Well, it's time for another blogger tag! Thanks to Heather from Just geeking by for tagging me in this and thanks to Michelle from A Geek Girls Guide for making this tag!

Have you ever...

Rage Quit a game
No. If I'm mad or not in a good mood, I tend to not play games besides Tony Hawk's Project 8 because I think it's good game for to get mad at because I can just quit it before it happens.
Earned all achievements in a game
Nope, however I want to do this for Final Fantasy 13, Hyperdimension Neptunia, and Sonic Generations. One of the goals I have with games I love is to clear all their achievements.

Livestreamed your game
YES! I did a stream of Tomb Raider and BlazBlue once. I also make some Youtube videos of games, which I want to back to.
Pre-Ordered a Game
The only one I did pre-order was the windows edition of Final Fantasy XV, and I do regret it for the soul reason of that it kinda screw me over with money plans later one. Man I wish I knew how to save back then.

Bought a game and never played it
I've only done this now because I wanted Grid:Autosport and I got a few other games with it that I know I'm not going to play.
Been Jumpscared by a horror game
If Wings of Glass counts, yes. If not, then no because I don't play horror games.
Had a specific set squad for a game
I'll be honest, I usually use Lightning, Vanille and Hope in FF13 because I gravitate to them most. What? I can have connects to video games characters. Lightning gave me confidence, god damn it!

Bought a game on multiple platforms
Not yet, but given that I'm getting a switch that will happen... eventually.

And that's it! Thanks to Heather and Michelle again for the tag. As such, I tag:
- Ace Acunder
- MoeGamer
- A Geeky Gal

But as always, thanks for reading, and I will see you guys next time.

Written by Nana Marfo
Tony Hawk(C)Vicarious Visions/Activation
Final Fantasy XIII/XV:Windows Edition/Tomb Raider(C) Square Enix
BlazBlue(C)Arc System Works
Grid:Autosport(C)Codemasters and Codemasters Racing
Wings of Glass(C)Sayuri Artsy

So we are back to a game made by Sayuri and Eager Passion. This was a game I was looking forward to, as Sayuri seems to been leaning into a sorta meta narritive, which I'll get to monumentally. However, this game was meant to be a short project, until Sayuri got a invitation to go to Gamesrome, which made her think to make the game more ambitious. But did it pay off? Well let me start by I think is better than Wings of Glass, which is saying a lot, but I'm already giving a away to much.

Rules:
1.Spoilers are abounding, and depending on the game, can spoil the experience. While not super story heavy, be warned going into the review.

2. I will not put aside any bias, but will try to be fair for games I do not like. This is my personal opinion. If you want to send your opinion, please do so in the comments below.

3. I am reviewing the PC Version.

Lets wield the fire sword! And also see cute lesbian relationships too, I guess. This is my review of Feathery Ears.

Story
OK, so the story is told without daiologe through draw cutscenes, which are very nicely presented! However, I have grown up on too many games where almost everything is voiced, so I do personally find it a bit weird, but I know for a fact that's just me, because the characters move VERY expressively. However, this does make the story a bit trick to describe because while I know what's happening(or at least have some idea), I don't know the whys and the hows. I am autstic, as some of you know, meaning I infer things the wrong way sometimes... or don't infer things at all, so that might have something to do with it.

Anyways, Ashaly Dengura is a 9th grade student with a lot of ideas, particularly Misa Ikko and Coral, the latter of which she is working on, and while try to working on her, accidentally performs the art of the isekai anime by spilling paint on herself. From here I believe we are transported to the world where Feathery Ears takes place, probably based on ideas either in her mind or in her sketch book.

As you start the game and get used to the controls, Misa goes to Coral to receive the fire sword, a sword that might be the master sword of this game because it does get s**t done. From here it's all about completing the levels and releasing the stars(which may or may not be literal souls) back into the sky.

Towards the final levels, a hooded figure(who may or may not be one of the stars) attacks Misa, but Coral helps her heal up as she ends up climbing the tower to the sky, and they end up looking at the stars together. 

Overall, this is a really good and basic story told in about 2-4 hours depending on how fast you are. One of the things that I did like was the cute relationship between Misa and Coral, you can obviously tell they are more than friends, and it doesn't feel awkward at all, which is good!

Gameplay
I'll be honest, this game defiantly feels different to wings of glass gameplay wise, but that's what makes very cool!

First if all, you have the dive from Wings of Glass, but it is a lot more power up, and helps you go a lot further. This move was very useful to me, as I found that the extra height that the dive game before I started to fall got me to certain platforms better than jumping alone. You also run faster and this helps your momentum when jumping and it helps to give more energy to the gameplay loop.

The fire sword is very powerful and is not only effective as a short range weapon, but a long range weapon as well as it shoot fire beams, which cover a pretty good distance and with the aim tool, make it pretty hard to screw up hitting your target. If Kingdom Hearts 1 controlled like this game, I would probably be less harsh on it. 

