Hi! ^{^}
My name is Astra (online name). I’m a 21 year old nonbinary person, sort of androgynous and genderfluid! I’m also pansexual. Though due to real life stuff I still mask as cis irl. Basically I’m here because I’m looking for my soulmate! I’m wishing for a real relationship that’s long-term and serious and very romantic. :3
I’m a very nerdy person. I have lots of interests in exploring random philosophical and scientific stuff, especially things that relate to the nature of the universe and nature. And because of that I’m actually a university student with a background in history and physics!!! :DD I can ramble on and on all day about pretty much anything related to that or my other interests. Just as much as I love learning about things, I also have a strong passion for talking and teaching others about it….. I’m thinking that after that I’m gonna pursue becoming an educator of some sort since I love helping people learn and discover their passions for things. Though the specifics of that I’m not sure yet lol. Oh and in terms of me physically, I’m white, 5’8, and AMAB with an average build, with some tiny curves?, blue eyes, and semi-long hair (kind of in an awkward phase)
Outside of all that stuff, I love exploring media like TV and films and books and so on. My favorite stuff are ones that can be action heavy, fantasy, apocalyptic, sci fi, or horror (cosmic and existential horror is great). I don’t really have anything super SPECIFIC absolute favorite in mind, but I’ll just come across them and like them. I also like brainstorming and producing my own stories, worlds, and characters in fantasy and fictional universes too, and hoping to become a published author! (in addition to being a teacher). I also really like roleplaying too!! It’s so fun and satisfying building a world with someone else so BONUS POINTS IF YOU DO THIS TOO. Honestly bonus points if you do or are interested in ANY of this stuff hehe. But anyway…… Speaking of rp I also like immersing myself in a few games and fandoms of the same themes I mentioned. But I would say the fandom I’ve been ABSOLUTELY immersed in the longest and the greatest is the Warcraft fandom, so many memories and roleplays and etc in this. I guess I’d say with games I’m more of a creative person? Like I love using them as a sandbox for stories and creativity or building things (like Minecraft). But of course I love playing the actual games themselves too lol. And I also really like music (almost forgot to add this)!!! :D
Ok, so I need to mention some more things and some deal breakers and what I’m looking for and all that. First off I’m quite shy and introverted and reserved, but this basically kind of just applies to people I’m not that familiar with. I’m especially very awkward with that. HOWEVER, I open up very quickly to certain people, especially cool people I meet online ^. Next, I’m also autistic and have anxiety which I’ve dealt with basically my whole life. PLEASE understand this!! I may stumble on my words and stuff or not know what to say right away for example lol. I also won’t send pictures right away. Just I need to check your vibes first for my comfort (you just never know peoples intentions here). For the darker stuff, which I love and adore, it’ll take me some time to do more than just texting stuff, again for similar reasons. (If all you want quick nsfw exchanges and just a partner for that, I’m not for you!! I want an actual deep and loving romantic connection for us!)
As I said, I’m looking for something long-term and serious, for a soulmate pretty much. What this means is I want something exclusive and monogamous, with the goal basically being us being together physically, living together, and all that cool stuff. But no specific timeline for that of course! Just in the long term pretty much :) Something that may be a dealbreaker - is that someday, I want to raise children of my own. Though they don’t have to be biological (surrogacy or adoption would be lovely too ^). I also don’t smoke, drink, or do drugs, and have no plans to change this. And as I said I also enjoy nsfw stuff too! I’d kind of need our relationship to have that in the future. I’ll also mention that I’m a switch (so both/either) and willing to experiment with what you like. So most dynamics should work for me <3
Overall, I hope to find someone that is willing to put up with me and support me, being there and comforting to me. And I hope to do the same for you! I hope we can grow to be basically best and romantic loving friends, very cute and adorable and kind and caring for each other, where we care about each other a lot. I think you get the picture :). For what you are physically, I’m pansexual so I don’t really care what gender you are. However, I do have a soft spot for people who are femme, or for people who are my height or shorter (I think it’s cute :3). Trans and nb and cis people, all are welcome! Anyone can reach out if you think we’ll be lovely together!! One last thing is that I’m hoping for people around my age (so like 19-22 ish or close to). AND even if you feel like you don’t fit what I’m looking for in a relationship, you can still reach out to be my FRIEND!! I’ll take anyone to be my friend too, so please don’t be shy!!!!
Please PLEASE please reach out to me if anything about this is interesting to you!! And include something you liked about my post!! <3

I've been wondering this for a while. Take for example the YuGiOh game. Npcs you go against use themed decks, and yet there's still a difficulty curve over time. How do you think this is accomplished?

