IIIII... don't like a lot of it for various reasons, so now I have to write my own version. Bleh, more things to do :(
Spoiler: ending scene How the hell are the drones a threat if their necks are that flimsy and they're that easily distracted? Xefros could have just slapped the thing's head off if it was that easy!
So uh, hey, this is a thing. They didn't credit ANYONE who worked on it (other than like, the musician I guess?). That's pretty fucked up.
Ah I personally think that is probably some measure to ward off fan harrassment given homestuck fandom tending to get into shit like that
There's ways of acknowledging the people who worked on it without naming names, yeah? "Thanks to all the teams who contributed so much to this," or something. If there's nothing along those lines, I'm less inclined to think protecting privacy from fanbase and more inclined to think it's a continuation of previous bs.
I don't... think this is a good thing, or even reasonable. Creatives' livelihoods depend on people knowing who they are and what they worked on, and they can't do that if their work is uncredited. There's ways to help one's employees if they are being harassed that don't rob them of credit for their work! I've also seen one of the artists post her work on tumblr and twitter, which is not something someone does if they're not willing to deal with the fandom. (Also, every large fandom has fans that are weird assholes and harass the creators. It's not just a Homestuck thing. And in the cases of a decent employer, they deal with some of the heat against their creatives by speaking out against it and standing up for their employees in general.)
Like, I'm not real up on the history of labor organization but iirc getting credit for one's work was and is one of the central issues in entertainment industry labor organization. The idea that not giving credit ~protects~ the workers should be given MAJOR side-eye.
Man, look at this bullshit. It CLEARLY wasn't a team-wide decision since at least two of the team have been posting publicly about working on Hiveswap Act 2.
Okay, has anyone else ever got a song stuck in their head without knowing the lyrics? Because I'm not good enough at song rewriting to actually do the thing but I have very strong mental images/audio of the story of Zebruh's participation in Slam or Get Culled to the tune of "The Ballad of Sara Berry". It's very frustrating.
Well, well, would you look at that, credits added to Act 2. Considering the number of non-psuedonyms on there, it's almost as if the whole concern over 'protecting' the team was overbearing bullshit. And to reiterate why this is important: some creative jobs require that one have credited work on their resume. Employers not crediting work is effectually stealing future work from employees.
So, there's definitely stuff I enjoyed, but some things that bugged me: Spoiler The trial was way too drawn out, and the ending made me like Tyzias less, which is frustrating since I loved her in Friendsim. Apparently there's a way to get a better ending but I don't particularly feel like going for it. The drone fight at the end had some cool scenes but actually knowing what to do was way too counterintuitive, I had to keep checking hints and breaking the flow as a result. The ending makes it feel like we're kind of back to where we were at the end of Act 1, despite being three years and a quarter of the story later. Where were Charun and Zebede? We passed through hives that looked like theirs, but I don't remember ever actually seeing either of them. Overall it just feels kind of underwhelming after three years of waiting. I feel like I would have enjoyed it more if not for all the delays.
Spoiler: Re: first bullet point I haven't played the game, but apparently the good ending is locked behind whether you got the extra big battery in act 1 and then imported your save data? And someone i follow who's into both Ace Attorney and Hiveswap had a lot of words about how this misses a lot of what makes the trial segments fun (like, statements that don't go on for paragraphs at a time muddying the waters for what you should and shouldn't pay attention to, that kinda thing)
Spoiler Yeah, I heard about act 1 save data being involved. Wasn't sure exactly how, but I don't remember ever finding something like that. And yeah, it does not compare well to Ace Attorney. The music and SFX are way worse, it's way too difficult to tell what arguments you're supposed to make and how, and there just isn't the same kind of emotional investment in the arguments. I thought it would be this relatively short gag, which would have made all that not too big of an issue, but it just kept going on and on.
Spoiler: Missing Friendsim trolls theory Friend of mine reasons that we didn't see them because they were in Zebede's bedroom >.>
It's not quite that time of year again, but we're getting things cooking for Drone Season this summer, and we have a survey for you! It's very short, so please take a minute to fill it out, thanks!
I have some extremely longshot guesses for classpects for characters we see very little of and I want to be witnessed so I can be smug if I turn out to be right. For the record, I'm guessing Dammek = Bard of Blood, Cridea = Sylph of Doom, Fiamet = Mage of Mind, Trizza = Maid of Blood.
Have you noticed how Marvus' horns swap sides between Friendsim and Act 2, and also that the model with his horns on at the top of the stage curtain in FS has them flipped too? I don't know if that's a shoutout to the sprite flipping (which does happen with his walkaround sprite), an error, or a sign that they're prosthetics/illusions, but considering the number of signs he's not who he says he is, the third one seems pretty possible. Spoiler: large images
Question, was it ever confirmed whether trolls submerge their entire heads in sopor to sleep? Tavros not being able to get his head in his cocoon implies they do, but if so, how do they breathe? Presumably they can't hold their breath for ten hours at a time, since Gamzee was able to strangle Equius and hanging is a standard execution method there. Do all of them have gills and non-seadwellers just have ones which don't work as well? Is sopor perfluorocarbon-based? Can they breathe through their exposed horns?
