Hiveswap Friendsim: Volume Seventeen Review (Friday Night Gandalf)
Splendid work as always from What Pumpkin Games (though I did stumble upon a runtime error, but that's a one-off).
The artwork for this episode's pretty rich and there's a good bit of cheeky meta humour.
Daraya's a precious goth gal and a very good lesbiab, I approve wholeheartedly.
Nihkee could basically crush my head any day of the week (she is MUCH more swoler than in the Trollcall card but that's a bonus, baby)
Couple of cheeky references to popular memes in Daraya's episode, (that's how it is on this bintch of an Earth); while her good route has a bit of awkward shuffling, it comes through pretty well in the end and has a sweet cameo (though her bad route is really goddamn grim).
Couple of cheeky references to Homestuck in Nihkee's episode (all of which Really Uh Blitzed My Chakras), with the two main endings being really satisfactory.
endgame HOMESTUCK spoilers ahead tho (you've been WARNED) (it keeps happening bro)
(also obviously SPOILERS for the Nihkee part of the episode!):
Nihkee's alternative (can't really call it 'bad', can we?) route is one of those funky metagame bits i love so much in the Friendsim. The whole train of thought and process of 'finding your river' that the MSPA Reader experiences in their stolen Scuttlebuggy is heavily reminescent of one particular character from Homestuck, though they acquired those powers after entering the Medium.
That's fucking right, I'm talking Terezi Pyrope over here, the Seer of Mind herself. The potential outcomes and timelines, all tied together by causality, explored by Terezi in the doomed timeline where Latula takes the Ring of Life, were very much alike rivers and their tributaries - i think that's even what they're described as at one point in the comic.
This kind of ability of seeing alternative timelines/outcomes was displayed in previous episodes - except unlike in the previous attempts of the MSPA Reader at bending the outcome, they actually succeed seeing the possible consequences, and end up successfully averting disaster. Considering how harshly the universe seems to punish deviations from the alpha timeline, this comes off as a surprise. We only see this kind of character progression in God-tiers at the very end-game of Homestuck. what kind of implications does this have for MSPA Reader, someone who isn't even playing Sburb/Sgrub and is merely an avatar of a player behind the screen? granted, i might just be digging too deep into a semicanonical/fanon game, but hey, you can never be sure about such things when Hussie has his claws on it. i'm very certain a really interesting final episode awaits us - the penultimate early Christmas gift...
all in all i give it a convergence of my favourite lesbiabs/10, can't wait for the final instalment