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[Bedinsis]

More Virtue's Last Reward. I was in for a doozy now.

I must however correct myself: earlier I stated that I was mistaken in my belief that the choices would cause minor differences (they'd throw in a line or two that acknowledged my earlier choices and how it related to my overall survival chances) but on the whole would be similar. I now say that my assumption was correct, I just happened to come across one of those events that actually is very different when I wrote earlier.

Spoiler: what happened

I've only chosen Ally so far, so the only way to explore other routes would be to Betray, going forwards.

I tried Betraying Tenmyouji after Allying him, thereby breaking the promise my character gave him, with the reasoning that "Well, he betrayed me in the last round, that sounds like a reasonable course of action: revenge". Also I had most recently played the Ally action which ended with Alice dead and Clover threatening to kill us all. She had promised to listen to anything I had to say if I choose Betray, so I figured that once Alice' corpse found I would make her *not* threaten to kill us all.

This however led to the first proper Game Over of this game, since Clover at this point had 9 points and could escape, which she did as per her superior Alice' orders.

Since the game via Phi had given me the hint the size of a mountain of Betraying Alice after the first round and the player character also agreed with the reasoning and as things turned out, Alice Betrays us after the first round, I figured that was the next thing to try. What happened? Alice chose Ally. And the player character said "You chose 'betray' last time!" despite it from his perspective being the first time he had been part of this Prisoner's Dilemma voting process. It makes me wonder if some pieces of dialogue is dependent on what nodes of the flow chart has been explored, not what strictly has happened on the current route. Tenmyouji also seemed to suddenly show a greater deal of care since he voted Ally "because Clover was on he other team". Is he also playing this visual novel?

Anyway, talking with Phi reveals that both her, Luna and me has had a headache; I suspect that's something you experience when you send your experiences through time. Unlike Clover.

I went into the Challenge room with Luna and afterwards Quark fell ill with Radical-6. Again. Then Alice got sick in Radical-6. Again. In this route, two antimatter bombs have also been discovered.

I then voted to Ally Phi and she Betrayed me, claiming that you reap what you sow, and that I betrayed her last game, in the last Second Game. First of all, No, I did not, I've only voted Betray towards Clover and in this route against Alice in the first round. She said "clearly you must know by now" which I assume is meant to be "clearly you have tried going back and forth with different choices by now, since you are playing a Visual Novel/the in-universe explanation for why you can go back and make different choices". She then had her 9 points and went to open the exit door and left me on another freaking cliffhanger.

I write this as I discover it, to put my thoughts into words while I remember them, but at this point I think it's obvious that going back and forth through different routes is part of the game's narrative. Though given how many dead-end routes I've discovered I think it is odd that the game let me progress to one where Phi called me a traitor even though I have not betrayed her so far. Unless she's talking about something outside of the Prisoner's Dilemma votes.

I also think it is obvious that Tenmyouji is Quark's grandpa. Given that he knew about the Mars mission and seemed to think all is lost once Quark got Radical-6 I suspect he's a key figure in this arrangement, no matter if he's Q or not. Since his grandchild is named Quark I therefore suspect him of having brought the bombs in. From a different timeline I know that either Clover, Dio or K murdered Luna, but I still think that is merely Clover reacting to the death of Alice like she did in last game. Anyway, I'm gonna change my vote now and Betray Phi in the last vote. Maybe that will unlock the continue on this route?

And as things turned out, now she voted Ally. In other words she votes the opposite of what I voted. She promised to make me pay, even if it's the last thing I do. And the narration seemed to say "Reload and choose Ally, you big dummie!". Then a proper Game Over.

And my previous route highlighted as Green, so now I might actually continue along that route. The conversation is now slightly different, Phi is aware of me having experienced "the other round 2", but I convince her to explore this storyline further.

And long last I got some answers: quantum theory permits both Phi and I to transfer our consciousnesses between different nodes in the story. I also got some backstory with Phi, and that it is possible to change the past via quantum theory, the theory laid out that we're making choices that will determine what has happened outside of this facility. Maybe we are trying to stop the Radical-6 pandemic, after all?

