Most of the time I see em dashes and en dashes though should just be commas anyway.

I think I was thinking more significant changes than your were. I’d go so far as to re-write it as 4 colossi (not counting the finale.) I’d be sacrilegious enough to combine elements of them along the feature-sets I grouped them into. For instance, the first of the four main fights could introduce the puzzle solving against a biped. Use elements of the sword-carrier mostly, probably. The smaller four-legged beast colossi could group well; it could chase Wander around some ruins, and end up fighting in a dilapidated arena. For the flying one, I’d have it start as fighting in a cave, going in the sand there, before bursting out of the cave and flying into the air along the beach. Then the final fight for Wander has to be against the final Colossus that you fight AA Wander; you have to hit that story best with Agro and get emotional resolution for it, which perfectly sets up the finale.

Basically for me the fights are an opportunity to showcase visual spectacle in both colossi and the world as he combats them, in addition to overcoming the challenge both in plot and the eyes of the viewer. I imagine the 4 fights being probably 15m or less each. (The first being longer, to lay out the rules, then shorter and shorter.) That’s less than an hour of hard action.

That leaves you an hour for the other three significant parts of the film: a) serene beautiful shots of Wander and Agro in this world to establish their bond: hunting lizards, camping, climbing trees, showing Wander getting less healthy, and showing the two of them bonding. b) Intercut that with Lord Emon and his men traveling and camping with Emon explaining their mission to the men. Add in a little foreshadowing of how they might have to face “the colossus” when they get there. c) Then the finale and resolution.

Lowery

Dude killed it with The Green Knight. It wasn’t even the scene with the giants that made me think of him, but the pacing and quiet solemnity that made parts of it feel like a storybook. That whole part with him coming up to the battlefield was great. The stop at the other castle felt like a whole other movie, yet still felt perfect. It was great. He could make a compelling story about a man and his horse. And I think that’s the part everyone assumes will be “the challenge” of the film, and makes me doubtful with almost any director.

I felt the same about the serenity and visual elements of The Assassination of Jesse James by the Coward Robert Ford, if you haven’t seen it. The cast may not have agreed gracefully (Brad Pitt, Casey Affleck,) but the movie they made is a masterpiece as far as show deliberate pacing with moderate amounts of silence go. Dominik was great for this. Add in Roger Deakins and it’s worth a watch and a rewatch, imo.

I agree, I think it’s feasible. Start with Wander getting to the temple, revealing the bundle on Agro is Mono when he places her on the pedestal. The first words can be Dormin speaking to him. Then cut to the priest leading his men along the path we saw glimpses of Wander taking.

Alternate back and forth, the priest and Dormin doing the talking, with Wander rarely talking, and to Agro when he does. With the focus on Wander adventuring through the beautiful world, interesting visual storytelling with him, Agro, and their travel. And then the fights.

Though I think you need 4. A human-ish one first, a four-legged bestial one, and a flying one, before the final one. Then the priest and crew arrive, and the end happens. I think it all depends on the director.

I’m pretty sure I’ve said it before, but I think Andrew Dominik (The Assassination of Jesse James by the Coward Robert Ford,) David Lowery (The Green Knight,) and Nicholas Ashe Bateman (The Wanting Mare,) could all handle a great movie with limited dialogue and beautiful visuals. They might need help with action, but they could hire for that.

I don’t know about the attached director, Andrés Muschietti (It, It: Chapter 2,) but I’m going to try to not judge him by The Flash.

I’ll probably always think that Tetris is the greatest video game ever. The inherent dramatic arc that comes with watching the blocks stack up is tension directly within you the player, not you watching tension unfold for characters on the screen. It’s different every time, even if the shape of the arc is similar, because you improve as a player. It’s the kind of emergent involvement the most designers could only aspire to create.

That said of course Shadow of the Colossus is also a favorite. That one probably feels a little more obvious, but I’m okay with that.

Thanks a lot!

“War. War never changes.”

“Remember. No Russian.”

“Itchy. Tasty.”

You know, that feels like a pretty great use case.

Sure, but with that philosophy, why use a microblogging system at all?

It gives space to do servers based on specific interests if you want. I’m part of a game development server, and my “Local” tab has people on my server often talking about, and showing, things that are related to game development. And I can still follow anyone from any other Mastodon server too.

