Charlie Verdin

Charlie Verdin

@charlieverdin.com

Fangamer Owner-Employee. Huge nerd that sometimes plays games on stream to raise money for good causes.

237 followers112 following878 posts

Okay, I'm coming back around on Sakamoto Days. After kind of a becoming a straight battle manga for a while, it's now like "to beat this ultra serious villain guy you must return to being a gag manga character. You cannot out-serious this dude, so go the other way entirely."

The kids are watching Goku climb Muscle Tower. When Goku found Murasaki's stash of dirty magazines, Laura and I looked at each other for the nth time, wondering again if this is inappropriate for kids. My daughter simply said, "He sure likes his girls!" I'm not particularly worried.

Earlier she said she wanted to dress as Chi-Chi for Halloween. Kid Chi-Chi--with the bikini armor and the murder helmet. We, uh, declined. She already has a costume for this year anyway.

One of the most memorable parts of Wayside School is near the end of the second book, when suddenly, for one moment, one student understands /everything/. At that moment, I also felt sudden, perfect clarity. But only the first time I read it. Then it slipped away. Did that happen to anyone else?

Was this a literary magic trick? Or did the author also feel this way for a moment when he wrote it? If I ever meet Louis Sachar, this is what I'll ask him.

Charlie Verdin reposted

this is why @rofish.bsky.social had to force people to log in to see the Starmen forums – attendance was on the decline because its an ancient forum, and now its REALLY declining because its annoying to access. this sucks!

jess m. ☕🍂@jametc.bsky.social

Something AI is responsible for that doesn't get enough talk: How, when it scrapes a website to illegally steal everything on it, it uses up a ton of its bandwidth allotment, crashing it or racking up massive fees for site owners.

To be clear, this was at a thrift store. There was a used costume section we perused for pirate costumes. This was not in the used costume section. This was among the regular hats.

Charlie Verdin reposted

I wish I could go back in time and tell my kid self that one day he will be a small part of that cartoon about the funny anime cats he loves so much 🥹

Fangamer@fangamer.com

Will somebody please cue that bird? Samurai Pizza Cats shirts and pins are here, and a Speedy plush is coming soon: www.fangamer.com/collections/...

Last night my 5yo daughter watched Dragon Ball's first ever beam battle (Goku vs Jackie Chun), and as their kamehamehas exploded against each other she ran to my lap worried about what might happen. Kiddo, just you wait. (Early low-stakes Dragon Ball is my favorite Dragon Ball, though.)

This was a pretty good anime season. New highlights for me were: - Jaadugar: A Witch in Mongolia - Draw This, Then Die - Smoking Behind the Supermarket With You All very different shows whose episodes I looked forward to for different reasons.

I just read my kids the Freedom chapter of Wayside School is Failing Down--the one where Myron is given the choice to either be Free or to be Safe. That chapter stuck with me as a kid. When I later created a pantheon for my D&D setting, it heavily influenced the strongest of my evil deities.

I was taking a bus trip back in 2003, and one of the other passengers was staring at me. Eventually they asked, "hey, you're not going to blow up the bus, right?" Post-9/11 was an uncomfortable time to be ambiguously brown.

My kids were playing Made You Look. "Look at that!" The other looks. "Haha, you fell for it!" They weren't tricking each other. Not really. They were taking turns. Still, I told them that it wasn't a good game. You want people to trust what you're saying! Don't laugh at people for believing you!

FF5 a downgrade from FF4 in several ways imo but, man, the unique battle sprites for every job for each character is so cool. I like seeing how each character's style and personality is reflected in each class. I don't recall many other games doing that again until Octopath Traveler.

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I do take a similar approach to D&D, though. When I get to be a player, I'm more interested in exploring what it means to be a class than I am in exploring the mechanics of that class. What kind of person ends up like this? What makes the class interesting? Can I explore it from a surprising angle?

There are several classes that I haven't played simply because I haven't figured out what I want to explore about it yet, as well as classes I don't think I'll ever stop exploring. FF4 for prompted me to think about class systems this way before I really understood the concept of class systems.

FF5 a downgrade from FF4 in several ways imo but, man, the unique battle sprites for every job for each character is so cool. I like seeing how each character's style and personality is reflected in each class. I don't recall many other games doing that again until Octopath Traveler.

To be clear, I think it's weird when characters can change their class as one would change clothes. FF4 was awesome because character classes were informed by the story. Why is Cecil a Dark Knight? Because he spent his life training as one. Why is Edward a Bard? Because he's a sappy princeling.

Rooting abilities this way helps make classes feel less like game mechanics and more like a natural aspect of a character. Which makes it kinda funny that my favorite Final Fantasy is Tactics. Squaring that (heh) would require an entire essay to explore.

