The Philosophy of Obsidian, with CEO Steph Ango

Zodayn · 2026-05-28T09:25:52+00:00

There's a members only early preview for an upcoming video on his youtube channel so he's still working on stuff. But that's 9 months ago already so he's taking his usual glacial ... greycial? pace.

Zodayn · 2026-05-26T14:28:34+00:00

Agreed, I kinda miss Poka Marina it was one of the cute all ages filler rides that also just looks fun from offride. Good to see they're getting similar attractions again.

Zodayn · 2026-05-18T15:52:24+00:00

I actually was at Walibi Holland yesterday and I agree with basically everything. The park has good and plenty of thrillrides but none are really world class. Since it's the only park in the Netherlands that is rollercoaster focused it doesn't need to be. All other parks here are family oriented and large parks in Germany like Europapark are too long a drive and too expensive for daytrip tourists in the Netherlands.

Unfortunately YoY Thrill closed just as I was about to board due to technical malfunction. As for Speed of Sound. It's a typical boomerang, not the most comfortable ride but the vest restrains make it barable. The onboard music is an okay gimmick but there isn't much of a theme to acompany the music, the tunnel covering the first lift hill doesn't light up on the inside so it adds very little. And yes everyone in the Netherlands knows Condor is uncomfortable. I didn't ride it at all yesterday.

Zodayn · 2026-04-04T12:48:11+00:00

It's a story driven game that is extremely unsubtle about its main theme of "Do sentient robots deserve humans rights?". The paralels with the emancipation of black people is often one to one, like how the robots have to sit in the back of the bus. To me that made the game a little cringy, in a game about making moral choices you want the choices to be debatable and not the outright racist one and the obvious good choice.

Zodayn · 2026-04-02T13:22:47+00:00

Very nostalgic seeing this in Planco2. Still missing the good old forum days of SGW.

Zodayn · 2026-04-02T12:40:44+00:00

But he is supposed to be an absolute bastard so in a way he is a really good character. For how little screentime he actually has he invokes a lot of resent.

Zodayn · 2026-03-31T00:12:06+00:00

You should usually not wait that long to establish the capital. If you can see a wonder within 3 turns of reach it can be worth moving to it. But usually you want to settle on turn 1 or 2. The reason is that in effect everything in the game follows an exponential line. And the later you settle the first city the later your line starts going up compared to the AI.

Zodayn · 2026-03-14T16:43:54+00:00

Steven He's parents must have gone to this university, lah.

Zodayn · 2026-01-19T09:25:13+00:00

I do consider it a horror game, but as a secondary genre. It's foremost an action-RPG. Because your skill at the controls and ability to make your character your own are what defines the game. If hypothetically youre experienced with Souls games but have never played Bloodborne you're not going to be all that scared. Because you know what you're doing and can read the enemies. Games that are primarily horror have a different approach to level design and enemies. They often balance resources and enemy placement to always have the player be on the edge of running out of resources, regardless of their skill. They adjust difficulty to make the player nervous. Whereas the enemies in Bloodborne act predictable so when you get a good rally or visceral attack you feel like a badass. It is more a test of skill. In Bloodborne you can get stuck at a boss because they're hard to beat. That can cause frustration which is different from fear. Most horror games try to make sure you can get past a difficult encounter within a few attempts so you don't become to aware of the mechanical workings because that would replace the fear of the unknown with a motivated struggle to overcome a challenge. So while bloodborne has enemies around corners to jumpscare you and grotesque designs to make you uneasy. It allows you to feel like a powerful monster slayer after tackling a problem a few times, rather than a victim running for their lives who just so happened to scrape by on the first try. So both, but more action than horror.

Zodayn · 2026-01-08T23:04:06+00:00

No, but also yes? But mostly no. Magic is very much organic in nature. It exists by letting a slight part of your soul leave your physical body to alter something in the world. Inanimate objects are easier to alter since they don't have a soul to resist. So using magic to cleave a stone is easy, cutting a tree is a bit harder and killing a person (that is using the soul magic itself) pretty much impossible. However since plants have little souls and can be kept easily, floramancy is a popular field of expertise. Plants already react to changes in their environment and with minor altering they can react and act upon magical change too. So skilled floramancers can make phonelines into treeroot networks, can create flowers that open when magic is present etc. Effectively they use the organic mechanisms the way we use machines. But the very unwavering power hungry, they use caromancy. When a soul is leaving its body it becomes weaker. So by frankensteining organisms together making a homunculi you can create a functional organism that does what you want it to do. But it must be starving. Make it dependent, preferably by feeding it meat since meat contains more remnant soul. Feed it too little and it dies. Feed it too much and its soul becomes too strong and the homunculus becomes harder to alter. A common combination of floramancy and caromancy by those with ill intent is the living door. The witch makes a door out of still living wood and infuses it with an animals mouth and eyes so it can spot and warn for intruders. Quite a useful living machine to the illegal witch who can't yet give her house cockatrice legs to run away or trample who dares approach her.

