Selfsurprise

Just noticed. Happy stilltotallyaliveday, Alyxx!

Holy shit, I cannot keep a straight face looking at this. Please someone help me, I can't breath. Rolf has many modes of attack. "What's that Rolf?" "The hat of discipline. DO YOU LIVE IN A CAVE?!"

...or any other game with a post-apocalyptic setting The real purpose of this thread isn't so much to bemoan the diversity of species and factions in Fallout (which I think is actually pretty decent, especially if one takes "monster mod" packs into account) than it is a place for myself and others of an equally overactive temperament in the imagination department, to share and discuss ideas for monsters, mutant flora and fauna, power groups, communities and other assorted entities that could potentially reside in a post-apocalyptic sci-fi setting. Feel free to post as many of your own ideas as you like, as well as lavish praise/pour scorn on my deranged concepts as you see fit. I'm probably going to ineptly shoehorn-in various bits of Fallout lore and background information into many of the following creatures and characters, but it isn't essential to adhere to the game's lore if you want to post your own or expand upon ideas. xjager513, Ape Mutant 1. Cold War Thought Forms The result of pre-war psionic research into the Tibetan concept of the tulpa, or "thought-form", funded by the US Commonwealth's propaganda department that attempted to literally create an archetypal communist figure to inspire hate and fear in the American public. Having neared finalization and refinement as the bombs fell in 2077, the CWTF's largely managed to escape their places of internment and over the course of two centuries grew in power and willfulness. Though rare compared to most pre-war remnants, CWTF's are typically leaders of sinister power groups and usually in the middle of a nefarious plot that draws on all the imagined evils inherent in paranoid democracies. 2. Toy Soldiers Yet another pre-war survival, albeit much more numerous and considerably less powerful - at least small numbers. In the previous age of capitalism and robotics, robotic self-aware iterations of teddy bears, dolls, stuffed animals, action figures and vehicles were produced in vast numbers. When the bombs fell many of the toys suddenly found that their limited programming left them with little purpose or direction. Over time the toys congregated and eventually evolved into myriad militant factions (often based on the type or design of toy they were) and inevitably fell into internecine conflict and warfare, offering a warped and cartoonish reflection of human society and it's untenable prejudices. They are typically as well-armed and dangerous as raiders, and can be dangerous in large groups. 3. Fast Food Golem These once jovial and rather sizeable pre-war droids were designed to effectively be mobile self-contained fast food dispensers that may or may not resemble goofy versions of the exeunt chains employees or the ex-company's mascot. Time hasn't been been kind to these ambling monstrosities. The rigours of a post-apocalypse wasteland, the cessation of anything even remotely resembling civilized behaviour, and just the general wear n' tear inflicted by the last two centuries have caused the FFG's to become completely unhinged and indiscriminately violent. Upon seeing anyone or anything, the FFG's may start howling corrupted and deranged slogans, offering to serve their victims whilst blasting them boiling oil or attempting to make burgers out of their bloodily pulped remains. If you actually manage to destroy one of them, they are filled with a veritable haul of fatty pre-war foodstuffs and remarkably well preserved (yet somehow really gross) ingredients. 