The level design usually calls on you to find the stars in the level. In 3D, this is really cool with the open world design that Sayuri has been proven to be very good at. In 2D, it becomes a little too straight forward, as the levels in 2D feel like are designed to be very streamlined and fast, making the collectables a little too easy to get in my opinion. I think having a few different paths like in Sonic games, or having a small metroidvania style area would help the styles of the 2D sections and 3D sections match up a little better. Besides that I have no real complaints beside maybe a few stars being a little too tricky to get in the 3D sections(i.e the third to last level requiring a lot of precise jumps to get certain stars in my opinion).

Looks, Sound and final Thoughts
This game is gorgeous and I played this on the highest setting, where everything really pops! The last level was probably my favorate because it just involves you going among the clouds and ​a purple skybox and it just looks amazing.

The sound track is made by Naoya Sakamata, and she does an amazing job with the music. Every piece of music felt catchy, fun to listen to, and belong in there environment. 

Overall, this is a fantastic game bar none, if a little bit short. However, I would still say play wings of glass first, so you can appreciate this games mechanics. You can get Feather Ears on the switch, but I would say also get the PC version, the graphics on that port of the game, have been severely down graded.

First game review in a while, and it was a pretty good one if I say so myself. Hopefully more reviews soon, as I actually bought video games that one time!

But for now, thanks for reading, and I'll see you guys next time.

Yes, I live! Sadly, lockdown hasn't treated me well, and uni has been hellish on top of that, but Geoff Keighly, host of The Game Awards and game indusry insider, made something called the Summer Games Fest. This was probably meant to happen next year as he was stepping away from E3, but due to the cancelation of E3, it's happening this year. As a quick side note, I don't think Gamescom: ONL is happening due the cancellation of Gamescom this year, but that's besides the point. On Wednesday we got the big news that Unreal Engine 5 is happening, and I want to talk about it! 

Just as a side not, I mostly focus on asset creation, and I don't have super deep knowledge of the pipeline. I'm just excited about something and I wanna talk about it!

We start off with Brian Karis and Jerome Platteaux talking the 2 new systems in Unreal Engine: Lumin, which improves the effects of Dynamic Globel Ilumination, and Nanite, something that if it works properly, could VASTLY make the job of 3D video game artists a lot easier. The footage they show is running on PS5 in real time, and MAN does it look amazing!

The first thing I want to talk about is the opening in the cave. It showed that the amount of tris in the was akinned to pixels on screen, and that the textures were 8k textures via virtual texturing. I'll talk about this more in a bit when I get to the zBrush portion of the program. They also state that the lighting in this demo, powered by Lumin, is all dynamic, without using light maps, which is pretty insane.

They also talk audio engine improvement, which I'm not gonna talk about because I don't really know too much about the sound pipeline. They also talk about their particle system Naigra, and how each particle can now 'talk to one another' and can read the environment better than ever. They also talk about the improvement of the of their animations systems, including predictive foot placement, as well the abilty to trigger new contextual events seemlessly. A lot of improvements into animation within the game engine is good, as this help compensate of an animator's mistakes.

They talk a bit more about Lighting, which again, I don't know too much about, but I want to talk about something that could change the workflow of the inderstury.

That stachu you can see in front of you there was imported directly from zBrush, according to Epic Games, which is huge because usually models made in zBrush are skulpted digitally, which means there meshes are very uneven and topology is not very good. This is why usually models have versions with lower poly counts, as they usually are easier to optomise in a game engine. But with this, it seems that time period has ended as they use the assets that are usually used in cutscenes. The reason that cutscenes can use higher quality assets is because typically, cutscenes are pre-rendered, and don't have to worry about the memory being used in real time. This does depend on the game though, so don't quote me on that entirely. 

Overall, I'm VERY excited for next gen of console, as well as what companies decide to make with them! I really hope you guys are as well, as on the day of writng this, sony does it's big event for the PS5!

Man 2020 would be amazing if all the sucky stuff in the world wasn't happening. Sadly we can't change that. Anyways I hope you guys are all always doing well, a lot of gaming news is dropping right now, so if anything super interesting comes up, I'll ramble about it!

But for now, thanks for reading, stay safe and I'll see you guys next time! 

Hey all! These are post from when I wrote for game savvy, which is now defunked. This is main for people who may have missed these posts. Enjoy!

Wings of Glass is a game made by Eager Passion, a new game for the company From Soy Sauce, who created the first 3D bullet hell. It’s something that I have been interested in for a while, ever since the original concept, Glass Wing Capstone was announced I’ve been following the development of this game very closely. The developer, Sayuri Artsy has made it clear that the game will be episodic, and I feel like, with the way the story has been presented, it would work best that way. The game is a platformer that also contains physiological horror elements, however, the focus is mostly on the platforming rather than messing with the player’s head.

The story is centred around the mythology of Glass Wings, demons that, according to the villain of the game, Ferace, can save people from sadness. As such Ferace hunts down Mayfly, the protagonist of Wings Of Glass, and explains that all of his friends are dead and that he’s been researching a way to stop demons from becoming mindless monsters.