And three anti-matter bombs have been found, and Sigma knows who placed them! I however do not and the storyline ended on another freaking cliffhanger as he pointed at the guilty party.

If I must guess for someone, I will say Tenmyouji, for the reasons I brought up a couple paragraphs ago.

At long last it feels like I am making some progress, and I suspect playing additional storylines will net the evidence for that route. For now, I will say the following:

I consider the previous game superior to this one. I was a lot lost there as well, but there was something there that I managed to figure out on my own that was central to the plot that made me feel like a clever cookie. (even though I think they gave me plenty of hints). This time I've never experienced that, and it feels like it can end any way.

 

[Chimpzy]

Hitman 3

Third part, and one I have some mixed feelings about. On one hand it has some the coolest locations and most elaborate kills in the trilogy, but also the worst mission and some that are just really meh. Highlights include having to take out enemy agents in a rave club in an abandoned factory, but you have to figure out who your actual targets are first while they can see through any disguise. Or the British manor where you can assume the guise of a detective and solve a locked room mystery, and depending on how thorough you are get different outcomes (and yes, 'the butler did it' is one). One the flipside, there's yet another map centered around a villa in a southern country with only one cool and elaborate kill setup even though there's two targets. The China map looks really nice, but is confusing to navigate, and the targets feel like they belong in a different game. Dubai is fine, nothing special, tho it does have my favorite assassination setup so far. And then there's the Carpathian mountains map, which takes place on a moving train, and is by consequence exceedingly linear and just not fun. Maybe the escalations do more interesting stuff with them.

 

[Drathnoxis]

Still playing Rimworld. Kind of getting sick of it. Here's a rant:

I've never played a game that felt like the designer was actively fighting you as much as Rimworld. It feels like it was designed by your childhood friend that always had to use their everything proof shield. It just feels like the game immediately counters whatever you do. You want to defend yourself from wild animals and raiders so you build a wall around your base. Great the animals stay out, but the raiders each punch an individual hole in the wall when they come and attack you from every side. Now you build a killbox filled with turrets and traps with an open door so the raiders will walk through, but the game sends you sappers that break through your wall at an undefended spot in seconds and charge from your undefended flank because raiders avoid turrets making them useless. So you make your wall 5 thick and mount turrets absolutely everywhere, but the game sends drop pod raids that bypass everything and drop through your ceiling. So you build a base inside a mountain so raiders can't drop on you, except now you have bugs flooding directly into your bedrooms smashing up all your masterwork furniture. I get that the game needs to adapt to continue challenging the player, but it just feels so artificial, like it's peeking at your cards before deciding what to play. Building good defenses feels so metagamey, like you need to exploit the AI or just get trashed. Like the fact that you need to leave an open door for raiders or they'll just destroy your granite walls in seconds is so counter-intuitive it feels unfair.

The fact that raids scale off of colony wealth and the game doesn't give you any advance warning are also major problems. It almost feels like the game is setting a trap for the player. You handily fend off the first couple raids consisting of a couple guys sharing a pointed stick, so you gain a false confidence and focus your energy on the ever pressing needs of keeping your colonists happy, fed, and occupied. You can get so lost in building up your colony that it never feels more important to redesign you defenses until you have 63 militors punching 63 individual holes in you walls because your alpacas have bred out of control and you smoothed all of your walls and floors. There really should really be some sort of indicator of "the next raid will be in about this many days, and will be around this big" to keep raids in your mind amid the moment to moment gameplay and keep you from being totally blindsided by difficulty spikes. Frankly raids (and especially mechanoid ships and clusters) never feel like a fun challenge, they feel like a chore that the game punishes you with for playing and to stop you from progressing too quickly. I have almost nothing to gain from a raid and everything to lose when the leader of my colony, a high level psycaster with many useful abilities, the only one with decent social skills, and wearing prestige cataphract armor with a samurai helmet, might get her brain exploded by the FIRST shot fired in a combat with lancer (yes, I reloaded. This is why I always save at the start of a raid. There is enough time spent fast forwarding without needing to spend hours training up new colonists from scratch).

