J Samuel Diehl

Let’s pretend July barely happened and move on.

August has a lot of work ahead of it. There’s writing, there’s bonus streaming, there’s moving ahead with a project I’ve been working on for two months that just needs to get done (oh lord, oh lord, please get this thing finished), and frankly I’m excited about the whole thing.

Hi, welcome to August’s update post. We’re being casual today.

The Short Story

First and foremost, the bigger project of the month, the August Short Story. We covered it briefly at the start of July and frankly the work on it was hot garbage. I learned a lot of what I liked about the setting over the course of these past four weeks, and I think that’ll grown into a good story. Expect the Short much later this month, however. Like, the 18^th or 25^th. Something like that.

The biggest point I’ve researched this past month is the nature of heists, which, incidentally, is the type of story I’m telling with this month’s piece. It’s a fascinating piece learning how a good heist comes together in terms of words versus visuals. The roles, the expectations, the outcomes, all slightly differ in the type of medium the story exists in, but in the end it’s about telling a satisfying tale about a plan, putting the plan together, and then breaking it with fascinating characters. The heart of making the risks and dangers of the heist worth it is the same heart in many other stories of quests and missions: the desires of the characters.

• Why does this person care about the heist?
• What are they getting out of it?
• What are they losing?

The simple answer can be money, but that as a sole reason is boring. What is the money for? Retirement? Repairs to something valuable? Bribe money? What makes the risk worth it all? It’s in that mindset that we had to rewind a bit with the story over the last few weeks. I didn’t believe in my characters. I didn’t believe in their story and their whys. With that, a lot of them were purged from the fellowship, and I’ve slimmed things down to a tighter cast. I hope you like how it plays out.

The Stream

Most of July was taken up by three titles: Dinner First nights in FFXIV, Stardew Valley adventurers, and Satisfactory builds. We had a lot of fun in the valley and on the distant world putting together an illusion of life separate from here, and the co-opt time with Ethan and Enthnal was a great deal of fun (Fun enough that Ethan might be jumping into the world of streaming himself, stay tuned). But, like all things, it’s time to move on and look ahead.

A brief note before we march ahead, we did complete two single player titles over the past two weekends worth mentioning: Carrion and Owlboy.

Carrion was fun. Bloody, violent, fun. It’s pixel format barely hides the horror of becoming the monster in it’s lovely stretching, screeching, ripping way. The game is fun, suffering only from two major flaws. First, it’s short, very short. At only six to seven hours of game play, it’s $19.99 price tag is just a bit much even from an indie studio. I’d wait until it goes on sale for $12-$15. If, however, they continue to update the game with new content such as a challenge mode or other mechanic that encouraged replayability, then the price tag would become more reasonable. Second, while most of the game drives forward, near the end of the game, the fact that it doesn’t have a map is very harmful to it. It became quite confusing and frankly added on thirty to sixty minutes of just figuring out where to go. It needs something to help people around. But other than those two problems, it’s a wonderful little gem of a game and worth having a blast in.

Owlboy, inversely, is so tender and sweet and such a lovely little platformer. The puzzles are well done, visuals are stunning, and the core storyline is satisfying. It paints a picture of a lovely world with an intriguing past that’s slowly revealed through most of the game. Where Owlboy fails, however, is that its outer points feel unpolished. Side characters that seem to be having an arc, don’t. Mechanics works well, but never quite get challenging (with one exception of a mechanic that’s thrown at you as a side game and is just super hard for no reason), and it pales a little compared to contemporaries that arrived on the scene around the time it did. It’s also a little short if the player doesn’t seek out all the collectables. Like Carrion, while I’m forgiving for indies about length, six to seven hours isn’t long enough of a game for $24.99. Get this one on sale as well, except the soundtrack! Buy that soundtrack at full price because it is soooooo worth it.

August has two major updates coming out that will shift our streaming schedule. Tuesday, August 11th is Final Fantasy XIV: Shadowbringers patch 5.3’s launch date, and Tuesday, August 25th is the drop date for WARFRAME: Heart of Deimos. We’ll be taking the 10th and the 24th off on those weeks to give us time to fully enjoy those updates on the Tuesdays they go live. Expect early streaming times on both days.

Beyond those updates, we have a few titles planned for the coming month. Our next single player title is going to be Shovel Knight. Once again, a title I’ve explored in the past but never beat. We’re going to be sticking with Shovel of Hope, the original game, but over the next few months we’ll beat all of the titles in the Shovel Knight: Treasure Trove collection. Look for it this weekend.