4. Giant Invertebrates Radscorpions, Radroaches, Bloatflies, Stingwings, Bloodbugs and the like are all well and dandy (they are some of my favourite enemies in Fallout 4, I'm a sucker for oversized insects) but I felt like the series could do with more giant mutant invertebrates. Even if they had added four or five different species on top of the game's enemies, that would have gone a long way to making the Commonwealth's irradiated ecology seem more alive and encompassing. But I'm not here to gripe, here's some other invertebrates that could seriously benefit from the "gigantification" treatment - in alphabetical order: ant-mimic spiders (or maybe a radroach-mimic spider, in this instance) antlions, assassin bugs (some species even use the dessicated remains of prey to conceal themselves), butterflies and moths, camel spiders, cochineals, deer ticks, lobsters, pacific geoducks, silverfish, snails and slugs, trapdoor spiders, velvet worms, water bears ("giant" tardigrades would probably be no bigger than housecats) whip spiders, woodlice, etc... 5. Concrete Jelly I always thought it was a missed opportunity that the Fallout games never had (to the best of my knowledge) any ooze-type monsters, an irradiated urban wasteland surely ought to have birth one or more varieties hideous formless abominations. One I had in mind was a kind of mobile hungry slurry created by the digestive action of countless extremophile bacteria feeding on the wrecked concrete of the old world's decrepit roads and building. It could behave like a non-Newtonian fluid, being highly malleable in its "relaxed" state, but upon being hit or whilst attacking it literally turns rock-solid. 6. Taurocanis Sapiens ("Bull Terrier Folk") A race of anthropomorphic dog people of mysterious origins, specifically descended from Bull Terriers which were originally bred as ratting and pit fighting dogs. Putting them on this list of imaginary enemies is rather disingenuous on my part, as I'd imagine that they wouldn't be fundamentally dangerous, with about the same raider/settler ratio as humans - towards whom they might have a healthy and understandable degree of distrust. In terms of personality they tend to be extremely vicious when provoked, unyieldingly loyal and caring towards companions, and painfully afraid of being alone. In a Fallout context giving them rough-sounding English accents might be an amusing touch. 7. Cybikers Demented and often solitary raiders that have taken bodily modification to extreme lengths. In the pursuit of martial capability and physical power, some particularly insane yet inventive raiders have gone to extreme measure of amputating their own limbs in order to accommodate the kind of fixtures that really ought to have stayed on the rusting remains of civilian and military vehicles vehicles, mortars and sentry bots. Cybikers derive their name from the souped-up motorcycle wheel/s they are disconcertingly replaced their legs with, though jerry rigged tank tracks and Mister Gutsy jet turbines aren't unheard of. 8. Gates Of Hell An absolutely appalling mutant vomited-forth from a long lost and unnamed glowing crater that may of once been a thriving ecosystem. Resembling a titanic tumour with an indeterminate amount of madly swiveling gelid eyes, this monster gains it's moniker due to the absolutely enormous mouth filled with jagged uneven shards of teeth that dominates most of it's mass - comprising at least 75% of it's somewhat indiscernible body. It occupies an unusual niche in the food chain of the wasteland, devouring practically everything (organic or artificial) in it's path, and spewing up short-lived and partially-developed genetic clones of any living matter it's ingested within the previous twenty-four hours. Occasionally one of these attendant changelings will be born with a little more potential and (more importantly) a degree of fertility it's sterile siblings lack. The Gates Of Hell have been responsible for the existence of many new and terrible species, making them arguably one of the most aptly named horrors of the Commonwealth. I think I'll stop there for now, I definitely have more ideas brewing for another time. Feel free to add your own to the list or ruminate upon what's already been posted. Sweet dreams!