While I'm ranting, I might as well mention this. Hauling sucks! I can't believe this hasn't been fixed yet. I can live with the stack sizes being small, and only being able to haul one stack at a time even though they can carry 10x that much in a caravan, but good god, get your priorities straight! Crops shouldn't be rotting in the fields because my hauler is dragging 10 corn from my freezer to my kitchen all day long. Haul spoiling, then deteriorating, then anything else. Give me a selector to designate priority haul. I know there's mods that fix this. This should be vanilla. Hauling is the single most tedious and micromanagey aspect of the game.

 

[laggyteabag]

I've been sucked back into playing Halo Infinite, by a promotional Oreo skin, no less.

Obviously, that sounds absurd - so let me explain:

In Halo Infinite, 343 decided to strip away the traditional "pick your colour" customisation system of past Halo games, in favour of a skins system that they could monetise. Firstly because F2P, and secondly because of course. A consequence of this is that I haven't really been too happy with the way that my character has looked for about a year, because they haven't released any skins with my preferred colours, other than one that they released for £20.

So enter Oreo, and they have a promotional skin that is white/blue/black, and right up my alley. So I find a way to get it without buying any biscuits, load it into the game, and im actually quite happy with the way my character looks for once. Still not perfect, but definitely progress.

Now, the last time I put any significant time into this game's multiplayer was actually more than a year ago now, and seeing as I was loaded into the game already, I decided to give it another whirl. Since I stopped playing, they have added 5 new maps to the map pool. Not groundbreaking for a "Live Service" multiplayer game that is a year old, but significant enough to not feel like I am rotating around the same 4 maps over and over.

They have also revamped the Challenge system, and added per-match XP, so you are no longer dependent on completing frustratingly specific gameplay challenges to actually make some progress in the Battle Passes.

And you know what? It has been fun returning to the game. I've played the game for about 3 days on the trot now, and im still not bored.

I am actually invested in seeing where future content takes this game. Its refreshing looking at Halo Infinite with optimism for once, even if the game is admittedly still quite far away from where it needs to be.

 

[Bedinsis]

More Virtue's Last Reward.

Spoiler: another route

So went down the route where I Betrayed Alice but instead of me&Luna entering the room with Phi we went in with Clover.

After that things went as normal... almost. Quark got Radical-6 and then Alice also got Radical-6, and I found her dead in the Crew Quarters and a Game Over screen... only this was apparently a route I had unlocked by now, since I could immediately reload and Sigma got a premonition and managed to stop her suicide attempt, hurting his hand in the process. In the voting round EVERYONE voted Ally (whether by defaulting or by an active choice)! Hurray! And Luna discovered that my hand was covered in a white liquid, where my wound from the struggle with Alice should be. No blood, just white liquid.

What the Fudge?

I'm currently speculating if Sigma is a robot, since he does not actually have a voice, he just has the blip-blip-blips present for the unimportant lines of dialogue, apart from the previously mentioned fact that his face is never shown. And the obvious fact that he has the superpower of sending his consciousness through time.

Luna revealed a bit of her background story of how she is lonely, and then she's retelling a story about how "just when you think you found happiness, it slips out of your hand". The scene was almost romantic, set int he Botanical Garden. This sounds like a major death flag, I'm probably headed for mass death.

Anyway, Luna reveals that I could not possibly have known about the Botanical Garden in this route(not those words), and asked if I was a robot. And it would make sense since the robots of the setting apparently have white blood.

Then Phi appeared, revealed that there was a bomb in the Botanical Garden and I once again got the To Be continued ending where Sigma points out who must've planted the bombs.

I would say there are two major bombs here. The first one is minor all things considered, but I've always assumed that someone murdered Alice after she caught Radical-6; the scene I saw suggests that the murderer is Alice herself, which means I should probably scrap all thinking of analyzing who could've killed her.