After Shovel Knight, we’ll be checking out something we owe ourselves a visit in, Shadowrun Returns. Full disclosure: I was a backer for this project and its sequels. Why? Because, well, it’s Shadowrun one of my favorite settings. I’ve beaten SR Returns before, but it has been some time. I have not played the sequels, and want to get to them, but I felt it was important to hit things in order. Look for it in a week or two.

And We’re Out

With that, August’s path lies ahead of us. Growing the channel, reaching out, and posting more are in our plans for the next few weeks. With that, I’d love if you could help spread the word about our Patreon, join the Discord and invite some friends, and toss a follow over on our Twitter, Facebook, and Twitch for regular updates. Would love to have you.

Enjoy the rest of your summer, chummers. See you later this month for the short, and then on the stream for more fun.

FEATURED IMAGE SOURCE: Photo by DONTERASE From PIXABAY

June was a complicated sea of emotion, struggle, and fighting for voices to be heard. In some ways I was a part of that, in others I was secluded to my own little corner, making the noise I could but otherwise remaining consistent with what we’ve worked on. It was a month of setting personal foundations but understanding that not all projects are here to stay.

June’s focus was twofold: Lay the groundwork for the August short story and continue to grow the stream.

The August Short Story

The cycle of world-building is one that I can get dragged into easily. Gods, magic systems, regions, cultures, names, languages; they are all important for making a complicated living world, but they are also not time spent writing a story. Which is why I’m glad I started working on the next short as early as I did, because while I had lofty ideas for where I was in the post-apocalyptic post-Victorian era fantasy setting, the setting was too married to the RPG system it had originally been crafted for. No longer. The deities are freed, the races reborn, and the world once again torn asunder by scheming forces, but the likes of a d20 no longer tethers the setting’s* freedom.

*That is not to say, that the setting couldn’t still work with a certain d20 based system. It’s just not conjoined to it anymore. If the story drives a reader to that direction of play, let me know. I can always gather some numbers for you.

With that in mind, the outline is underway for the story. I’ll be sharing aspects of the premise next week on the Patreon.

Growing the Stream

We’ve had the privilege of adding 11 new followers since the last post, and a few new subscribers. In that time frame we missed a single stream, but that was in solidarity with an ideal rather than a day off. In fact, we’ve ended up on streams even on the days we’re supposed to have off to help lift up some of the amazing folks who are growing as we grow. That’s huge. We’ve been raided by lovely people like OpticalVex, KD Boom, Skallora, Cantaloupia, and Ririten over the past month, and have gotten to raid some interesting folks over the month. And, well those connections are what make this growth happen.

At the end of May/start off June, we launched into Hollow Knight. Ya’ll, I got to tell you, if I keep finding favorite game after favorite game, I’m going to end up completely overwriting my top ten. Hollow Knight is special. It’s a metroidvania from a developer team that understands what the subgenre means and how to flex the tropes of it while forging a place within the niche to call its own. It ramps slowly in difficulty at first but once it’s sure you’ve got the balance you need to peddle, it takes the training wheels off and lets you soar into the lovely give and take of pattern driven battle. Admittedly, however, I did not accept the notion of obeying the fights. Instead I found the means of magic to abuse and conquer foes from afar, like any talented mage should. There are many mysteries yet to discover in Hollow Knight, but I didn’t let us linger in the halls of Hollownest. I’m already eager to revisit that gothic realm, but I want to save a revisit until we’re closer to the release of Silk Song. I’ll be tossing up the review later this week.

We started two new games in the middle of June. First has been our co-op focused title, Satisfactory, a lovely resource and logistics management game set on a distant alien world. Enthnal has been eager for us to get into this title, and I’m enjoying my time enough that I’m starting to use it as my time filler game between waking up and starting work. Don’t worry, I’m not doing anything production goal orientated off stream. Just building outlines and setting things up so there’s less busy work while we’re on the clock.

The other game has been Stardew Valley. Look. This game is a drug.

Ethan has joined us in it as we move to the valley, build up our farm, and just have a heck of a wonderful time with this first playthrough. We’ll be at this for a bit during what’s normally our single-player nights, but I gotta say it’ll be hard to pull us away from this.

We’ve got some intermediate nights planned for the coming weeks though. Some folks want to play We Were Here, which will take up some of our nights coming up, and there’s talk of a certain Secret Lab that might show up on stream. We’ll see who bites at that bait.

