Selfsurprise

Automa Talos (Donato Dozzy Version) by Donato Dozzy & Retina.it

"I'm gonna sing a few bars... about bars, geddit? HAHAhic!"

Burninating the countryside,

Burninating the peasants,

Burninating all the peoples,

And their thatched-roof COTTAGES!

THATCHED-ROOF COTTAGES!

I didn't know your were a Homestar Runner fan.

Can respond to posts on the internet with an enthusiasm that rivals the Ancient Greeks in their most debauched and Bacchanalian revelry.

1. Dan Flavin

2. Dan Perfect

3. Dan Baldwin

4. Dan Webb

5. Danh Vō

The last one I'll admit was cheating slightly.

99/-1 (I'm genuinely sorry about this one)

2/1. Cause two heads are better than one?

Is there something called a documentation phobia?

 

I am really aversive to handwriting on documents like school or job applications, contracts or bills. I feel like a single mistake can cause a massive error in the bureaucratic system and cause me to end up in legal trouble.

The internet asserts that "Formophobe" is the popular term for someone who is afraid of filling forms. The legitimate fear of writing is graphophobia, and the fear of writing in public is often distinguished as scriptophobia, both characterised being triggered by a specific set of circumstances or contextual actions.

But I want to talk about random art in the art thread...

 

And I want to talk about art in the random thread...

To art or not to art, that is the random...

(I actually went to an art gallery today, does that help?)

The weathers gone mad here in the Midlands. This afternoon at around about three or four PM, in the space of fifteen minutes it went from being bright and sunny, to utterly grey and overcast, then raining, then snowing, then HAILING, before going back to being blue skies and sunshine again for another half an hour until it decided to rain again. It was even frosty when I left for Birmingham this morning. That's schizophrenic English weather for you, I guess.

I think I've figured out the best replacement for Dogmeat ever. Take the model for the supermutant hound and give it some mild colour tweaks so it looks more like a bulldog. Give him a Union Jack bowler hat and name him Cherry Hog. He wouldn't even fight, he'd just run around with a radio strapped to his back constantly playing Chas & Dave songs.

Imagine DayZ, but with triffids instead of zombies.

The game world would have a lifecycle, when server starts off it would be like in the book, blind npcs around, few triffids, players with healthy eyes and a lot of things to loot. The thing is there would be a finite amount of drops in the game world and time would be measured by how much loot is left. The more players search for supplies the faster game goes to the end. Which means less npc, less and worse loot and much more triffids around as time goes on.

Once the loot gets depleted, there would be a set time (few days, week?) before the game ends, evaluates effort of players and starts anew. Players would be able to join into progressing game, join into groups and would be able to end it early by achieving some victory conditions (like developing a biological means of disposing of triffid menace) wich would give them rewards for the next game and they would get into some top survivor list or something.

Like in DayZ, players are able to attack each other and if there would be some skills and leveling, would have an exp loss upon death and they drop their gear but they can respawn again. I would put triffids there because for one it makes more sense for them to grew in numbers as time goes (unlike zombies, those would peak somewhere in the middle and then they would die off eventually) and killing triffid is very different from killing human, so you would have to carry something to deal with both players and triffids.

I really like this idea, not so much for the online DayZ-style engine or gameplay but for the thematic novelty of a plant orientated horror game. I'd like to see something similar but within the context of a tough-as-nails survival horror game in the vein of The Evil Within. There's so much of this that could tie in with some of weirder aspects of plant biology.

I'd hope they would go with something perversely paradigm shifting, like an outbreak of highly mobile pseudo-anthropomorphic flowers whose pheromones compel the majority of humans to pollinate them by some hideously bodily and transmutative means. The flower monsters themselves needn't look like bog-standard green b-movie beasts either. I can think of loads of contemporary painters who draw on the floral still-life to make organically abstract and monstrously beautiful images - Fiona Rae, Katharina Grosse, Karla Black, Beatriz Milhazes, Dan Perfect, Bernard Frize - often lurid and utterly alien images that are an unlikely (but oh so refreshing) source of potential aberration.

There could be a heavy emphasis on the idea of sentient nature or genius loci (both as a collective of living organisms and an indefinable "force") turning on our species for exploiting our benevolent environment for too long. The soundtrack could emphasize a certain eeriness but also have a retroactive "hauntological" sound, perhaps by bringing artists signed to the marvellous Northern Electronics label on board, for the quality of parred-down but resonant music in the techno/ambient spectrum. I'd propose the title Sylvan Reprisal, and I'll also add that some kind of Fallout 4 game replacer mod (such as "Dust" or "Obscurum Pandemic" for Fallout: New Vegas) could be one potential means of making this game.

^ That, or someone could just make Orcwort: The Game, and I'd be just as (if not more) happy... :3

I'm well aware that I'm smacking the proverbial dead horse here, but Broken Sword 3 and 4 were enormous letdowns for me. If it wasn't for my undying love of the franchise and it's reliably strong narrative and cast of characters, I don't think I could of tolerated both games wonky pseudo-PS1 era Tomb Raider controls and spazzy facial animation/lip-syncing.