The other one is that HOLY MACARONI THE PROTAGONIST IS A ROBOT! Most likely. Since I've never seen Phi bleed and she can perform super human feats in leaping into the air and, most importantly, she retains memories from different routes, it would sense that she is also a robot. That both Sigma and Phi are Greek letters also indicate a connection between them. Hu-bot model φ and model σ or what have you.

I'm currently leaning towards Phi planting those bombs. If this is all to ensure Radical-6 does not spread and kill a large part of humanity then the three laws of robotics ensures that she would try to save other people.

I'm not sure the protagonist being a robot changes anything for the overall plot but

I'm glad I'm finally getting some revelations.

 

[meiam]

While I'm ranting, I might as well mention this. Hauling sucks! I can't believe this hasn't been fixed yet. I can live with the stack sizes being small, and only being able to haul one stack at a time even though they can carry 10x that much in a caravan, but good god, get your priorities straight! Crops shouldn't be rotting in the fields because my hauler is dragging 10 corn from my freezer to my kitchen all day long. Haul spoiling, then deteriorating, then anything else. Give me a selector to designate priority haul. I know there's mods that fix this. This should be vanilla. Hauling is the single most tedious and micromanagey aspect of the game.

This is one of the big reason I never got far in the game, you end up having to trick your people into doing a good job hauling stuff. I got really annoyed at food preping in the game because of that, either they go back and forth in the freezer for every ingredient to make one meal or you have to micromanagement a special depot next to your kitchen (or even stupider, build the kitchen in the freezer).

As for the raid, I played gnomoria (dwarf fortress clone) back when it was early access and there wasn't any system to keep up with the player strategy and every raid was either a joke or massive wave of death. I think there would need to be some sort of socut job where you could see the raid coming in advance and would have the option of intercepting them ahead of time.

 

[Worgen]

I beat Starship Troopers: Terran Command. Aside from one or 2 kinda bullshit missions, I really enjoyed it. Gameplay was a lot of fun, story was just what you want from the movie, voice acting was kinda amateur, but its fine. I really like how its hard to just lose the game, as long as you can maintain a base then you can call in reinforcements for any lost squads, so stages become a bit more of puzzles rather then brute force... somewhat.

 

[Johnny Novgorod]

Playing XCOM Enemy Unknown. I don't understand how the hell the base building/upkeep works at all.

 

[Drathnoxis]

More Virtue's Last Reward. I was in for a doozy now.

I must however correct myself: earlier I stated that I was mistaken in my belief that the choices would cause minor differences (they'd throw in a line or two that acknowledged my earlier choices and how it related to my overall survival chances) but on the whole would be similar. I now say that my assumption was correct, I just happened to come across one of those events that actually is very different when I wrote earlier.

Spoiler: what happened

I've only chosen Ally so far, so the only way to explore other routes would be to Betray, going forwards.

I tried Betraying Tenmyouji after Allying him, thereby breaking the promise my character gave him, with the reasoning that "Well, he betrayed me in the last round, that sounds like a reasonable course of action: revenge". Also I had most recently played the Ally action which ended with Alice dead and Clover threatening to kill us all. She had promised to listen to anything I had to say if I choose Betray, so I figured that once Alice' corpse found I would make her *not* threaten to kill us all.

This however led to the first proper Game Over of this game, since Clover at this point had 9 points and could escape, which she did as per her superior Alice' orders.

Since the game via Phi had given me the hint the size of a mountain of Betraying Alice after the first round and the player character also agreed with the reasoning and as things turned out, Alice Betrays us after the first round, I figured that was the next thing to try. What happened? Alice chose Ally. And the player character said "You chose 'betray' last time!" despite it from his perspective being the first time he had been part of this Prisoner's Dilemma voting process. It makes me wonder if some pieces of dialogue is dependent on what nodes of the flow chart has been explored, not what strictly has happened on the current route. Tenmyouji also seemed to suddenly show a greater deal of care since he voted Ally "because Clover was on he other team". Is he also playing this visual novel?

Anyway, talking with Phi reveals that both her, Luna and me has had a headache; I suspect that's something you experience when you send your experiences through time. Unlike Clover.

