*Yawn* Ohayo de gozaru! It's that time come about again!

https://youtu.be/-AXOuVD4F3M

This week we're having a go at:

The Elephant Escapade - jaylev
The Ivy Castle - brandonlakey
Pain - mangorio
ShortCardboard - matteovivai
The dead of time - bradley031

It's not a bad set-list, though we've probably had better. Doesn't help we stumbled into another one of those levels again. Two weeks in a row? Really? At any rate, hopefully you'll find something to your taste in the lot. Thanks as always for all the support and feedback, and have a great day!

Behind the Curtains Stuffs
Holy crow, just...last week. All of it, especially yesterday (excepting the stream, which turned out really well; thanks all y'all who showed up!), can take a long walk off a short cliff. Yesterday, at least was...clarifying. Disappointing, but clarifying.

i'm not not happy with the episode, but it was rushed. The outro turned out better than i initially felt about it, but still...i don't know. It could have been better? The title card is ambiguous, to be honest the idea came to me and i ran with it before i could really think if it was a good one or not. My preferred reading is Officer Thompson is successful in talking down our interesting coifed friend, but death of the author and all that.

There was something else i was going to say, but it's completely slipped my mind. Whee!

Alright, time for another Tuesday Takeaway!

The Elephant Escapade - jaylev
A bit of an odd one here, to be honest. Playing it now, i really like the visual presentation, particularly during the race (which helps to keep the player from noticing they're not doing all that much besides running to the right). The gameplay prior is just, well, it's really kind of awkward. The bits that look like wall jumps, you can run right up those, which means treating them similar to a wall jump just slows you down. The marsh bit is way trickier than it has any right being considering how early on you have to deal with it. There could have been a little more scaffolding before that part, i think. Still, in the end, i found it to be pretty enjoyable, and had a good time with the third time through. Also, they either fixed the bug at the end, or i was just unlucky getting it when i played for PiPs, because this time after the cutscene, i just got sent to the scoreboard.

The Ivy Castle - brandonlakey
This is a fun one, have no doubt, though i'm not sure it's necessarily level of the day material. The cameras have got a real nasty swing on them that can be a bit nauseating if you pass through their trigger radius too quickly. i did like the gameplay, though. It reminded me a lot of playing during the LBP2-era. Just a straight-up, semi-stylized platformer, and i always appreciate that style.

Pain - mangorio
Man, in its own way, this is even worse than the non-level we had last week. i have a particular hate-on for these whingy, "oh-woe, oh-woe the game isn't what i want it to be" levels. If you're not finding the levels you like, change the way you're looking. If you're not happy with the community, build up your own and make your corner of the larger community better. But no, some folks have just got to throw up their whinge-level, which, in perfect irony, just adds to the very problem they're complaining about! Side note: the outro took a lot of takes. The one we ended up keeping was far less harsh on Pain and mangorio than the ones we ended up scrapping.

ShortCardboard - matteovivai
This is actually far more coherent and nice in gameplay and presentation than a lot of first time levels we usually see. Yeah, it's got its issues, but it manages to be fun and have a mostly smooth flow throughout. i hope matteo keeps creating, and keeps growing as a creator.

The dead of time - bradley031
Bradley plays the GB copy of LBP3, though i don't know that means they're English (that's what that means, right? GB is for Great Brittan?). So perhaps we chalk up the poor text to youth? i tend to notice these things, is all. It's not a deal-breaker, but it does undercut the story. i liked the little platforming that we got, using switches like that is fairly rare, so it stands out when i see it. Wish there had been more, but i don't think that's what the level was going for, so i can't really hold that against it. It was nice playing something of a type i rarely look at. Even nicer to actually enjoy the experience.

So that's the that. Hopefully there's something in there that you'll find fun. Thanks as always for the support, and have a great day!

Behind the Curtains Stuffs
i'm slowly clawing my way back to my usual production schedule. Further along than i was this time last week, though still pretty far off from where i need to be. Which means, unless i get some serious work done today (not an impossibility), there probably won't be an LBsP put together tomorrow, which is a shame, but i kind of knew that this was going to happen.

Right now, i'm leaning toward not having a season 3 of R15F. As things are now, as much as i love doing the show, i always feel like i'm a bit on the knife's edge for getting things done when they need to be done, so they can have the quality i want. Also, Dreams will eventually come out, and i know i can't run two shows that require the amount of production R15F does at the same time. If i do decide to stop at the end of this season, what i want to do is make a dedicated schedule for LBsP, doing at least two a week, where one would keep the any-level-goes format we use now, and one using the more restrictive level selection style of R15F. Along the way, i'm thinking of using bonus episodes for things like tutorials, stories, and community/show updates. Nothing's decided yet, mind. We still have 13 episodes in R15F-S2 to get through, but i wanted folks to know the trend of my thinking right now.

So...my wife and i are officially divorced. Or, well, we've put in the paperwork; we do seem cursed to have to go in at least once for a round of corrections anytime we have to deal with the government. We're ok with things, and with each other. There's been a lot of time talking things through; we've probably had more time the past few months actually talking about things that are important than in the last few years. Unfortunately (well, there are a lot of unfortunately things, but this is the most troubling and possibly pressing), one thing we've discovered is the sister-in-law is way more toxic than either of us had ever given her credit for. i'm not going to get into details (for a lot of reasons), but it's been a major cause of stress and exhaustion for both of us. If i am (or have been) a little more snippy and scattershot than usual recently, i just ask a little forbearance for a little while. Thanks folks.