Tag Archives: Makaria

February 16, 2025 · 03:56

The added parts

A little over a year ago I had an idea. It was founded on the God of War 3, not a game copy, not some replica wannabe. But a full grown RPG, based on the foundations of Olympus. I saw what I initially had and I decided to give parts a rewrite. You see, we can only be as unique as we make ourselves to be. The game wasn’t a copy, but it lacked a few sides. I thought that this needed adjustment. The first setting was good, but I wanted more, an introduction outside of Olympus. And that was where I had an idea. The original story was ‘It was this simple’ (at https://lawlordtobe.com/2024/01/15/it-was-this-simple/) and I wrote it in January 2024, a little over a year ago. I considered the stage and it was too predictable. As such I wanted to add an intro level. After you go through the mirror, you get to a field with houses, these houses are meant for the upper slaves of Olympus. They had a little more. The houses are in a circle and there is nothing more to see, yet as you enter the houses, they will seem to have security active, these systems have been dormant for millennia, but once activated the become active. I want to set the stage that the upper slave of your deity is save to enter and as such you will learn to interact with objects, you will see the security drone ignore you (in one house only) so you can practice stealth. As such you will have motion, observation and interactions set. You could also enter the other houses, it is not essential at this point but the houses have part of the lore of the story. And you can always revisit the circle of houses when your rank goes up. There are 11 houses for the 11 gods, the 12th house is in Tartarus (in the palace of Hades). The second play through you can select Hades as your deity.

Then there is the lore of the story. The lore of the upper slaves lead to the lore of the slaves and to scrolls, tablets and jewelry that enables you to select the houses. It was here that I considered another side. As a female you would have the diadem of Aphrodite. But as a male you cannot enter her domain until you have a much higher rank and as such you could gain the bracelet of allegiance to Aphrodite or the Diadem for men of Zeus or the trinket of a god equal of higher then Aphrodite. This comes down to the jewelry of Zeus, Poseidon or Hades. I have yet to create a structure on this. There is Zeus, Poseidon and Hades, the rest are nearly all equal except Athena, Apollo, Ares and Hermes. So they have access to nearly all others (except three) Hades, Makaria, Zagreus and Melinoe.

The lore is set to stories on scrolls and tablets. I need to see if it is an IP violation if I use part of the stories of Homer, Hesiod, Aeschylus, Sophocles, Euripides, Pindar and Apollodorus. If it is, I need to write passages in their styles to give the feel of authenticity.

So whilst we are about to put ‘life’ bank into Olympus, I need to consider a few other sides. I considered that this might have an alternative use. And if that works it would be some feet to achieve it. But that is for later.

For now I have to look at what I am seeing not. You see the Guardian gives us “The US vice-president was hypocritical and insensitive, but bracingly clear in his resetting of relationships” You see, we are given a story that fits the need of the Trump administration. And when you take the tariffs and this “Vance portrayed a continent that had lost its way. Why was the security conference talking about defence budgets when it was not clear what they were actually defending? he asked. It was clear “against what” they were defending, but not clear “for what reason”.” This set may mind at work. You see, it is about money (it usually is) and America has nearly none left. America has $36.22 trillion in debt and last year the US budget deficit tops $1.8 trillion in fiscal 2024, third-largest on record whilst they got $4.47 trillion in collected taxation. And the bad nows here is that they had a decrease of 15.5%, a drop from the 14.3% increase we saw between 2021 and 2022. So they are getting less tax dollars and they are borrowing more. So how can that continue? America wants out of NATO because it can no longer foot the bill and the Trump administration has 4 years to go. So when America starts handing out the IP in their patent offices to foot bills, American businesses are up for a massive panic attack.

That is how I see it and I could be wrong, but after the tariff wars (still ongoing) and their attempt to annex Canada, is the idea so far fetched? Add to that the entire DeepSeek dilemma and whatever they tend to achieve with their StarGate is my idea so preposterous?

As such whatever ideas I have I need to hand to Japan, Saudi Arabia, or the UAE whenever I can, because life in the Commonwealth is about to become nearly unlivable. And the media is still not covering the massive debt that America has and how that is fueling their actions. Is it that hard to see? I reckon that a stronger unification of the Commonwealth will be required and a lot sooner than some non-Canadian politicians imply. And now as Australia gets the tariff bill, there is a chance that Anthony Albanese might seriously reconsider finding solutions with Canada, India and the UK. Ah well, perhaps living under the Greek gods was a lot simpler.