I went into the Challenge room with Luna and afterwards Quark fell ill with Radical-6. Again. Then Alice got sick in Radical-6. Again. In this route, two antimatter bombs have also been discovered.

I then voted to Ally Phi and she Betrayed me, claiming that you reap what you sow, and that I betrayed her last game, in the last Second Game. First of all, No, I did not, I've only voted Betray towards Clover and in this route against Alice in the first round. She said "clearly you must know by now" which I assume is meant to be "clearly you have tried going back and forth with different choices by now, since you are playing a Visual Novel/the in-universe explanation for why you can go back and make different choices". She then had her 9 points and went to open the exit door and left me on another freaking cliffhanger.

I write this as I discover it, to put my thoughts into words while I remember them, but at this point I think it's obvious that going back and forth through different routes is part of the game's narrative. Though given how many dead-end routes I've discovered I think it is odd that the game let me progress to one where Phi called me a traitor even though I have not betrayed her so far. Unless she's talking about something outside of the Prisoner's Dilemma votes.

I also think it is obvious that Tenmyouji is Quark's grandpa. Given that he knew about the Mars mission and seemed to think all is lost once Quark got Radical-6 named Quark I suspect he's a key figure in this arrangement, no matter if he's Q or not. Since his grandchild is named Quark I therefore suspect him of having brought the bombs in. From a different timeline I know that either Clover, Dio or K murdered Luna, but I still think that is merely Clover reacting to the death of Alice like she did in last game. Anyway, I'm gonna change my vote now and Betray Phi in the last vote. Maybe that will unlock the continue on this route?

And as things turned out, now she voted Ally. In other words she votes the opposite of what I voted. She promised to make me pay, even if it's the last thing I do. And the narration seemed to say "Reload and choose Ally, you big dummie!". Then a proper Game Over.

And my previous route highlighted as Green, so now I might actually continue along that route. The conversation is now slightly different, Phi is aware of me having experienced "the other round 2", but I convince her to explore this storyline further.

And long last I got some answers: quantum theory permits both Phi and I to transfer our consciousnesses between different nodes in the story. I also got some backstory with Phi, and that it is possible to change the past via quantum theory, the theory laid out that we're making choices that will determine what has happened outside of this facility. Maybe we are trying to stop the Radical-6 pandemic, after all?

And three anti-matter bombs have been found, and Sigma knows who placed them! I however do not and the storyline ended on another freaking cliffhanger as he pointed at the guilty party.

If I must guess for someone, I will say Tenmyouji, for the reasons I brought up a couple paragraphs ago.

At long last it feels like I am making some progress, and I suspect playing additional storylines will net the evidence for that route. For now, I will say the following:

That bit with Alice is so annoying. The fact that she always blames you despite her being the contrarian that picks the opposite choice is irritating. I'm glad she gets stabbed.

I consider the previous game superior to this one. I was a lot lost there as well, but there was something there that I managed to figure out on my own that was central to the plot that made me feel like a clever cookie. (even though I think they gave me plenty of hints). This time I've never experienced that, and it feels like it can end any way.

Hey now, there's still a lot of game to go. Maybe it'll do something really surprising and you'll change your mind. VLR does seem to be the fan favorite after all. For what it's worth a couple of your guesses have surprised me, not gonna say which, but you'll see once it's all over.

 

[Bedinsis]

Hey now, there's still a lot of game to go. Maybe it'll do something really surprising and you'll change your mind. VLR does seem to be the fan favorite after all. For what it's worth a couple of your guesses have surprised me, not gonna say which, but you'll see once it's all over.

I know there's a lot of game to go. Going over the same events again and again feels a lot like a chore at this point, so it is not a mark in its favor.

Since this is the third of Uchikoshi's titles I've played I find it curious how it appears to be an in between of the latter made AI - The Somnium Files and the previously made 999.

In 999 I was allowed to reach the different endings as a result of my actions and they were always conclusive end points. The negative was that you're forced to sit through the same events again and again to get anywhere. Though once I understood the flow chart and consulted a guide that was less of a problem.