If you’re into video games, film, maybe a specific genre of music, you can have an instance dedicated to that. (It might already exist.) It’s like a virtual neighborhood, or forum. Remember forums? Those were nice. They cultivated a sense of community which made people a little more responsible in their attitudes, it feels like. Maybe that’s just nostalgia, but I like the server I’m on. It’s got friendly people I can talk to without feeling the need to fill my follows with them.

I do wonder if they’d garner enough attention to pay for the licenses to add them to Game Pass. I loved the MUA games.

Even if they do repeat 3 (and I kinda feel they will,) it’ll have a cliffhanger too. And I’m okay with that.

Every little bit counts. And finding ten people (especially out of ten) who agree on anything is pretty impressive. Congratulations. I hope this does well for you.

Nah you’re good. I’m absolutely going to suggest we give Warframe a try. And if we get off of Warzone, maybe I’ll end up moving sooner rather than later.

hah, respect, but I play Warzone with some cousins who are on console. (Actually I just searched, and I didn’t realize Warframe had crossplay now! I might have to at least get them to give it a shot, thanks for the mention!)

That WOULD be a fraction of the cost of a new PC. But given my current one is a 2017 build with a 1080 in it, I’m really hoping to make next year the time to free up some money for it regardless. But I do appreciate the thought!

I actually used Mint for about a year a decade ago, and really liked it then. What made me switch back was the gaming. That said, I hear gaming on Linux has just gotten better and better; just like people in this thread are saying. Whenever I get around to putting together a new PC I’ll probably either dump something Linux on this one or dual boot myself. Sadly I don’t expect Activision to really support it. But hey, Lord knows I’ve been wrong before. (And yeah, printers are often kinda universally assholes though; that we all know.)

I’d love to make the move, but there’s a one-two punch of: I play Warzone with family. I think anti-cheat there is only going to get worse. Second? I already get caught with the fiddly bits of errors on Windows sometimes and spend too long searching for answers. Any time I see that on Linux it looks like I’d need years more of active learning new problem solving to reach my current level of comfort.

I’m at that “is it worth planting the apple tree now that I didn’t plant 20 years ago?” thinking.

I was much more critical of the games I played when I was 30 compared to when I was 20. So perhaps that’s a bit of the explanation?

I’m sure you’re right that age, the circles we ran in, and platforms all played a significant role in our experiences around the game. That’s why I wanted to underscore that it was reviewed phenomenally. But so was Oblivion. Oblivion ranked much closer to Skyrim than Morrowind did, and I’m pretty sure it sold better than Morrowind too.

But like you suggested, a lot of the magic games have is found within us, especially when we’re younger, and more open to it. Though yeah, Skyrim was still pretty fucking good. But what do I know? I liked the persuasion mini game in Oblivion that everyone else seemed to hate.

Yeah, I was there. I’m 44. I loved all three games and played them on release (Morrowind, Oblivion, Skyrim.) I don’t want to oversell it. It was game of the year almost everywhere. Famitsu even gave it a 40/40. Maybe their first Western game reviewed as such? I remember that being a big deal. It was very well loved and very popular. A co-worker I knew who mostly only played Madden was sheepishly admitting he not only was paying it, but really loving going around picking plants for recipes.

But the skill system caught a lot of guff, which I recall being an issue some people had. I definitely remember the skill system being a thing that made a lot of people angry.

A lot of the other things were complaints you’ll find in other TES games, but people think a new game should’ve changed these things. For instance, there was the normal physics issues we get in a 3D TES game, which being the third game in a row, was adding up for some people. Then cities (and some buildings in cities) require loading was hated by some people who considered it old fashioned. Especially once a mod came out that got rid of that for cities. Also, the popularity of mods was instant. Not just people trying to add content, but initially a lot of that was people replacing models, and really talking shit on their modeling and textures.

Yeah, it got a lot of shit. But those people were playing it too. These are fellow gamers we’re talking about. People absolutely complain.

It was definitely a thing some people felt. There are several reasons some people like one TES game over another, and while visual styles and the world in general are large parts of it, the streamlined feel is a component for many that’s divisive. Not just changed made to systems, but how arcane a previous version felt is absolutely a positive to some people. They felt the games hit a sweet spot and later game(s) went too far.