As such have a loverly day and consider what YOU can do to support Canada in its hour of need.

How I got there

That is at times the question, even to myself. You see, it all started with something resembling a nightmare. In my dream I was in some kind of mansion. The mansion seems not too original. It is like something from Stephen King, but it is not that source. The mansion was loaded with spirits and all kinds of supernatural things. It was placed by the original inhabitants of the mansion. I was merely trying to stay alive. I went from room to room trying to survive and phrases were caught in my brain. It was at that point that I saw part of the power of that place. I was drawn to the basement (never a good place to run to). There I saw some kind of mini-train, the train was really small, but built to support a complete person. I saw that the train was almost designed in two parts, the upper part and the lower part. The lower parts had gears that were running at full speed. They were driven by some kind of poltergeist. It was contained in some kind of glass/metal bottle, through it were wheel axes. The moment I sat on the train the upper side got pushed onto the lower part and the train started to move. The train was going in one direction, activating switches and ignoring others. It was the poltergeist that was in control and the passenger was along for the ride. After several minutes and after one long corridor I arrived in a room, some storage room but one with a difference. The glass roof gave me the clear indication that I was under a lake, there was a lake next to the mansion, but I never expected to be under it. There were more spirits there, almost like they escaped and in the middle was a dollhouse, much larger than normal and it looked like a replica of the mansion. The dollhouse seemed to be identical and then I noticed the small tags, all saying the same thing ‘In case of emergency’ The room had similar tags, but much larger and I saw a weird stick with a handle, almost like ancient sticks to activate gas lights. Then I saw the light receptacle on the wall, the stick would reach it, I raced to that place and pressed the stick. It was like some kind of press handle connected to some kind of dynamo. The sparks hit the receptacle and sparks flew. A second later all the lights went on, but a really bright white. Almost like there was magnesium in the mix. The spirits vanished immediately. I now had time to look at the dollhouse. I looked at the tags and saw where they were. I had seen the same connections in the mansion, but I never examined them. I saw the cords and I smelled one of them. They smelled a little oil like. I took a chance, grabbed my lighter and set one off. The impact was immense. Over seconds the lights in the dollhouse started to light up in some kind of green, what was equally astonishing was the fact that what happened there happened in the mansion as well. A voodoo dollhouse that is actually working. This was some next level issues in real life.

That was what I saw and it mattered that it gave me the inkling of what could transpire in season 2 of Engonos. I suddenly realised what would scare people to death. It isn’t death itself, it is a realisation and the dream got me there. It fits the stage as the main character is the son of Makaria, the step we get to in season 1 where he ends up in Tartarus could also unlock more. I had part of this in play, but not entirely and now the unlocking opens up a new edge to skate against. Skating against the edge is nothing new, but in this case I never contemplated several settings, mainly because they seem unnatural. It is almost like the adult industry relying on all girls having a case of Elektra complex, no Jennifer Garner required. The setting to use supernatural beings for other means is equally not entirely new, but to use them as some kind of army is not used that often and several sides were shown to me in this (sort of) nightmare.

In other news, I just saw TechNote (by Homeland Security), the September 2012 version, a year after I created my solution, which has a side they do not seem to have. Now, I do not know all the inn’s and out’s and there is a chance that their 07ED-01-LASR is superior, but is seemingly missing a part. If that is true (currently untested and unverified) then the score is Yours Truly versus DARPA 4 – 0. Some people go through life being immensely happy merely one goal or two goals ahead. As such I feel happy I cleaned their clocks (we all have delusional sides).

Not the worst case of Saturday in action.

Enjoy your day.