In AI - The Somnium Files the game interrupted some of the endings leaving me wanting before I had gone through other storylines to completion but there each storyline was different enough that I was not bored.

Virtue's Last Reward both interrupts the storylines AND has a great degree of repetition. It feels like the worst of both worlds. Plus I now have to be the jerk that Betrays people to actually get anywhere.

 

[Bedinsis]

Spoiler: Virtue's Last Reward

Redid the last vote where everyone voted Ally, but chose Betray. I figured if Luna thought it made sense I was a time travelling robot she would be more understanding of me trying different options.

Anyway, Luna left me in disappointment and EVERYONE, including Sigma himself, was disgusted with my actions. Sigma asked if he really was making his choices or was guided by an external force.

The men subdued 9-point-me and I woke up alone with my left hand and bracelet removed, nobody to be seen and a proper Game Over.

Next storyline: Betray Tenmyouji in the first round. And he picks Ally, despite him picking Betray when I pick Ally.

The storyline continues as usual, only Alice mentions having heard of a virus being used as a bioweapon, and she is not infected.

Time to pick doors, Tenmyouji makes the choice by saying that he trusts Clover to handle the unconscious Quark, so she and me and Quark forms a team. To the Treatment Center. I enjoyed playing Mastermind there, and getting Quark in a pod, but then it is revealed that three people have been in suspended animation until some hours ago, before the Nonary Games started. Does that mean that only three people are humans? No, if that were the case far fewer people would bleed.

Anyway, Phi raised the interesting point that if under suspended animation the heart would stop, meaning they could just take the bracelets off. If they induced it. But the function is disabled.

Clover expressed interest in Betraying, but changed her mind after talking to Tenmyouji. She won't spill the beans, saying it's laughable, but if what he said is the truth then she knows who he is. I obviously allied, and the narration claimed only a monster would vote otherwise.

And at long last I got some answer from Clover. Apparently all previous Nonary game participants had been gathered up by a governmental security organization called SOIS which Alice works for, and the nonary game participants were espers with access to the morphogenetic field, and a terrorist group might be planning to unleash a deadly virus. SOIS had plans to strike their HQ, but then Alice & Clover ended up participating in this Nonary game, just a few days before the intended strike. Then Clover realized a medicine we found in the Treatment Center could be used to counteract the poison in the bracelets that would kill us, and ran to tell Alice. Afterwards I encountered Phi, who looked like she had caught Radical-6, and then I found all except K and Quark in bloody piles, seemingly dead, in the infirmary, and Sigma committed suicide. Roll Credits, first proper ending unlocked.

Random idea: in some routes we find the device that could deactivate the bombs. I'm thinking the bombs only appear when Zero has access to that device, and analyzing what safe it came from might be fruitful, and whom went to that chamber.

What I think happened is that the room I spoke with Clover in was a sort of pressure chamber to keep Radical-6 from entering the facility, but in her eagerness to get to Alice she did not do the proper precautions and everyone got infected.

Anyway: espers. Not really a surprise since I played the last game. Clover mentioned that she is emulating Alice which probably explains her more... exposed clothing. I was earlier going to say that since Phi was able to vote differently depending on your vote in the Prisoner's Dilemma then maybe that was indicative that Alice also had the ability to transfer consciousness between nodes, but since Tenmyouji did the same it sounds like it would be a stretch to have that many people changing the past. I have had the thought that this is in the future, the people that are robots did not require suspended animation to get here and Tenmyouji is old so he actually took the slow route, which would make him the architect behind it all. If Phi and Sigma are robots that would still mean that three more people are robots, but they still bleed, so I think that's crazy talk.

I found it interesting that K was not one of the dead people found, but he was dead in another multikill ending. I wonder if that was Radical-6's working as well.

Though now that I think about it: in this ending Sigma committed suicide by slitting his throat and the graphics showed a splash of red on screen. Does that mean his arm is robotic but his torso is not? That could imply that a lethal injection from the bracelet would not affect him.

