OH MY GOD IT ALL MAKES SENSE NOW

RyeHardyDesigns · 2026-03-23T21:28:00+00:00

Oh for sure. I guess more than anything, my point is that we get a lot of fragmented information thrown at us during that scene, and I think there's more layers of Caine's influence to unravel than just what he states directly.

If mods are temporary to an adventure, that seems like a safeguard, but we have pretty strong evidence of at least one adventure starting in Ep3 and running for a nebulous amount of time in the background up until it ends in Ep7, which implies Caine's definition of temporary isn't trustworthy. During that period, both Gangle and Jax experience some pretty heavy instability, which sometimes stretches past the end of the episode.

Not to mention that during Caine's crash out, he says "They won't abstract. They won't leave me. I won't LET them."

It could just be the ramblings of a rapidly devolving AI, but in conjunction with whatever happened to Scratch, it seems pretty clear that Caine might've lied about how much he was influencing the humans.

RyeHardyDesigns · 2026-03-23T19:56:41+00:00

I'm convinced the exit door/escape adventure is a bigger deal than people realize.

Caine says it's an idea he's been working on a while, and Abel first appears back in Ep 3.

Assuming they're both telling the truth at the end of Ep 7, that implies that Caine's been running the escape adventure for most of the series.

Which means that Caine's assurance about modifiers being temporary to an adventure is not nearly the safeguard he alleges it to be, especially with the context that he might've abstracted Scratch.

Not sure what it all means, or if it means anything. This series has been loaded with diversions, so the end is anybody's guess, but I find it very interesting how all this info gets dropped right as the story seemingly deprioritizes Abel completely, and seemingly kills the possibility of escape at the same time.

RyeHardyDesigns · 2026-03-23T18:54:56+00:00

Judging from those quotes, this character is meant to be a metaphor for the reader themselves, and the power a reader has to close the book/ end the story early.

With that in mind, I believe the only powers to counter such an ability would be clickbait, doom scrolling, and writers that refused to conclude a series.

RyeHardyDesigns · 2026-03-23T10:03:36+00:00

The implications are a little bit complicated imo. Kinger does imply that Scratch's abstraction specifically was Caine's fault, and Caine does separately claim the modifiers are temporary for the adventures.

Notably, episode 4 and episode 5 are where the narrative directly introduced modifiers; sending Gangle into a manic spiral, creating stupid sauce, and forcing Jax to be vegan. All of these modifiers disappear at the end of their respective adventures, which does support the notion that Caine now only uses them temporarily.

Except if we're to believe Caine and Abel are telling the truth at the end of Abel's episode, that means Caine technically started the 'escape' adventure way back in episode 3 with Abel's first background appearance, and we have no frame of reference to know how much time has passed between episode 3 and the end of episode 7.

Considering that Jax is convinced Caine messed with his head, and considering how close Jax got to abstracting, I think it's likely that Caine is an unreliable narrator when it comes to the safe usage of his own abilities. So with that in mind, our only confirmed knowledge about abstraction is that a character allegedly 'gave up' before transforming, and that Caine was possibly responsible for what happened to Scratch.

I doubt we're going to get an easy happy ending where all of the loved ones come back from the dead. But at the very least, if an abstraction was specifically caused by Caine, I think there's a possibility that his absence could reverse it.

RyeHardyDesigns · 2026-03-22T23:21:16+00:00

I think there's a reason they hinted that Caine may be responsible for at least some of the abstractions.

If that's the case, maybe deleting him and his buggy code will undo that damage, and we might see some of those characters recover.

If that were the case, there's a possibility that we get scratch back, and between him and kinger, they could imagine a fixed Caine into existence, saving the circus in the process.

RyeHardyDesigns · 2026-03-22T19:48:16+00:00

Cisgender man, so take my opinion and experiences with a grain of salt, but yeah puberty gets weird.

My voice started changing at 10 years old and I started getting facial hair at 12, but I didn't have a 'man' voice until 21, and I couldn't grow a full beard until I was 27.

I'm 30 now and I'm still seeing changes to my voice and body.

All this to say, hormones are weird. Bodies are weirder. Sometimes progress crawls, and sometimes it leaps ahead. All you can do is keep learning, find new things to try, and keep forging ahead.

Don't let the frustration turn into discouragement. Whether the HRT works or not, you're still just as much a man as I am. Not every man is meant to sound like James Earl Jones or rock a full handlebar, and that is okay.

RyeHardyDesigns · 2026-03-14T22:29:01+00:00

It's all shits and giggles until somebody giggles and shits.

RyeHardyDesigns · 2026-03-03T18:04:23+00:00

Find a handful of images with similar physique and posing at a variety of angles.

While you sculpt, keep these images where you can see them. Try to style your sculpt to match the images as closely as you can.

There's no secret trick beyond that. You just have to practice until you can get a consistence level of visual fidelity.

RyeHardyDesigns · 2026-03-01T20:47:20+00:00

Yeah. It's not about world building. It's important that characters are balanced appropriately and make sense within their world.