10/10, "Sometimes it feels like the best business model for a start-up is to make just enough game to get onto Early Access and never plan on finishing the thing. It's cheaper and easier to make the first quarter of the game than the last 10%, and you can make a decent chunk of money with less risk doing that than committing to the full thing. Not over and over, people aren't that dumb but... when you combine this with the continued race to the bottom in terms of how much people are prepared to pay for media, you've got a pretty toxic combination." - Dan Pinchbeck, creative director at The Chinese Room (Excerpt from an article titled Is this the Indiepocalypse? games™ Magazine)

Unproductive.

Meow*/10 * "Meow" is cat for "ten"

Anemone.

Sorry to be awkward, but who or what is PS? If you are asking who I'd choose to look like, it would have to be Brian Blessed. Who wouldn't want to be look like Brian Blessed. If you founded your own country, what would you call it, what would be the state religion and what would be the national cuisine?

Toils in the bowels of retail hell, just like me.

Call Of Cthulhu - Shadow Of The Comet, a 1993 point n' click adventure game that somebody recommended on the Game Dungeon wishlist thread. It's actually pretty good, once you get used to the movement controls that require you to hold down the left mouse button, and the somewhat hit-and-miss detection of items and areas that can be interacted with.

The mystery has finally been solved.

On the subject of Ed, Edd & Eddy, does anyone remember that episode when ED ate his entire bed on Eddy's insistence? 4eA-yr11XNc You could just sense the sheer amount of love that went into the creation of the program. From the superb and genuinely funny scripting, the numerous weird background noises (which were often the funniest thing in every scene), the stellar voice acting, Ed's vacant stare with his mysteriously floating eyeball, Rolf*, even the way in which the characters walked and expressed themselves made this a sight for sore eyes among innumerable amounts of cynically conceived try-hard cartoon series. * Seriously, why doesn't Rolf have his own spinoff series?

@ Zaraki: The crossover title nobody knew they needed...

You aren't implicated in a convoluted plot involving the splicing together of all world leaders DNA in order to create a terrifying super politician, ScottD.Freeman, you're just being paranoid.

Jakub Julian Ziolkowski, Untitled (2009) If you like what you see, just be a tad careful googling this guy's work. A lot of it is rather NSFW, or perhaps not even safe for your civilized self-composure.

It relieves me to read your stuff Psychotic Ninja. It's nice to know that I'm not the only damned petitioner inhabiting that layer of hell the rest of the human race calls retailing. Today I actually had to explain to a customer that the peaches on the shelf are supposed to have a fuzzy texture, and that they weren't mouldy despite his avid insistence to the contrary. In the end I gave up, wished him luck and told to him go to Sainsburys instead, where I'd heard rumours that they exclusively sell a non-fuzzy variety.

An absolutely awe-inspiring techno set by Ancient Methods that unfortunately has no tracklist.

I definitely feel dem feelz broseph :3 I'm actually quite good at grasping a particular real life language tropes and the manner in which non-English words are supposed to be pronounced, especially if they are European, and given that the fantasy genre draws heavily from this rich cultural heritage. Many people find the place and people names in Skyrim unutterable before hearing it spoken aloud because they might not be used to Northern European standards, but being a giant history geek I'm usually quite adept at pronouncing them. Not knowing how to pronounce something correctly gives me a feeling akin to a mixture of nerd rage and multicultural inadequacy. Looking at Anglicized South East Asian words makes me feel like an abject philistine.

This was as always an excellent video and a worthy addition to the series, yet another game I'll never want to play! ;p There was a user on Youtube who summed it up better than I could; "On behalf of all fans, I apologize to you, Ross. I know how bad it feels that the worse the game is, the funnier the review. As I laugh at your torment, I ask for your forgiveness." I have to wonder how games like this ever get released in such an unpayable state, don't they playtest their own games thoroughly? How does something like Level 3 happen? I have a vague theory which revolves around the premise that small game development teams are likely to be close friends, and that out of a misplaced sense of kindness and politeness towards their fellow programmers fail to point out the glaring problems in gameplay and handling. I didn't see any game testers or play testers credited at the end of the The Chosen's final cutscene. Am I way off base in assuming they playtested the game themselves, without outsourcing the job due to finances, and in a spate of over-optimistic well-wishing forgot to actually subject their own title to any kind of critical analysis?

This is a great idea for a thread Zaraki. I'm a big modern art nerd and aside from a handful of instances on the random thread, I have no real suitable place to post my strange taste in art - until now that is. Good job! OT: I never played FF9, but having once read a book of concept art about the title, I was impressed by the number of non-human humanoid races. It makes a nice change from the series usual cast of enemy monsters and androgynous anime-ish people.

Age of Empires, number two especially in conjunction with The Conquerors expansion, is a series that will always have a little nook of it's own in the loops of my heart. "TO ARMS! THE ENGLISH ARE MAKING A SNEAK ATTACK!"

He smells, no wait...

[/selfsurprise having one of his five-a-day]