I'm gonna vote Betray next, though that will net Clover 9 points and be mean to Quark.

 

[Baffle]

Still Dwarf Fortress. There's a moratorium on new bards because all my dwarves are drunk and listening to stories in the tavern and absolutely nothing is getting done. Building a hole for the bards.

 

[Worgen]

Playing XCOM Enemy Unknown. I don't understand how the hell the base building/upkeep works at all.

The new games or the original?

 

[Johnny Novgorod]

The new games or the original?

The one from 2012, Enemy Unknown.

 

[Drathnoxis]

Spoiler: Virtue's Last Reward

Redid the last vote where everyone voted Ally, but chose Betray. I figured if Luna thought it made sense I was a time travelling robot she would be more understanding of me trying different options.

Anyway, Luna left me in disappointment and EVERYONE, including Sigma himself, was disgusted with my actions. Sigma asked if he really was making his choices or was guided by an external force.

The men subdued 9-point-me and I woke up alone with my left hand and bracelet removed, nobody to be seen and a proper Game Over.

Funny how everybody else can pull that crap and get away with it, but once Sigma tries to go through the door then they all team up and stop him. There's some double standards going on here.

 

[Bedinsis]

Oy, @Drathnoxis, when you write inline spoilers, does that mean I would be spoiled if I read it? I've purposefully avoided reading that part of your posts so far.

Anyway, I got some real revelations now. What I can say is that had I not played 999 I would be incredibly lost right now, so I understand that they released it as a bundle.

Spoiler: additional routes for Virtue's Last Reward

Clover escaped with her 9 points, as per her superior Alice's orders, the rest of the people subdued 9 point me.

I then went up a route where Quark had gotten ill and I had the option to enter a room with Dio, the first time this occurred. In the room we found the medicine to cure Radical-6, Dio took it and threatened to destroy it if I'd vote Betray. I voted Ally, Dio Betray, thereby netting me -1 points and killing me. For the first time someone actually died from the bracelets, making Dio effectively a murderer. What's more interesting is that a journal was found in the room, where a description of Radical-6 was found: it slows down your mind and makes you suicidal. A cure could maybe be found in a decade or two given some testing.

After this the ending where Clover threatened to kill everybody since someone had to have killed Alice was unlocked, so I went there, and now the information in the journal was relayed, i.e. that it is most likely that Alice killed herself. From this the narration also gathered that a pandemic must have occurred. In other words, this is probably in the far off future, not 2028. Quark then woke up and I was surprised to see that the route I was on had additional nodes now revealed on the flow chart. I don't know if that has happened before.

Me, Tenmyouji and Quark entered a room, where a puzzle involved scanning a photograph. And that photograph was a real revelation.

It was a photograph of "Tenmyouji's long lost love". Akane, from the previous game. In other words Tenmyouji is probably Junpei, the protagonist from the previous game.

This was enough to make me understand why Clover had been able to trust Tenmyouji for a laughable reason on another route: they had both participated in the same Nonary game. This was also enough to make me understand why he seemed to trust Alice and Clover (though not so much why he trusted Luna).

After that it was voting time and they promised to vote Ally and asked I do the same. I did and was Betrayed. What the Fudge?? But I kind of forgave him immediately: the way it was set up, Clover, Tenmyouji and Quark now had enough to escape, and he must've figured that Clover would escape if the opportunity arrived, so this way he'd be able to save himself and Quark. I then got the proper credits ending "Tenmyouji", where Quark told their common backstory, of how he was adopted and lived in poor conditions gathering specific trash from warehouses.

Given that Tenmyouji is an old man and Junpei would not be if it were set in 2028 I assume Tenmyouji has aged and this is in the far off future where a Radical-6 pandemic has struck with Tenmyouji along to make sure this Nonary game can in some way send the information required back in time. Either that or he has prematurely aged, but I don't think so.