July is about continuing to grow, continuing to act, and see what sticks with some of the work we’re putting in. Stay tuned for more Patreon posts, join the Discord, and keep an eye on public announcements via Twitter, Facebook, and Twitch for more updates.

Otherwise, I hope your summer’s going well. See you in August with a brand-new short story to share. Enjoy the month!

FEATURED IMAGE SOURCE: Photo by PIXABAY From Pexels

We face a great deal of complexities in our day to day lives; what to do, what to wear, what to eat, what to focus on. Time and focus are precious things that stretch out before us in at once infinite but gradually diminishing possibilities. May was a month of wide reaching but slowly shrinking possibilities, and we’re here to take a look at what was and what wasn’t in the time we spent.

A note on the day: I’d be remiss if I didn’t acknowledge the day and time we’re posting this. It’s June 3rd, the first Wednesday of the month. This and the majority of monthly posts are typically tied to the first Tuesday but events surrounding the protesting of George Floyd’s death lead me to think it best to remain as part of the blackout and let other voices be heard through social media. While this post appears here on the blog first, it echoes out to other streams. It was a voice that was not needed on that day. Social commentary and politics are an integral part of storytelling, regardless if many have decried it through their blindness of the presented moral and philosophical efforts of writers and artists. My voice matters, my opinion matters, and I will share them when appropriate. I will also step back when it is best for others to speak.

Our goal for May was to work on the novel, Epicus. Currently, this is on hold. The changes and growth of the Twitch side of things made working on the writing side a little rough, and so we’ve had to reprioritize what’s going on between the two business lines. Starting this week, we’re going to put the novel fully aside and start work on the next two Patreon short stories. Expect the vote for the October story to come out soon while I get the August story up and running. These changes will afford me the time I need to get a few things ready for the Twitch business line. Stay tuned to the Patreon for more details of the writing in the coming weeks.

Last month we finished and published our first emote. nullopOkay comes from studying with Illustrator, and the tier 2 emote slot is already pending approval. We’re 9 sub points away from unlocking the next tier 1 emote, but I have some ideas of what we’ll be doing. These emotes will start showing up on the Discord soon, so make sure to jump over there if you’re interested in getting a glimpse of them prior to Twitch giving us the okay.

Let’s talk Twitch some more. In late March, we started playing Cross Code as our single player game of choice. For the past two months we’ve traveled through the land of Shadoon on the Raritan Gem, fighting alongside Lea and her wonderful friends in the First Scholars. But like all things, the end must come. A week ago, on the Memorial Day stream, we beat the game. It was a lovely experience, and has catapulted Cross Code into one of my top games of all time, enough that I wanted to memorialize it. I cannot stress enough how much this game is worth your time. Between the story, gameplay, and art, it’s all perfect.

With Radical Fish’s glorious title out of the way, we moved on to a few other single player experiences during the last weekend of May. First, we dispatched Primordia in a single evening. This was a sweet little indie gem from back in 2012, and a lovely homage to the point and click style of games from the 80’s and 90’s. My only complaint is that it was a short experience. The story set itself up as a potential three act play, but cuts itself short at the end of a potential first act. There’s a lot of world building here on the seams, and they certainly could have done more.

Our second title knocked out this weekend was Cloudpunk. A heavily story driven game, the game is a complete setting wrapped into a very VERY busy night for our protagonist, Rania. Cloudpunk isn’t so much fun as it is interesting, and that’s sort of its problem. When the writing is trying to point out social issues often associated with cyberpunk and dystopia it either comes out as well earned and well presented (a certain long collectable storyline highlights this), or it comes off as awkward and forced (the majority of the random one-shot NPC encounters). The story is either really good or really bad, and there’s not much in-between. Further, Cloudpunk tries to come off like it’s setting up features gamers might expect to lead somewhere, but then does nothing with them. The biggest example of this is the apartment; in which the player can furnish throughout the course of the game with things like a music player, a fridge, a game console. A typical player may expect the music player to let them to listen to different tracks from the OST from the game, or the game console to let them experience the games they’ve been collecting for an eclectic npc, but neither of these are true. They, like many of the experiences of the game, feel unpolished and unfinished. Overall, I recommend Cloudpunk for the core story, but little else. It’s not in beta but it sure feels like it. The current $19.99 price tag makes me hesitant against the 12 hours it took to complete the game, but as it’s an indie dev I’m more forgiving for the $1=1 hour requirement I have from AAA titles. If you’re in it for the core story, it’s worth it.

