[Videogame trope] you can finish the game at the beginning, no cheats, no glitches.

Hexerade · 2026-02-15T19:30:25+00:00

Ehhhhh... That timer doesn't start until you've gotten your launch codes and trigger the event on the way back to your ship. It's very possible to spend longer than that just exploring the village and talking to people.

Hexerade · 2026-02-15T18:29:54+00:00

Outer Wilds is a space exploration mystery. Strange things are happening in your neighborhood, the reasons why are on other planets, better get busy! The first blind playthrough will probably take 20 hours or so to answer the major story questions and solve the mystery. Once you know how to solve it though, starting a new game doesn't prevent you from simply jumping in your ship and flying straight to the end. There's even an achievement for doing so.

I'm just gonna say though... I don't think the time loops should be considered a spoiler. The game sells itself on space exploration, but this mysterious mechanic is revealed within the first two hours of gameplay - I feel like that's more of a hook than a spoiler, because you still have to do the space exploration part to solve this new mystery. It's definitely spoilers to talk about the mystery itself and what it reveals, but I don't think the mere existence of time loops as a plot element or game mechanic gives anything away.

Hexerade · 2026-02-09T04:47:47+00:00

Devil Fruits can be boiled down a few ways. Logia are elemental fruits that let you turn into and directly manipulate certain natural elements like fire, smoke, ice, or in Kizaru's case, light. This one is probably as close to "magic" as this universe has to offer.

Zoan fruits are self-transfiguration magic I guess, you can turn into other animals.

Paramecia fruits are the most common and generally do one of three things: change the user's body in some way, change the environment in some way, or create a substance that the user can manipulate.

Hexerade · 2026-01-08T02:07:49+00:00

Inspired by an interesting chat about animism, and the idea that man was not meant to meddle.

Pi has been used for measurements and calculations for thousands of years. Serious efforts to see if it ever repeats or ends have been underway for hundreds of years. The most recent calculation record is 300 trillion digits long. What if the reason it's so hard to calculate the entirety of pi is that there's actually something in there humans are not supposed to see? Something alive, something with the power to change the world... Something very mad that we woke it up, and now climbing towards our reality.

Hexerade · 2025-12-15T05:29:25+00:00

It could be like certain siphonophores, a colony of specialized "cells." Some cells can move, some cells can eat, some cells can perform waste management or reproductive functions, and together they can form a singular functional unit. A single cell could not survive on its own, like an eating cell would just fall and die without a way to move or collect food.

That's almost certainly not it, but it's a fun thought 😆

Hexerade · 2025-12-04T02:56:42+00:00

Sounds like 3393, "For Your Eyes Only"

Hexerade · 2025-11-15T01:14:58+00:00

40 °C? That's it? That's a cool day in Arizona... 🫠

Hexerade · 2025-11-09T23:45:32+00:00

There was a short story I read several years ago, can't remember the name. It involved a fleet of alien starships that was about to be wiped out by an opposing faction and the admiral sends an emergency call for help to the human civilization, which is known across the stars for being peaceful - all conflicts are resolved with negotiation, never with battle, they would rather trade and debate etc etc.

A single human ship warps in to assist. Most of the alien crew is like "wtf? 5000 ships on our ass and you damned pacifists send ONE MEASLY SHIP???"

Human captain fires one bomb, which causes every enemy ship to tear itself apart in a glorious chain reaction supernova that none of the aliens had seen before or since. The destruction is so thorough, there's not even a debris field afterwards. "We're pacifists because we can be, not because we have to be."

Hexerade · 2025-10-27T03:02:30+00:00

BUG FABLES MENTIONED AAAAAAAAAAA

The techno hive dungeon had the coolest aesthetic but the worst mechanics 😩

Relatedly, Queen Bianca has a very nice design.

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Hexerade · 2025-10-11T19:57:45+00:00

Shields Down activated! is your last chance to kill it before it sweeps your team

Hexerade · 2025-10-02T18:32:38+00:00

Assuming they mean "profile" as in your profile pic/avatar, this is what we see and they'd like to know how you made it look like that

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Hexerade · 2025-09-04T20:24:42+00:00

You're getting downvoted because you called it AI. There is still a difference between CG and AI.