Oh, and I almost forgot: there was hologram recording of someone, a grey-haired man and the self-proclaimed Zero, that revealed a code for the first bomb and that I would die if I told someone else. Tenmyouji also said he knew who Zero ("he") was in the ending. What I think happened is that he also triggered the hologram (which might have had a different message for him) and from this figured out who Zero was.

So K, Sigma, Tenmyouji, Quark or Dio? Or a third party? I'm lost.

I now find it more probable that Tenmyouji is also traveling his consciousness between different nodes, and that SOIS agent and head of the espers Alice might also be doing so.

For the overall plot, my current idea is this: ahead of SOIS' raid on the terrorist HQ SOIS figured that if the Radical-6 virus was as devastating as their intel suggested, they would need to have a way to get a cure quickly. Researching medicine takes time (decades, if that journal is anything to go by), so what they did was to play a Nonary game in 2028 with the intention of using the time travel powers, once a cure had been found, to play a Nonary game anew and transfer the necessary information back to 2028. That is the Nonary game I'm playing. I wonder if many participants had been in suspended animation since then.

 

[Drathnoxis]

Oy, @Drathnoxis, when you write inline spoilers, does that mean I would be spoiled if I read it? I've purposefully avoided reading that part of your posts so far.

No, I won't post spoilers past what you've already played. I just spoilered it because I was commenting on spoilered text.

 

[Worgen]

The one from 2012, Enemy Unknown.

As far as I remember, each building takes a certain amount of power and monthly upkeep you have to pay. Can't build if you don't have the power and each one takes away from your credits.

 

[Bartholen]

Playing XCOM Enemy Unknown. I don't understand how the hell the base building/upkeep works at all.

It's not very complex at all. You basically require three things for the buildings: space, power, and money. Space you get by excavating the tunnels, which requires money and a certain amount of time. Power you get by building generators, and if you don't have enough power you can't build new buildings. Money you get from various places, and each building takes a certain amount of money per month to keep running. So if you have, say, 2 buildings that each cost $30 to run, that's $60 off your earnings at the monthly XCOM report. You also get various bonuses by linking buildings of the same type together, so it's worth considering their placement tactically.

In other things, I completed the Orzammar quest in Dragon Age and finally headed to Denerim... after which I immediately headed to the Sacred Ashes quest. I'd assumed it to be just a side mission, but it's an entire plotline on its own with the usual massive dungeon crawl. Which I don't mind, this is turning out to be the second game within a year to utterly consume my life, and I'm pretty sure I'll end up loving it by the end. Possible that I might just start another playthrough right away and focus on different party members, my mains so far have been Morrigan, Zevran, Alistair, Sten and Shale. But I feel any of the others could be just as fun and interesting. One thing I keep running into is constantly running out of inventory space on dungeon crawls, and having to retread a lot of areas just to get all the loot. I try to check any merchants that might be selling backpacks, but 10 inventory slots is a fairly small increase when you can easily pick up 70+ items over the course of a dungeon crawl in addition to all the crap you're already carrying.

 

[CriticalGaming]

3 Yakuza games back to back to back is too much Yakuza in too short of a streak.

So I've taken a short break to play an Indie game which will probably shock @BrawlMan but i do dabble from time to time. This time I'm playing Nobody Saves the World, which actually is a really good game. Simple in concept you are Nobody and you happen upon magical powers of shapeshifting which you then use to save the world from a great evil. Form swapping is nice and each form has a specialty that rarely overlaps (though some do, it's impossible with how fucking many there are) and you can swap them pretty freely using a hot button wheel. Later forms do sort of overpower and replace earlier ones but that's alright.

Otherwise the gameplay is a top-down hack n' slash dungeon crawly affair with no loot beyond money and healing items. I think what I like best so far is how smooth the experience is, the dungeons randomly regenerate each time you enter so even after beating them for the story you can redo them to farm exp on a given form to unlock new moves and new forms, it's a gameplay loop that is so smooth that you almost don't realize you've played three hours past your bedtime because it offers no resistance whatsoever. It's also extremely easy which makes it such a relaxing game, I didn't know saving the world was so stress-free maybe we should sent it to world leaders as an example of how to do it properly.