apparently "cops love fash." We are given no further information on this tenet.



Later, Cass and Lianna talk about setting up a Fight Club for mechs. Cass tries to refuse. Lianna pursues it until she gives in. Later that night, Brad shows up due to the flyers Lianna set up about the Fight Club. Soonafter, Sam shows up due to the same flyers. The game does not tell us what timeframe this is, so for all we know, Sam abandoned his flight from the cops to go attend a meat mech fight club. Upon meeting Lianna, Sam and her have it out after Sam accuses her of ruining his life. Before anything can come of that, Cass successfully disarms the situation with help from Brad.







While they discuss things, the Fash show up, allegedly looking for "the meatpunk group." While Cass spoke up about a "meatpunk fight club" being illegal, no other information is made available to the player as to suspect that they are doing anything amiss, so their reason for being there is unclear, especially since their number includes the guy Sam let run away earlier, and he self-evidently does not recognize Sam.

I tried to have Sam de-escalate by saying that the group was not the meatpunks, and they were just attending church services. This almost works until Lianna objects because"she's Jewish" and the Fash make a joke about assuming genders. Eventually we hit full burn as the Fash say "these [slurs] are gonna get whats coming to them." Lianna goes right into the fray and fucking fights them despite the fact that you can see in the fucking fight scene that they outnumber our heroes by over 70-to-1. After the fight we learn the vaunted HAT FASH was the son of the Sheriff.

We later learn in Chapter 3 that she fucking killed the ones she fought, HAT FASH aside.

 

[Fictional Character]

I'm trying to get a better grasp on Ms. Flowers, & have been looking up interviews wtih her. This is what I found. Don't worry: I've been drawing and doing productive things while I listened.

The first interview seems very reasonable. (I haven't listened to it, just going off of what you said.) Then when you compare it with the actual game... I guess it really is a combination of youth+the company the author keeps+limited horizons.

So this reviewer wants Extreme Meatpunks Forever to have "unabashedly queer content", but there are currently no same-sex romantic relationships in the game. None of the characters are dating, there are no sex scenes, no one's gay married, no one even has a crush.
Fucking Mass Effect, a corporate triple A behemoth, had more "unabashedly queer content" than this pathetic "punk manifesto".

They might be using the worthless academic definition of queer that's "anything disruptive of the status quo".

 

[AMHOLIO]

Doesn't this mean more fash are trans? or that they're killing these... closeted trans fash?

To be fair, Flowers thinks the world could be better if more people thought about their gender and what it means to them.

Spoiler: previous tweet

so possibly? I'm not sure about her policy on the changing of the fash. She doesn't seem to have enough life experinece to realize it.

The first interview seems very reasonable. (I haven't listened to it, just going off of what you said.) Then when you compare it with the actual game... I guess it really is a combination of youth+the company the author keeps+limited horizons.

Aside from their promotion of communism, it pretty much is. I expected to find batshit somewhere, but it seems like Flowers is less an ideas person and more of a "go with the flow" person. They mostly communicate through other's ideas, and it kinda sucks because I think she could grow as a writer and a person but isn't going to as long as she keeps a confrontational pained atttude and a asspatting community full of insecure scared people around her. (Note: being insecure isn't bad, its how you deal with it. This post touched me.)

The above tweet also had someone drawing a similar conclusion:

 

[Lord of the Large Pants]

To be fair, Flowers thinks the world could be better if more people thought about their gender and what it means to them.

Spoiler: previous tweet

View attachment 1870413
View attachment 1870414
so possibly? I'm not sure about her policy on the changing of the fash. She doesn't seem to have enough life experinece to realize it.

Aside from their promotion of communism, it pretty much is. I expected to find batshit somewhere, but it seems like Flowers is less an ideas person and more of a "go with the flow" person. They mostly communicate through other's ideas, and it kinda sucks because I think she could grow as a writer and a person but isn't going to as long as she keeps a confrontational pained atttude and a asspatting community full of insecure scared people around her. (Note: being insecure isn't bad, its how you deal with it. This post touched me.)

The above tweet also had someone drawing a similar conclusion:
View attachment 1870410

While still extremely autistic, this is oddly thoughtful and reflective compared to the more common dogmatic style of troonism. Much more so than the content of the game.