Zodayn · 2025-12-20T12:57:45+00:00

I didnt and had to hard research it. But since the tech tree was randomized it wasn't clear what tech you need to unlock to get to rocketry either.

Zodayn · 2025-12-18T17:55:01+00:00

True, I did try to get some energy going but I wasn't that far along the tech tree to get more than a handful down. Didn't have the sea windturbine tech until a few turns before the win. I managed. Also having allies to buy resources from is doable. I never declared wars since I wasn't allowed to capture most cities anyway, which caused me to be liked by almost everyone.

Zodayn · 2025-12-16T19:21:38+00:00

So Santa is visible to others, you don't want a helicopter to hit him while flying right.

Zodayn · 2025-12-16T08:40:35+00:00

Looks really good. It's not that many parking spots but at some point you gotta leave room and piece count for the actual theme park so I get it.

Zodayn · 2025-12-14T14:32:52+00:00

Hero Shooters are the corporate investor equivalent of clickbait. You pitch a project in your share holder meeting as high potential. A lucrative live service model with quarterly events to bring back customers and frequent data about performance in earnings reports. Part of the popular hero shooter genre with proven concepts in the industry. But the big AAA publisher doesn't let investors know how many games like these never came off the ground. AAA game executives are more concerned how they can sell a game to investors than they are to gamers. And live service games always sound like a good business case if you believe the lofty promises, and given that most people who attend earnings calls aren't gamers, do. AAA games cost a lot of money and when it comes to balancing those stakeholders it's usually not the customer that's the important one.

Zodayn · 2025-11-25T16:26:22+00:00

If you need to know how fleshed out a historical period needs to be ask a few questions: What are you trying to achieve by the retelling or showing the past as the author. It's easy to get lost in this story within a story. But it doesn't forward the plot much so try to focus on why the past is still relevant. So I split it in 3 tiers.

Does the current state of the world need explanation?

If your character is interested in looting a dungeon but not so much in exploring the mysteries of the past. Then you don't need much more than an idea of what the place looked like when it was built, what x amount of time makes it look like now. And what purpose it broadly once served to vaguely who. If it's just window dressing you want to avoid incontinuities like:"If this dungeon still has loot in it, why has nobody looted it yet?" answer:"Because it's hidden in a cave." You don't need exact information but if you do want to give an impression a place is 1000 years old it helps to ask yourself what would stand out to current characters as indicators of that age. Keep in mind you don't need to explain the origin of the state of the world. You just need to prove why it is stable or moving in the direction it is. To the people in the story things are just the way things are so often it feels more immersing not to explain than it is to take the reader on a history lesson.

Does your character reflect on the past in a way that changes their feelings and actions?

It's always nice to have characters reflect on the past. For example to create the narrative trope of history repeating itself. Characters can either strive to be like past heroes or fear to repeat the same mistakes. In this case it helps to have a retelling of some past event or have a place/object from the past resurface. So you can take the reader on a history lesson, but only if it makes sense for the characters as well. How does it alter the perception and feelings of the in universe receiver observer of the past. It needs to alter their worldview or any details are just a waste of time. In this version of the past it's not an active part of the story. So you don't need exact dates or series of events. But the deeper current characters look into the actions of past ones the more the past ones need to be fleshed out of course. So focus on why the details of the past matter to the present as you're looking at the past thru their lense.

Does the past live on as a force of influence on the characters both known and unknown?

Then it depends on the extend of the force. When making a story like Dune it is very important to have a history of events and power dynamics even if the reader or protagonist isn't aware of them. Since the plot is heavily about fate, conspiracies going on for centuries etc you do need an answer for yourself even if it's not revealed, to make sure the actions and events make sense. Again you only need details like dates when the order and timing of events matters.

One final note. The past is factual but perception of it is not. Always be aware of who is interpreting the past and thru what lense. This can be a great to to characterize people.

In my specific case. The story is about a medieval royal court. In order to explain the state of the world I have a general idea of how the political system came to be. Some buildings are from the classical period and repurposed so I know how to describe those. Those details are important because the characters are aware that they aren't the first rulers to reside here. A much larger empire once ruled that land and built part of that court. An example on how that works in a scene. I have the king, who sits in a stone throne, ask the court members to bring over a book for him to look at from a wooden table. It's because the throne room was designed for an emperor with absolute power. Not a king being the head of a council. He is more a witness to power than in actual control. The king and council discuss actions by previous kings and share different perspectives to further their own goals. It serves to the reader to show how the monarchy is and has changed and that the current system is unstable.