I recently finished the original Final Fantasy for the first time. I appreciated how very influenced by D&D it is. Kinda. As a DM, though, it hurt to go through the later part of the game tearing through legendary D&D monsters like paper. My darlings posed no threat to me at all.

Charlie Verdin reposted

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Laura has been spending a bunch of time creating stained glass imagery of my homebrew D&D pantheon. Imagine creating something and then someone else likes it enough to make at about it. It's the most gratifying thing.

Or alternately, you make up someone that everyone falls in love with. Sometimes that was supposed to be the villain, and now you need a new villain because you can't bring yourself to make the party kill their new husband/waifu.

Ginny Di@ginnydi.com

Love spending time in the magical world of imagination with my favorite murderers 🥰🗡️

Charlie Verdin reposted

To honor Tim Curry's memory, we are making Brütal Legend FREE on Itch.io, for 666 minutes: itch.io/s/199277/the...

itch.ioBrütal Legend | The Tainted Coil shall rule forever! by Double Fine ProductionsA sale by Double Fine Productions, 100% off Brütal Legend
Double Fine@doublefine.com

It was hard enough losing Dolly yesterday. ☹️ And now, we cry a sea of black tears for our very own Doviculus: The irreplaceable Tim Curry.  May these beloved legends rest well, as we carry their spirit forward~   🩷🖤

Charlie Verdin reposted

I think about this a lot. It can be hard to remember sometimes but once you’re in the habit it becomes automatic. You could spend your whole life complaining about little things other people do but it’s way more fun to compliment people

Will Oremus@willoremus.com

randomly giving out genuine compliments is such an easy way to make the world a little nicer, i'm always surprised more people haven't figured that out and have a ton of respect for those who have

Sideways Stories from Wayside School and its sequels. It was the first book I remember feeling compelled to read aloud to others in the hopes that they enjoyed it as much as I did. They did not, but I appreciate them for listening nonetheless.

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So, I beat Harvestella, and I'm trying to wrap my mind around it. I have no idea why this game has a farming sim in it. The farm has no thematic or story relevance. It's just an unrelated thing you do to unwind between missions. And in the middle of missions. While lives are on the line.

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Even a handful of new lines to rotate through would help with the suspension of disbelief. Instead, it grinds its lack of substance in your face. There's a little bit to do in the post game to finish up the story, but it mostly just becomes a tedious grind to the finish line.

Suffice to say, there were mild frustrations throughout the game, and the post game led to it ending with more of a whimper than a bang. Otherwise, it was fine! The reason I'm going off on it is more because the choices that led to this outcome are baffling. What happened? I'm so curious.

So, I beat Harvestella, and I'm trying to wrap my mind around it. I have no idea why this game has a farming sim in it. The farm has no thematic or story relevance. It's just an unrelated thing you do to unwind between missions. And in the middle of missions. While lives are on the line.

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For instance, in the post game you can marry one of your companions. But since that's a farm sim thing, they don't understand it--they just know it's a thing you do in farm sims. There's no real build up, no romance. Just bam! Cutscene, and now you're married and they live in your house.

Now I've got this person who is basically the pope living in my house and theoretically commuting two towns over every day to go work at the popes office. But they always just seem to be hanging out at home, repeating the exact same lines of dialogue every day. It's a nightmare. I broke the pope.

So, I beat Harvestella, and I'm trying to wrap my mind around it. I have no idea why this game has a farming sim in it. The farm has no thematic or story relevance. It's just an unrelated thing you do to unwind between missions. And in the middle of missions. While lives are on the line.

Also, the farming feels bad to do. I can't convey how bad it feels to till your plot of land. I just tried to write it down, but it was a lot to explain. And then there's the fairies. There's fairies that help you farm. And if you use them, they say a line. The same line. Every time. Over and over

The adventure game part isn't so bad. It's kinda bland mechanically, but the story and characters were fun enough to keep me going through the end. But the farm sim felt tacked on, and I'm not sure what they were trying to accomplish with it. They didn't seem to understand the appeal of the genre.

Charlie Verdin reposted

what a nice surprise! my fg undertale shirt design featuring bratty and catty is back!!! i know it's not the coolest shirt here... but if you love those gals who are so hyped for the destruction of humanity... maybe get you one!

Fangamer@fangamer.com

We're bringing back four classic UNDERTALE shirts for one more run! Pick up the 10th anniversary edition of Onslaught, Bonetrousle, Amalgamate, or So Hyped—originally released in 2016 and 2017—during our special two-week open preorder: www.fangamer.com/collections/...