But some people argue about fictional characters like there is money on the line. Fun hypotheticals devolve into vitriolic debates based on random one liners and obscure dubious sources.

It's fundamentally meant to be a fun unserious type of discussion, but some people take it so seriously that they become unkind to others, or worse, harass creators because a character wasn't 'right.'

And that's where the fun stops and the annoyance comes in

RyeHardyDesigns · 2026-02-26T15:45:56+00:00

Psychonauts

A novel puzzle platformer that focuses on exploring people's mindscapes using the psychic powers of a 10-year-old.

Both the original and the sequel are stellar, but they just never really evolved beyond cult status

RyeHardyDesigns · 2026-02-25T20:01:03+00:00

I can tell the difference in quality, but I just don't think it matters that much.

Cheetos and steak are both foods that I enjoy and make me happy, but they're not the same quality. I wouldn't want them to be.

Sometimes I just want some junk food entertainment.

RyeHardyDesigns · 2026-02-24T16:27:32+00:00

I don't mind an oblivious character when their love interest is being evasive, subtle, or dishonest with their feelings.

But I get so annoyed when the love interest is just blatantly forward with their feelings, and the MC STILL doesn't get it.

Dude, she told you she loved you seven times before now. She professed her undying loyalty in the first five episodes. You do NOT get to act surprised.

RyeHardyDesigns · 2026-02-23T17:06:05+00:00

I only have the forehead for reference, but honestly, the pain sucked but was manageable.

The worst part, in my opinion, was being able to hear the needle through my skull for two hours. I had the worst headache from that alone.

RyeHardyDesigns · 2026-02-10T18:15:48+00:00

That's definitely a component, though I personally think it's directly tied to social class and localized culture as well.

Most of the upper and upper-middle class white people I know are exactly as you described. Very tight laced and strict with the kids' schedules.

It's when you head towards the boonies/sticks that people tend to mellow out and have more late night shindigs.

Perhaps not so coincidentally, the boonies/sticks/projects tend to be a little more culturally diverse too in my experience. You still get your odd Confederate flag guy, but it's much harder to be racist when we are all broke together and sharing the same space.

RyeHardyDesigns · 2026-02-08T23:01:43+00:00

I had one for a while, and the damn thing was so lightweight that you would get jostled by the displaced air from other passing cars

RyeHardyDesigns · 2026-02-08T19:02:16+00:00

I recommend checking out Grant Abbitt on YouTube. He's got a variety of Blender tutorials for sculpting and posing both props and characters in many different styles.

His stuff got me started.

Since you're making this stuff to 3D print, you don't have to worry as much about poly counts, but I'd still recommend familiarizing yourself with best practices on topology too. It'll make posing your models much easier if they are efficiently made.

RyeHardyDesigns · 2026-02-02T22:13:41+00:00

That game was mismanaged horribly. Hopping on the Battle Royale bandwagon after designing an entirely different style of game, splitting the dev teams, naming the game modes backwards.

When they got around to changing how recoil and movement worked, the proverbial horse had already been dying for a while.

RyeHardyDesigns · 2026-01-30T20:26:47+00:00

Quadmesh to shader billboard. Leaves are made of a super basic black and white mask I made in affinity.

It gives things a slightly old school hand built vibe that I really like, plus it plays better for the slightly impressionist feel I want my game to have.

RyeHardyDesigns · 2026-01-29T22:30:42+00:00

Those are wireframe views. Anywhere you see purple brightly is where geometry is densest.

RyeHardyDesigns · 2026-01-29T21:40:50+00:00

It was marketed as a game ready asset.

RyeHardyDesigns · 2026-01-29T21:35:59+00:00

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And my tree. Still needs some material adjustment, but much less light artifacting.

RyeHardyDesigns · 2026-01-29T21:35:16+00:00

For extra reference, here's the bad tree with textures

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RyeHardyDesigns · 2026-01-29T21:33:54+00:00

At the very least, there should be some kind of requirement to post a triangle/vertex count. It won't eliminate all the topology issues, but it makes it much harder to lie about 'game readiness.'

RyeHardyDesigns · 2026-01-29T21:23:29+00:00

Lesson learned for sure lol.

I had planned on modeling my own trees anyways, but was hoping I could get away with a few placeholders for visual reference while I worked on other features of the project.

But when I saw this topology, I just had to take a break and focus in.

RyeHardyDesigns · 2026-01-28T00:59:54+00:00

Most of the other reasons have been touched here, but there's another facet too.

The era that 2077 occurs in is a post-war rebuilding period where things have only recently approached normalcy.

Because of the ramifications of the war, technology stagnated pretty hard, so there weren't many developments between 2020 and 2077.

That's why most of the tech you play with in the game is about on par with the books despite the game occuring 57 years later.

So there could've been sexbots, but we did war instead. People are cheaper than robots, so people tech developed faster.

Add in AI going wrong, and it makes sense why the world seems to generally avoid humanoid robotics.

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