Peek a boo

The Days that followed were lacking any kind of excitement. The trip was a little over 10,000 Kilometres and it would take a little over two weeks to get there. There were enough provisions and if push came to shove, catching fish was now a simple tasks. The first week was odd for me, I spend most time in the master bedroom, alone mind you. The gift of the kraken was weird. Even as the powers of Perses reinvigorated me and had plenty of external sides. The powers of the kraken was internal. It reenforced my body. The first thing I noticed was my eyesight. It was sharper, more direct and my human sight had almost gone. I could still see like people, but I also saw dozens of things that people could not see. If my old sight was 20:10, my new sight was well over 70:10 in the sunshine and closer to 150:10 at night. My eyes were able to sort of zoom in to any object in my line of sight. The third day was awful. I started to pick up the thoughts of people, so I was able to pick up on too much noise. The chief purser, a woman named Catherine and 24 years old kept on thinking of me bending her over the bar and fuck her as hard as I could, there was one of the deck hands who was a little more interested in my body than I was comfortable with. And the list went on. I started to enjoy the company of one of the waitresses who had no interest in me, but had the most interesting ideas what she wanted to do to hr new husband, as well as things she hoped he would do to her. In the end I kept close to Lachesis and Clotho who had no thoughts, or perhaps they had them but could shield them. Clotho told me on the 4th day that I would erect barriers soon enough, all the Olympians went through them, but normally they went through them before 15, making me the oldest new brain issue. At times I summoned Psychofagos and focussed on the stones. Only the green one was now untouched, but that would happen at some point and the thinking stone was a new dilemma, I had no idea what that thing did and as the Fates were unaware of the powers of a black stone, I was once again in the dark. It was almost at the end of the first week when I suddenly heard nothing. I felt happy, and when I focussed on the Chief purser, I could feel her thoughts and her wishes giving me a decent erection from the word go. So at least there is still some human sides in me, or something people and Olympians shared.

It was at that point Lachesis came to me. The knock was a surprise, I was usually left alone. How are you? OK, I guess. I was not giving her the full rundown. The Davey Jones locker issue was still in my mind and even as they told me they were not aware, I had no way of knowing what was true and what was not. She was there to talk and we talked, then she stated that she wanted to test my ability of control and she had a nice new game for that. It was then that she opened the door and in came the chief purser. Wearing her uniform, but as she showed it was lacking lingerie. She took her top of and showed were pristine breasts, Lachesis was slowly kissing her shoulder and massaging her body. Catherine reacted to that, they kissed each other and I noticed her body shiver in delight. I heard her mind scream “Yes, yes, oh god yes” and as Lachesis lay down on the bed I was sitting on, she pulled my arm and I fell on my back, my erection now fully ready. Catherine saw that as an invitation and she opened my pants.

[Erotic scene removed to avoid Facebook issues]

It was in the early morning of day 18 when the engines stopped. We had made a detour to Lima to refuel, we till had enough, but it seemed that the captain did not like to be in the ocean with a lack of fuel. So as day 18 started, Clotho told me that Oceanus and Poseidon were somewhere below in the trench. She also cautioned me not to rely on violence as there was every chance that both Oceanus and Poseidon would see me as an enemy and even as I had little chance of defeating either of them, should they combine forces I would be done for. It made sense and I looked around for one more second and jumped into the water. The water was light, or so it now seemed, and as I made a speedy descent into the trench two things became clear. The first was that the bident was not protecting me as it once did, it must have felt that I was able to take what was coming and as I raced towards the bottom, I saw nothing out of the ordinary, yet that changed when I passed the six mile depth mark. The bottom was simple and I could see some parts, but it was ahead where there was a lot more light, or it seemed like light, but I was not clear what it was. It took another 30 seconds to get there and the scene was weird. In the centre of what seemed light was a dry patch of land and Poseidon was there. Around him there were glass spikes, like an inverted sea urchin. It looked like water, water that was solid as glass and it was pulling water and moist out of the patch. It seemed to weaken Poseidon, around the inverted urchin were layers of spiked shields keeping whatever help he could get at bay, so Poseidon was at the bottom of the trench on a dry patch of land what might be regarded as the least humid piece of earth on this planet.

I looked around and it took a while, because I didn’t know what to look for and there he was Oceanus, this titan was the size of the Chrysler building without the spiky top. He was sitting there observing Poseidon and optionally focussing on the prison he had made for Poseidon. Something had angered him alright, but how do you talk to a titan that does not even notice you? It was then that I considered a rather foolish idea. It had all the marks of that it might to work, but there was no going back if it went wrong. I looked at the setting, I would have to hit the ground between the prison and Oceanus, I mustered whatever strength I had and I head towards the ground like a torpedo, and as I slammed into the ground, my mind shouted as hard as it could “Listen!” It seemed a little too much like a peek a boo, but there was every chance it was an unknown tactic to these two. There was no denying it had an effect. Oceanus looked in my direction, as did Poseidon and as his prison collapsed, he created some kind of shell around him, but he did not act. I thought again “The oceans are dying, life is leaving the oceans” and after that I summoned all the images of dead fish and pollution I could push in both directions. Oceanus looked at me and he then looked up and he started to notice that he missed a few things, as did Poseidon. I honestly am unsure what they were thinking, but then I heard the voice of Oceanus. You speak like my Kraken. “He taught me this, to warn you that the waters are in danger and he cannot act” Both Poseidon and Oceanus looked up and looked around themselves. It as clear that they now clearly saw that things were wrong and as such they both beheld me. Who are you? Oceanus asked. I am the grandson of Hades and Zeus. Child to Ares and Makaria. Oceanus saw the bident and summoned it out of my hands. I could not hold on, the power was too great and this also told me that my body could withstand the pressures on their own, the gift from the Kraken was a good gift. Oceanus saw the bident, saw the stones. I heard the word “Atropos”, the one fate I had not met yet. He grabbed each tine with one hand and seemingly focused. He threw the bident back to me which landed perfectly in my hand. I now noticed that the thinking stone was now pitch black and shone with darkness. He then said “Get the final part from Demeter, now leave me” I did not wait for Poseidon to say anything and I got out of there as fast as I could. It took close to two minutes to get back to the surface. It was clear that Clotho and Lachesis noticed something in me. What happened? They both asked. I think they stopped fighting. Oceanus implied I need to see Demeter next. Both fates nodded and it was time to change travel directions. Next stop Athens via the Panama Canal.