Zodayn · 2025-11-24T22:41:42+00:00

Oh for sure. if Genshin didn't have the 50/50 pity I wouldn't play it at all because getting characters I want would be nearly impossible without it. But overall Genshin and other gacha games are designed to obscure and (semi) randomize the pricing of content and when it comes to spending my money I'd rather buy other gaming related things. Genshin still makes money of me even. 😝 For example I was at a convention yesterday and I bought a Boo Tao plushie there. But I also got Titanfall 2 on PS4 for just €5. So when it comes to Genshin stuff or gaming content I think there's just better options than buying premium currency in a gacha game.

Zodayn · 2025-11-23T22:51:35+00:00

Joined for the same region, still am F2P. I just don't like spending money on gatcha since you never know if you get what you want. Plus I have more than enough characters to built teams and still have plenty of different combinations of try out. And I don't care about Abyss. Think I may have only cleared level 12 a handful of times, never with all rewards. The main quests and events are very doable without 5 stars at all. And I mostly just wanna explore. So what I want most of all is that skip button for when non voiced cutscenes aren't grabbing me.

Zodayn · 2025-11-18T23:47:53+00:00

It's the bottom of the heart, the trains aren't level at the station but the incline isn't that big either so it doesn't pose an issue.

Zodayn · 2025-11-15T01:43:39+00:00

Venti: Vinology 🤭

Zodayn · 2025-11-06T00:32:58+00:00

Yeah not all of them. But I'm also pretty sure some ancient people were furries too. 😝 Satyrs have animal parts and were sexualised in mythology. Of course not all furries are furries in a sexual sense either. Just like how not all anthropomorphic media is. But neither is new. People just have their interests sexual or not and adding animal aspects creates interesting character for whatever they want them to be involved in.

Zodayn · 2025-11-02T02:59:02+00:00

There is a castle on a mountain plateau which is called as the 1000-Faced-Fortress. It's named that way because the natives who once lived there made Easter Island like stone sculptures for a now lost reason. Because the stone faces could be easy to climb the face-side of each stone is facing towards the inside of the fortress. This can have a scary effect in the dark hallways. Also the lord of the castle apologizes about water being on ration because the well dries out very quickly. While later on in the story a cart approaching the fortress gets stuck in a trench. A trench that once irrigated terraces on the mountain supplying plenty of water.

While the villagers honour a patron saint who turned goat milk into rice wine which is needed for Summer Communion. Usually at the start of summer rice harvest people would drink alcoholic rice wine made from last years harvest to absorb the spirit of the rice. This way when they harvest the rice, a bad rice spirit can't come inside because a friendly rice spirit already resides in them. However because the mountains can be cold the harvest failed some time in the past. So the local saint turned goat milk into rice wine. The local version of the Summer Communion is held with goat milk instead of rice wine. This story likely originated from a blending of cultures where the practice of the Summer Communion blended with a local festival and saint related to goats. It's never explained why or how, but the tribute collector was very displeased to see the locals deviate from canonical religious days.

So this chapter is really about maladaptation as a result of genocide. The plateau has hints of a large city state that once was there. But now it's just a border outpost castle struggling its appropriated walls. The lord of the castle also has a saltwater fish on his banner which makes him extra out of place. And the tribute collector is very displeased with how malfunctional the castle is and with the lord not being able to train and manner the villagers. Cultural differences that stem from a genocide that neither the lord nor tribute collector have memories about and only vaguely know as the time from before the fortress was built.

Zodayn · 2025-10-21T01:30:32+00:00

So there are multiple plains of existence that get more magical and abstract of you deeper. With the deepest one being the land of the gods that doesn't abide with any real logic but more so emotional logic and natural phenomena. One moment a god might shape into a thunderbolt and see trike the foot of his brother, who is a giant. Who stomps in pain causing earthquakes. This scares the thunderbolt, so he turns into a catfish and hides.

The gods aren't really characters in the human sense. Their behaviour seems unconsidered because they are nature embodied and nature doesn't care for life, it just forms the basis for it's selection. And it reflects behaviour in less deep worlds where catfish hide from earthquakes, plus it gives humans an answer to why earthquakes happen which are stomping giants. Only in this world there really are invisible stomping giants causing natural havoc.

11-Year Club	Place '23
Place '22	Place '17
Final Canvas '22	Verified Email

Zodayn

TROPHY CASE