However, I found that my favourite parts of the game's story were during the cutscenes with Ferace, as they mostly involved interactions with the Mayfly that allowed me to play the game alongside watching the story. Sayuri’s visual storytelling is very dynamic, allowing the player to interact in cutscenes, giving the player a sense that they are really in the action.

The gameplay and general design of the game really made me think outside the box at several points. This game has a lot of emphasis on the puzzle parts of the puzzle platformer, as well as avoiding combat entirely. You don’t fight anything in this game, as most of the monsters you meet you either are meant to ignore or run away from. Furthering this mentality is the fact that Wings of Glass is very old-school with its design, not really telling you anything about how the game works.

The game focuses on the main protagonist Mayfly and her gaining her abilities. In the forest, you gain the ability to swim faster underwater, though I didn’t really use it much because of another feature that the game boasts. Towards the end of the game, you get a Spinning Glide, Super Dash and a double jump, making for a very versatile Mayfly.

I felt the control was very smooth, I didn’t have any major hiccups with Mayfly, though I will say that the game does require you to very accurate with your jumps. I could count at least 3 times where I thought I made the jump, but it turns out that I undershot the jump, leading me to start the section over again.

There 2 types of bugs that attach to your feet and give Mayfly different platforming techniques, and they make the game very interesting to play. The purple and light blue bugs allow you to break certain platforms and when underwater, it allows you to have the same weight as you do on the ground. These bugs are very nice to have, but I prefer the light green bugs for one reason: you can walk in midair. This is such a cool feature, and I really hope I get the chance to play around with it more. The look and sound of the game don’t necessarily scream “horror”, but the look of the game is striking and colourful, and the sound design is really well thought out, having music that feels like it belongs to each area, and removing it to make the game feel creepy.

Overall, I can wholeheartedly recommend this game to anybody looking for a good indie title. It’s fun to control Mayfly and learn about the mythology of the glass wings, and the old-school design makes for a very fun experience.

Hey all! These are post from when I wrote for game savvy, which is now defunked. This is mainly for people who may have missed these posts. Enjoy!

Editor's note, Sayuri now goes by SayuriArtsy rather than Sayuri-Sensei.

Platformers have been making a return to old school formats, from the passionate Kick Starter attempts such as Yooka-Layliey, to outright returns to form in Super Mario Odyssey.  However, I want to draw your attention to a game called Wings of Glass, currently under the name Glass Wing Capstone from what is an interesting history.

This game started off as a Game Jam in 2014 made by Sayuri Artsy, the person behind games such as the Bullet Life, the first 3D Bullet hell game, and founder of the now-defunct From Soy Sauce. The game is a physiological horror platformer and was going to get a remake in the form of the game Glass Wing Retold, which was going to be a new game that would tell the story in a different way, and expand on some characters.

But Sayuri-Sensei, as she and her fans often refer to her, was in college at the time, and with her final coursework project looming, she wanted at first to remake Bullet Life. However, in the end she decided to make a remake of the original game, under the name Glass Wing Capstone, which is the basis for Wings Of Glass.

Anyways, I have played the demo, and for me it seems to be a mix of old style gameplay, with how Mayfly moves like she was ripped right out from Super Mario Sunshine, with more modern elements inserted in, such as Ferace, the antagonist of the game, talking to Mayfly, our protagonist and playable character, in a mix of both gameplay and cutscenes. This may have been something used by Uncharted and the Tomb Raider reboot, but what makes it unique here the art style and ambience. Furthermore, Mayfly is referred to as a demon, which is clearly contrasted by her design, which, to paraphrase Sayuri-Sensei herself, is meant to be cute and huggable.

And it works. I keep thinking in my mind that there is no way that Mayfly is a demon, who Ferace takes an interest in because of her Glass Wings, but I keep having to remind myself that she is a demon. Ferace I find unique as a villain, because of the fact that seems both powerful and cunning, which I hope is expanded on the full game. However, it also excels as a game by being able to give you new abilities and platforming challenges that are admittedly a bit brain-racking, but also make it feel like it wouldn’t be out of place on an N64. 

Sayuri’s normal brand of physiological horror is also present here. From the opening monologue to the heavy breathing of Mayfly when she is low on health. However, this also makes the game rely on Gotcha moments, where the only way you know something is there, is if you… know it’s there, and it can be annoying at times. The game also immerses you into the environment in different ways, as there is no Heads Up Display, and Mayfly’s health and different modes are tied to her wings, making the game more immersive. Though there is a hint mode if you struggling, so put it on if and when you need help.

Overall, I can say that the demo for Wings of Glass is worth checking out on itch.io. There is a lot of fun to be had in what I think is an old meets new styled platformer, not to mention the fact that this is just a taste of what’s to come.

I'm really sorry I haven't been blogging as much, but I have this and one more piece on Wings of Glass. I'm also working something about unreal engine 5, so please look forward to that!