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Tagged as Ares, Athens, Atropos, Ceto, Clotho, Crius, Davey Jones, Gaia, Kore, Kraken, Lachesis, Makaria, Oceanus, Panama Canal, Persephone, Poseidon, Psychofagos, thinking stone, Zeus

July 26, 2020 · 23:14

Standing by my point of view

I have looked at games for almost 30 years, and so far in the mode of gaming I have been in, I tend to stand by my position. It has nothing to do with stubborn, or with some kind of elevated sense of correctness. Time has proven me right again and again. Even now as SuckerPunch is regarded as the gospel of gaming (these things happen), I tend to see how things fair and so far I agree with the many voices, but this too made me realise that there is another path. To see this, we need to go back to 2014, a new Infamous was launched. Now, I still stand by my original view, is was above average, but it had failed to be great, even as all the elements were there. Two massive elements influenced it. The game was almost tediously linear and after the final fight you do not get to use the concrete powers to the degree I had expected. These two parts make the game good, but not great and that was a shame. Yet that is not the issue, I reinstalled it today to play it again for a few hours, even as I had completed it 100%, and in almost record time well over a third of the game had been done. This is not due to memory, I had forgotten most of it, it was due to linearity, but that was not the surprise, I know I had updated the game on day 2 or 3 and now another update was there. Over 6 years the game had seemingly seen 7 updates (It installed 1.0.7), the final update and the only one I had to install was less than 4 GB, for a PS4 game that is decent, and here we see the first issue, Ubisoft sets games to dozens of GB’s per game per update and this game from the early days does a mere fraction of this. I personally see this as proper testing was done at Sucker Punch, and Ghost of Tsushima shows this again (and again and again). A good developer will always win and innovation in gaming (a thing Sucker Punch has shown a few times) will always beat iteratively thinking Ubisoft.

Even as I still stand by the view I had, the game was still as enjoyable as the first time I finished it. That is the power of a decent game and this game if not hindered by the two flaws might have remained on the legendary games list. Still, this does not stop Sucker Punch from creating a decent game, an innovative game and this is the issue, no matter how I see this game, I recognised it as innovative gaming, when I revisit this old game, I see just how powerful innovative thinking is in gaming. And whilst we consider just how correct I am, Google Search is filled with all the game magazines that are trying to use Sucker Punch as much as possible, Forbes even states ‘‘Ghost Of Tsushima’ Is The Game Of The Generation’ and it is hard to disagree. They also give the additional text “I am more glad than I expected to be to have a game like Ghost of Tsushima. Rather than giving us innovation, Sucker Punch has given us care and craft with the things we already know. It is a comforting thing to have, here in a moment when my country is still grappling with its failure to contain coronavirus and when the future seems less predictable than it ever has before.” In this I am not sure if I completely agree, I personally see this game as innovative, as such I partially disagree with ‘Rather than giving us innovation’, yet when we look at the separate elements, Forbes might have a case, it is the ‘Sucker Punch has given us care’ that is true, but proper testing tends to get us there (often enough), no matter how we see it, we see that compared to a player like Ubisoft it is a mere dwarf, a dwarf that creates titans, so whilst the news is full of all the things going wrong at Ubisoft, I have stated (for some time), that they have bigger issues, and perhaps these events we see hit the news now is a consequence of stress and taking it out internally. And even as we see the news on all kinds of statements and promises, we see that Ubisoft has a rather large problem, one that Sucker Punch never had, or fixed well over a decade ago, properly testing games. That is the heart of the matter and they do know how to do that. No matter how I see Black Flag, it was near perfect and so was Origins. So as such, I cannot fathom why they cannot hold the rudder right, Sucker Punch shows how it can be done and they have done so for a very long time.