This weekend we’ll be starting our next single player title, Hollow Knight. I briefly played this a bit back in 2017, but like many games it got put aside due to a few side projects. I’m looking forward to playing another Metroidvania style of game, especially on stream. There’s a long list of this style of game on the to-be-played spreadsheet, so please look forward to them.

There’s more Twitch stuff happening behind the scenes, but I don’t want to share them on the main feed until they’re further along. Stayed tuned to Patreon or the Discord’s supporter chat for more details throughout the month.

June has a lot of writing and streaming projects in the pipes, and I’m looking forward to sharing the fruits of those labors with you all. Stay tuned for more Patreon posts, join the Discord, and keep an eye on public announcements via Twitter, Facebook, and Twitch.

Otherwise, happy pride everyone. See you in July, and enjoy the start of the summer.

FEATURED IMAGE SOURCE: Photo by MUNZIR From Pexels

There’s a quote attributed to Douglas Adams that I particularly like: “I love deadlines. I like the whooshing sound they make as they fly by.” It carries both his sense of whimsy and an acknowledgement of the complexity of writing, of the drive for creating but understanding the annoyance that sometimes things don’t often hit how you want them to hit. April was such a month for me, and the supporter short story that was meant to go live by the middle of the month didn’t. There are a myriad of reasons why things fell as they did, but in the end the fact remains the story didn’t hit. It’s still open on my side monitor right now, on the apex of the plot, ready to cascade down into a finished first draft, but it’s not done just yet.

And there’s where May begins, trying to grab hold of the deadline as it screams past.

The short story will be done this week. It might be done by the time this goes live, that’s how close it is to completion. I’ll give it a day or two of editing and then have it up this Friday. That’s a supporter piece, so it’ll be available immediately for either supporters on Patreon, or on Discord for Twitch supporters.

This will be the first official piece shared with the Twitch subscribers, and I will be retroactively adding January’s short story to the Discord links. If any Twitch Subs want access to those stories, make sure you link your Discord client with your Twitch account. Just joining the Discord doesn’t automatically apply the role. Same with Patreon supporters. Both of those groups get a special channel for announcements first before they hit the wider market.

After the short is out, I’ll be taking a week off from writing and will be focusing on some back-end Twitch stuff. I have a few things I want to get done that I need the full time I normally would spend writing to work on those Twitch assets that need work. Then it’s Epicus time.

Streaming has been fairly smooth over the past month. Our usual title of Final Fantasy XIV: Shadowbringers raiding with Dinner First hasn’t progressed past Shiva, E8S, as hoped, but much like the writing the raid group suffered a number of setbacks in April. Namely we had two weeks in a row where we were down members and while in the past we’ve been open to pugging members into those slots, this raid tier we seem rather opposed to the idea. We are making progress though, and I have hopes of us knocking out the fight soon. We’ve got a long time before we have to worry about the next patch set as update 5.3 isn’t coming out until late June or Mid-July.

Monster Hunter World: Iceborne has been going okay the past month, but I’m starting to feel a touch drained from it. It’s a good game but I think I may be hanging up my light bow gun for a few weeks soon. It all depends on how quickly I get Cross Code completed in the weeks to come. Speaking of, Cross Code has been amazing. The story is rich, with various levels of story that are converging to completion soon. I may even dip the game into the co-op slots over the weekend to sweep through what’s left.

We also touched on a few other games this past month. Overwatch graced our presence a few times, including a time with several members of the raid group. Armello also dropped in for a little lovely frustration with Ethan and Enthnal. We had some technical difficulties on that one, but the games were fun otherwise. I rather like these drop in titles, as they offer a nice diversion from the big stories we’ve been working on.

Finally, let’s wrap up some meta communication stuff. The Hiddennode Discord has grown over the past few weeks. 11 new members between this post and the last, and while many are long familiar faces, some are newer friends who have connected with us. I’m loving the activity I’m seeing in there, and I hope to see it grow and grow in the coming year.

And that sums it up. May is set and I’ve got some more writing to do this evening to get that story ready. Stay tuned for more Patreon posts, join the Discord, and keep an eye on public announcements via Twitter, Facebook, and Twitch.

Otherwise, see you in June. Enjoy the rest of your spring.

FEATURED IMAGE SOURCE: Photo by Pixabay from Pexels