 

[AMHOLIO]

While still extremely autistic, this is oddly thoughtful and reflective compared to the more common dogmatic style of troonism. Much more so than the content of the game.

It is and it's such a stark contrast to the cows we see on the daily. Flowers has part of my respect because they do give enough thought to pick what makes sense to her (to HER not us) and live by it. She did a kickstarter to fund the game and made sure everyone was paid, and she continues to make microgames for fun voted on by her patreons, keeping her promise to them. Heather has thoughts. I mildly respect her when its not about her politics or her game.

I would love to be pleasantly surprised by her and see her one day drift away from antifa, but as long as she feels insecure and unsafe and clings on to her and her friend's idenities they put on to hide themselves, she won't change. Hell, she probably will get worse if positive response emboldens her enough.

 

[Memento Malum]

Can I just say that "Hat Fash" is way more punk of an aesthetic than any of the allegedly punk main characters.

 

[JongleJingle]

Okay, writefaggot powers, HENSHIN!

*Overdone anime transformation here*

DEAR GOD THERE'S SO MUCH SHIT TO WAFT THROUGH. I'll just do the gameplay fix for now; I'll probably do something for worldbuilding and characters later once my brain is ready to handle the Twitter Insert scum.

Spoiler: Gameplay, the JongleJingle way

This is the first cardinal sin this game has committed. With the idea of FUCKING BIOMECHANICAL SUITS fighting shit, that sounds like a wet dream to me! So obviously, a change of gameplay is needed because Atari 2600 style gameplay is REALLY NOT GONNA WORK HERE.

First off; first person. Gotta get immersed in the suit; FEEL the power coursing through it with your own eyes. Second, make it fast paced and gory as fuck; these are powered armor suits made of fuckin' meat. Shit is gonna get bloody no matter what. Third, a wide variety of weapons to be spread between the four characters. Monomollecular blades? Yup. Elbow spike machine guns? Yup. Railgun arms? Yup. Laser eyes? YUP.

Onto enemies; the Fash here need variety. Obviously not everybody wears a Meatsuit, so some dudes with guns, rocket launchers and various experimental weapons will be littered about. Think of them like the Fodder type enemies in Doom Eternal. Then we have the big boys, Fash in Meatsuits and vehicles. Tanks, VTOL's, actual mech suits, the works. This is where the main loop comes in; balancing your Blood (ammunition of course) and Power (Health) to fight off the droves of Fash after your ass.

Killing dudes the normal way (Guns 'n' shit) gives you Blood, while cutting them apart with the Molecutters (Your basic melee) gives you Power. You must act and move fast; enemy attacks do lots of damage, and you can only take so much before you eat the death porridge. To balance this you move SUPER FAST and can deflect enemy attacks with a block you can put up at any time. Be careful though! Some enemy types like mechs and Meatsuits can do the same to you. You basically need to act like Vergil and Doomguy on steroids to survive.

Finally we come to levels, or in this case arenas. Since the game unmodified seems to prefer large open arenas to combat in, here the areas are the kind you would see in Painkiller and Serious Sam. Lots of areas to jump up onto, run around in and generally do cool shit in.

The result is an old school FPS where violence and fast movement are the ways to win; Be the killer deathmachine you are, and destroy all before you. Oh yeah, did I forget to mention you can also devour enemy bodies to get a health boost? Gotta get that nasty biohorror stuff in somehow.

 

[NerdShamer]

You know, this game reminds me of that "Real Steel" movie, where a lot of neckbeards own their giant robots and have made an underground fighting ring in a vain attempt to get rich and famous. But as far as the dubious sports game from the intro goes, it would immensely help that if it was explicitly about giant robots punching each other; at least it would be more relatable than wondering how big the local junkyard is.

 

[Cubanodun]

Okay, writefaggot powers, HENSHIN!

*Overdone anime transformation here*

DEAR GOD THERE'S SO MUCH SHIT TO WAFT THROUGH. I'll just do the gameplay fix for now; I'll probably do something for worldbuilding and characters later once my brain is ready to handle the Twitter Insert scum.

The fun part is that if you want a better execution of all this garbage, Netflix did it a while ago in their set of shorts Love,Death and Robots, specifically the short called Sonnie's edge, actually all the short is better than this garbage game, pretty sure it was released before the short because those hacks love to copy and rip everything they can for brownie points