These two players need to be shown for the mere reason that one player relies on hypes and marketing, all whilst the other does not and gives us great games. So whilst I am getting a little weary of messages like ‘Ubisoft teases us with…’, I would rather see that they cleaned their company from top to bottom, because no matter what we see on certain people, the failings there go to the very top. It angers me, not because of whatever, the fact that they had good games and they wasted 2-3 franchises is a real drag, all whilst the products show that there is graphical talent and the music as applied is close to legend. As a gamer, does that not upset you? And even as I remain cautious on Far Cry 6, does it not sound like something we played before? Now, this is speculative so do not treat this like gospel, but what the internet gives us is apparently nothing more that Far Cry 4/5 in a Far Cry 3 setting. I hope that I am completely wrong, but Ubisoft does not have the greatest track record when it comes to innovation, all whilst my idea on WatchDogs 4 is a setting that is completely innovative and I wonder if all that innovation would fit into a new console (I just do not know) but is that not the foundation of gaming, to be on the edge what is possible and see if it can be done? MGSIV in the beginning of the PS3 and the Last of Us at the very end show me to be correct, In that same view Black Flag in the beginning of the PS4 is in that same foundation, so why are these franchises developed too short for their own good?

Even now, games like Breakpoint might ‘sell’ high end graphics, but it lacked joy, joy that a GameCube game (Metroid Prime) had in abundance. Even now 8.5 years later, I can still find joy in Skyrim (originally released 11.11.11), apart from AC Origins, what Ubisoft game released since 2017 has that (I am personally not considering Rainbow Six as that is not my kind of game). When you see how short that list is and how many games Ubisoft released, we see the flaw of iterative game releases. And this is not merely Ubisoft, how many think fondly back to the Mass Effect Andromeda, after the release? All issues that proper testing could have avoided and it took less than one day to come up with Mass Effect based IP that surpassed Andromeda, it is that flawed and we need to get angry, because a life of good gaming depends on it, for all of us.

Even as we need not worry on Sony and Nintendo, a Microsoft pushing boundaries would keep Sony innovative, that too is a given, when there is no competitor the remaining players tend to relax, history has shown that part a few times, so I prefer that Microsoft wakes up fast, but reality is not in my favour, as such here is every chance that after the PS5, the PS6 might not be as advanced as we hope (unless Nintendo really changes the game).

If we look at the past, many have heard of Melinoe and the nightmares she brings, but who remembers Makaria? When we consider Makaria and according to the scrolls of Nikolaos of Damascus her meeting Ares, what was the result? When we see all these greek god based games, we tend to see the big three and the direct dependants, but what of some of the others? With the exception of series like Xena (PS1 game) all based on Lucy Lawless and her formed fanbase of life under greek god reign, nowadays we see covers of ancient greek books, but we forgot to pick them up and read them. Yet the foundation of RPG and sandbox games is larger than that and I see a lack of grasping the unexpected by many developers.

And this is not some console war, a game war can be fought on many fronts, as such the setting of google Stadia versus Apple Arcade is not over, not by a long shot and these systems have limitations, it matters, because the days of the CBM64, a system with 38Kb of RAM, a 64Kb system showed an entire generation how cool gaming could be, 10-17 million units sold and 99% bought it for the games, no matter what excuse, like ‘I want to learn to program’ they gave (I was one of them). Innovation comes with limitation, and that is where true treasures are found. I feel certain that browsing through the Amiga 500 list, I will find at least half a dozen that will make it and become successes on a system like the Google Stadia, in this, even Ubisoft has a few titles, neglected titles that would be a good match to the iPad, a system at times forgotten for the games it can play and if it does it there, it will be wanted on the Google Stadia and the Apple version. Even later than that, anyone who remembers the Microprose titles would instantly try them on these systems in a new jacket, games born from limitations and they could be upgraded to fit a whole new generation (and please the previous generation as well).

I stand by my point of view and as I see Ubisoft buckle and Sucker Punch become one of the most revered software groups, I see the options of games and how they can be on several systems between now and 2023. Time has proven me correct a few times now, I wonder when some developers wake up, as I see it, they have little time left.