I tried out Neko Atsume 2 as soon as it was released, but I just uninstalled it because I honestly dislike the item degradation mechanic, with the cowboy hat requiring 100 silver fish to fix being the last straw for me. I decide to stick to playing the first game.
Today I learned that Font Awesome has a poo storm icon, and they have a Podcast Awesome episode sharing the story behind the poo storm icon too.
Good thing the icon is available for free as well, LOL.
(Cross-posting my Bluesky thread praising the writing of Cassette Beasts that began with quote posting and responding to Jay Baylis, the writer and artist of Cassette Beasts. By the way, Jay liked my post that quote posted him!)
The writing is one of the most underrated aspects of Cassette Beasts IMHO. I love stories that are not afraid to explore mature topics, but are still ultimately optimistic. This is one of many, many reasons Cassette Beasts is my ultimate favourite video game.
I love how the partner characters not only have distinct personalities with their own character arcs, but also how many of their arcs are also intertwined with the main quest.
I also like the ending and IMO it is a good example of how a story can conclude in a bittersweet note but still make sense to the story, both in terms of plot set-up and the themes and messages.
Players who dislike the ending may be a vocal minority, but they're vocal enough that I was compelled to write a post on in defence of the ending. I will defend Cassette Beasts' ending to the grave.
(Originally posted on Tumblr)
I may write a proper essay to elaborate my thoughts on this subject better, but for now, I want to state for the record that I actually like the ending of Cassette Beasts and I think it fits the story and theme of the game.
Yes, it is bittersweet, but it is not a bad thing. A story being happy, sad or bittersweet does not inherently make the ending good or bad; what matters is how well the ending is set up, and how thematically fitting the ending is to the story. In my opinion, the Cassette Beasts ending achieves both.
Cassette Beasts' story has set up from the very beginning that the player character's goal is to find a way to leave New Wirral, and that the people who are living in New Wirral, including all the player character's partners, came from different worlds, with no one knows how to go back to their world until the player character and their party do in the ending. It makes sense that the player character's party expect they may never see each other again, because the game never says if there is a way to contact with someone else from a different world.
Even if you choose to romance a partner, every single romance option points out that you may have to split up when you return to your own worlds during their conversation where you choose to commit a romance with them, but they all also state that despite that, the time you spent together still matters (see my video compilation of the partner romance scenes). Not to mention, every partner has their own life before arriving at New Wirral, and it is neither realistic nor healthy to expect them to give up everything they knew in their world just for one person, even if you are the protagonist. So it makes sense that you and your romance option do not stay together in the ending, but that does not mean there is no point in romancing them.
Morgante says outright during your final battle against Aleph Null that humans have the ability to manifest their will to alter reality, to change the world and themselves, to the extent even cassette tapes are merely talismans to channel that will, which is proven immediately after when the player fuse with all their partners even though their cassette player was broken. Kayleigh echoes Morgante's words in the ending when saying goodbye to the player character that they do not need cassette tapes to manifest their will to change the world. Combined with the partner characters' growth during their time with the player character, the game opens up the hope the party can take what they learn from their time in New Wirral to make their lives better. This is the game's another way to reaffirm that even though you and your partners' stay in New Wirral may not be permanent, it does not mean your time in new Wirral does not matter, and returning to your world does not necessarily mean returning to the status quo either.
Cassette Beasts' story is not a choice-driven narrative (which is not a bad thing since not every game needs to have one); even choosing to pursue a romance with a partner does not change the story and just add some additional dialogue when you rest and a few extra lines in the ending (which is a good thing because I dislike it when the story or a character's "best" ending is locked behind a romance), so I am fine with the lack of option for the player to not returning to their world. That said, there is also an argument to be made that you, the player, choosing to continue to play the game, including the post-game is deciding that you still want to stay in New Wirral. Even Ms. Amber says after you defeat Aleph Null and discover the gateway to leave New Wirral that you do not have to leave right away. In that sense, the game's ending also serves as your farewell to New Wirral as the player.
I do not know if liking the Cassette Beasts ending is an unpopular opinion, because there is a possibility that not liking the ending is a case of vocal minority, but they are still vocal enough that I am compelled to write this post to defend the ending.
For a long time, I thought of HTML as a tool for publishing on the web, a way to create websites that other people can look at. But all these websites I’m creating are my local, personal archives – just for me. I’m surprised it took me this long to realise HTML isn’t just for sharing on the web.
In recent years, there’s a tendency towards specialism and specialists, from the job market to identities to relationships to education and more. Conversations around university education, for example, tend to be focused on high-earning job prospects, rather than on developing multidisciplinary ways of thinking. The job market tends to favor people who have had a clear, laddered path to success. The prevalence of TikTok trends, which disappear as quickly as they appear, have viewers categorizing themselves within a range of attributes, classifications that are used as bywords for a personality: “clean girl”, “softboi”, “thought daughter”, “thot daughter”, “de-influencers”, and more. Curiosity for curiosity’s sake is not discouraged, per se, but it’s not clearly monetizable either, and therefore can be deprioritized.
As a result, people are quick to try to categorize themselves based on interest or skill, as a way of telling the world who they are quickly, before an audience’s attention runs out, which can lead to tunnel vision, bias, and a sense of social entrapment. Generalists have an important place within society, working from a broad range of knowledge that brings context into the complex and nuanced circumstances humanity finds themselves in today. For example, doctors looking to improve their practices could find helpful lessons from history and philosophy—the history of humankind is also the history of generations of patients, after all. However, generalists have long faced the danger of being overlooked as the “jack of all trades, master of none”.
“To try to not be more interesting but be more interested” literally changed my life perspective btw
To do things not for the sake of coming off a certain way or fitting a certain aesthetic or to grab ppl’s attention more …. But to simply do them bc you’re curious and invested and would do them regardless of whether anyone was perceiving you or not …. That is literally the point
I’m genuinely understating how important this lesson has been for me bc we literally live in a world that’s all about aesthetics and branding and how to package urself even if you’re not even an influencer… dating tips that advise you to “focus on yourself” “take on more hobbies to have something to talk about and be interesting” like what if you just did those things bc you want to …. for the whimsy ….. bc we have one life ….. and then the rest just naturally follows . What if being interesting does not presuppose the interest. What if that sabotages it actually . What if the only actual way to be interesting and to evoke something in ppl and to capture their interest is by doing things bc you truly love them and for no other purpose
[Tags by verooquieremimir:] "#this! #it's the: #you're so obsessed with how you are perceived that you can't fully enjoy living #let's enjoy living!!"
stuckinapril on Tumblr (Archived)
thinking about “you haven’t met all the people who will love you” and like!!! you also haven’t found all the things that will make you happy!!!! there will always be new authors and musicians and artists whose work you will one day discover and love!!!! there will always be new hobbies and skills for you to learn and feel fulfilled by!!! there will always be new things around the corner that will bring sudden and unexpected happiness!!!!!!!!!!!
untiloblivions on Tumblr (Archived version)
Godot engine being the new target of the anti-woke Gamers(TM) crowd for jokingly embrace the idea of "only woke game developers use game engines" with a rainbow emoji makes me appreciate the fact that Cassette Beasts, my favourite video game ever, was made with the Godot engine even more.