Arke Fiene by Ulwhednar

I have a couple questions if you'll be so kind as to indulge me.

1) In your RGD episode about the game Eternam, you cited the French Revolution as a period in history that was underused in gaming. As a big history nerd myself, I was just wondering what other periods or aspects of history could make for an excellent computer game theme or setting. At the moment I'm seriously into the Cynic philosophers, 10th century Arabian diplomacy, early encounters with exotic animals in Britain and the general history of the Ukraine. Any thoughts on these or some of your own favourite historical themes? Would they make for interesting content in a game? Whether set in "real life" or some fantasy world?

2) In the last videochat you talked a little about HP Lovecraft. As a big fan myself I was pleased to note you seemingly liked The Dream Quest of Unknown Kadath and The Colour Out of Space. My personal favourite is At The Mountains Of Madness. Have you read this particular story? If so, what genre of game (presuming a "horror" prefix) would suit an adaptation of the novella best? Point n' click, first-person walking simulator, third-person survival horror, etc?

Can you name couple of games you spent most hours playing?

 

I think there may be one he's spent half his life playing.

I hope Ross mentions this in the next videochat.

"When I grow up I'm gonna be a Pug!"

@SelfSurprise: My grandmother has that kind of shit just lying around in the house. XD Creeps the fuck out of me.

My mother has a glass cupboard full of dolls, all from various places and times in her life, some more or less realistic. I wouldn't dream of bemoaning her hobbies or saying anything negative about them because she loves baby-related stuff, but it reminds me of those scientific wunderkabinetts you see full of deformed infants preserved in formaldehyde, the kind with hideous physical abnormalities like hydrocephaly, anencephalia, cyclopean facial development, etc.

Probably the only person in my circle that doesn't have the so called trypophobia.

Whilst I'm risking accusations of hypocrisy due to my previously cited aversion to puppets (it isn't really a fear, more of a dislike) I get the vibe from trypophobia that it's the hip new "phobia" that every Tumblr user has to have so they can shout at people for posting Saccstry's lovely artwork everywhere. Does anybody remember back when coulrophobia was the trendy must-have source of abject terror?

Cold Summer by Illyria

I may be borderline pupaphobic. Without wanting to sound like a triggered Tumblr edgelord about it, there is something inherently creepy about an inanimate but otherwise anthropomorphic object that is designed to not only look like a person, but to imitate a living person's animate qualities. I think it was the TV reviewer and comedian Charlie Brooker that said the Italian muppet family in the Dolmio adverts disgusted him because he found the idea of puppets eating human food revolting. I have this deep seated and utterly irrational germ of fear in my brain that puppets are biding their time in order to fill the niche created by our organic (and thus pitifully vulnerable) lives.

shamelessly plugging your own art.

This one is a self-portrait. It is extremely true to life. If I was a member of the X-Men i'd like to think that this would be my power.

This is me as a shark. Not sure if this counts as a fursona or not.

This fine gentleman is Selfsmurf, and his companion Flow Smurf.

More of a nitpick than an actual complaint/vent, but it still needs to be said:

It's not even an amusing derptastic misspelling of the word, like that age old food meme that spelt milk as MORK.

"Have a break, have a KHAHIKAT"

I'm going to make a reasonable guess going by the tone of the quote, is it from Murdered: Soul Suspect?

"To arms! The English are making a sneak attack!"

EDIT: I'll give you all a clue for my quote before this one. It's from a point n' click game, a sequel, based on another non-gaming franchise.

I would be tempted to build a gigantic station with all the latest and most reliable life support systems on a planet with utterly bizarre and inhospitable climate and chemical composition. Maybe a world of burning black and violet ice, liquid magnesium oceans that emit metallic bubbles, eastern and western poles whose magnetic field rotates slowly and periodically each day, that's constantly bombarded by lightning that immediately turns into enormous glass structures upon striking the world's surface, and yet is somehow teeming with utterly alien life forms unlike anything on earth, or some combination or variant thereof. I'd be safe in my isolation fortress and probably wouldn't have to put up with relatives popping over.

Next question: What non-existent subgenre of metal ought to exist and why?

1. BTGBullseye being an avowed numerophile.

2. Jeb_CC being rather animated and kawaii.

3. Seattleite being disparaging about Fallout 4.

4. Ross Scott being like a second father figure to me.

5. Binky The Rabbit being A MASSIVE RACIST.

"I'm totally okay with being your male Waifu, fat creepy internet guy..."

I wish somebody else had my avatar, just so I could steal that one SMBC joke.

"RARRRGGGHHH" [/translation: "Arrrgh! My mouth is on fire! Why won't you help me?!"]

We Refuse To Pay The Dues by The Intelligence

Which just finished, now I'm listening to...

Kneel by Con-Dom