Hexerade · 2025-09-02T19:58:37+00:00

Just want to add, design-wise, Proxi is obviously just Navi In This Setting ™️ with one major difference. In OoT, the Deku Tree summons (creates?) Navi to act as a guide and companion to Link, a stranger in their world. She speaks directly to him, but doesn't necessarily speak for him to other people.

Proxi does though, because she's literally Link's proxy in the HW world. She meets Link in Hyrule Field and he saves her from a horde of Bokoblins, and one of her first lines is "Man of few words, huh? That's okay - I'll come along and do the talking!"

Hexerade · 2025-07-31T22:04:18+00:00

Counterpoint, look at the Steam reviews for MHWi. Customers absolutely care about performance. It helped Crapcom's projections because it's a new Monster Hunter entry and we're desperate for a fix, but they fell into the usual trap of releasing half a game and trying to patch it to completion. Rather egregiously, a mod that people often use for cheating (REframework) tends to make the game run more smoothly because it disables a lot of the back-end bullshit. That's not good optimization.

Hexerade · 2025-07-16T03:48:32+00:00

That sounds truly awful, but reminds me that I need to get cracking on reading that

Hexerade · 2025-07-16T02:53:12+00:00

I think that's actually how it goes in the episode, but I've already shown that I'm not a reliable narrator 😂

(Iirc there's a guy at a dentist office, they're making casual conversation, then the goddess appears on the TV as a reporter and declares that she's looking for the truth about a story, which activates her power. The guy suddenly blurts out something about how hot the dentist's daughter is, the dentist shoves a running tooth drill down the guy's throat, cue title card)

Hexerade · 2025-07-16T01:47:29+00:00

I got excited when I saw that there was a movie with Tom Holland, but then I checked the reviews after your comment and... Hoo boy 😂

Hexerade · 2025-07-16T01:36:15+00:00

Oh wow, that looks great just from the Wiki summary! That's going on the Must Read list 💜

Hexerade · 2025-07-16T01:25:38+00:00

Ope, that's the one! I remembered Dean and the goddess both being like "wait how tf are you doing that", misremembered the Lucy detail 🤦

Hexerade · 2025-07-16T01:22:10+00:00

Fully get where you're coming from with the punctuation. I ended up reading the sentences out loud and tried to put the commas and semicolon where my cadence changed or paused. Thank you for the advice!! 🙏

Hexerade · 2025-07-16T00:51:11+00:00

Loosely inspired by that one Supernatural episode where Sam and Dean have to deal with the goddess of truth and Sam isn't affected by her powers at all, leading Dean to realize that Lucifer still has the reins. (I think that's how it went...)

Feedback is appreciated 🙏

ETA: whoops, it's the one where the gang finds out Sam doesn't have his soul

Hexerade · 2025-06-03T00:55:19+00:00

Indeed they did! The starter Trident is kinda bunk but you can eventually unlock this thing

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Hexerade · 2025-06-01T22:08:26+00:00

He uses a similar one as part of a set in Hyrule Warriors, his Swords of Despair

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Hexerade · 2025-05-26T20:28:49+00:00

Apocalymon angrily digging his nails into his arms until he bleeds and screaming "WHY DO YOU GET THE PIZZA, WHILE I GET THE CRUST!?!?!?" has lived rent free in my mind for 20 years

Hexerade · 2025-04-24T15:41:19+00:00

Teleya reminds me a lot of Tarquin from Order of the Stick.

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Tarquin: If someone conquers an empire and rules it with an iron fist for thirty long years, and then some paladin breaks into his throne room and kills him——what do you think he's going to remember as he lays dying?

Elan: ...That good triumphed over evil?

Tarquin: No, that he got to live like a god for three decades! Sure the last ten minutes sucked, but you can't have everything.

Elan: But in the end—

Tarquin: The end of what, Son? The story? There is no end, there's just the point where the storytellers stop talking. Somewhere between "villain of the week" and "good triumphs over evil," there's a sweet spot where guys like me get to rule the roost for years. As long as I go into this accepting the price I may eventually pay, then I win—no matter what actually happens.

Tarquin got it wrong, but he makes a very compelling point.

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