Hello there! I hope this is okay to post. I am more of a lurker and tend not to post much but I made a post on the Paizo's forum replying to a thread about Paizo making a Player Core 3. I was curious what other's may think of my thought and what could be added to the conversation. I do apologize if this has already been mentioned or said. At any rate, this is my reply copy and pasted below with some cleaning up. Thank you all for reading in advance. :)
I think a Player Core 3 will most likely be akin a Advanced Players Guide. Maybe call it Advance Class Guide? I rather it be a seperate product than Player Core 3 since Core comes across as if you need the book to run the game and the classes are easy to play out of the book. But those classes are not generally for beginners and new GMs may want to stay with the more generic themed Core classes. Like Gunslingers and Inventors are uncommon classes with more of a steampunk theme especially since they would need to add guns and gadgets to the book to accommodate those classes so they're a bit more specific than say Rogue. Magus and Summoner have a bit of a learning curve when it comes to their action economy. Psychic and Thamaturge feels like when they really started to experiment more with classes and their playstyles might be harder to grasp for a new player.
But perhaps they can call it Advance Core instead. So it comes across more like an addition than a necessity. There is power behind words and I feel calling it Player Core 3 may lead to wrongful expectations of what the product is. I do support the idea that Paizo consolidates the remaining OGL classes into one book for ease of access and perhaps do some more remaster magic on them outside of just errata so the book can offer a bit more. But also I have to wonder what other content from their respective books makes it into the book and what a realistic page count will be. I can only imagine what a headache that balancing act will be. Perhaps each book will have their respective sections in Advance Core. So guns and gadgets will be lump into the Gunslinger and Inventor section with perhaps more gadgets being added as well as beast guns? The different flavors of magic from Secrets of Magic like True Naming could be lumped into the Magus and Summoner section. Perhaps the Magus would get a new Hybrid Study or perhaps they give an interesting Arcane Cascade feature to Starlit Span while the Summoner gets a new Eidolon type. Maybe something like a Shadow Eidolon to go with the Shadowcaster archetype if it makes it into the book. And with the Psychic and Thamaturge could clean up some stuff with the errata but add some remaster goodness to them since they have time to look under the hood now. Perhaps in their section they could add the cryptic adjustment but also expand more on deviant feats. I don't feel Kinectisit should be added to the book due to it being the first remaster class as well as that class would probably take away a lot of pages that could be focused on Guns and Gears, Secrets of Magic, and Dark Archive content. Plus I feel that class showed the experimental potential they want to have with ORC classes going forward.
So I guess in short, I think the name Advance Class Guide or Advance Core will give better expectations of what the product brings rather than Player Core 3. And if they do make Advance Core, I think they need to add more than just errata to the classes to make it appealing for veterans to pick it up but also give newer players options that are on par with the remaster changes.

Rider-Waite-Smith Tarot: - Origin: Created by A.E. Waite and illustrated by Pamela Colman Smith in 1909, it's one of the most popular and influential tarot decks. - Key Features: Emphasizes symbolism and intuitive interpretation. The deck incorporates detailed illustrations in both the Major and Minor Arcana, making it accessible for beginners. - Major Arcana: The Rider-Waite-Smith Major Arcana features traditional archetypes with added symbolism, such as the Fool's journey and the scenic depictions of the cards. - Minor Arcana: The Minor Arcana cards display scenes that convey the card's meaning, contributing to a narrative structure within the suits.
Crowley's Thoth Tarot: - Origin: Developed by Aleister Crowley and illustrated by Lady Frieda Harris in the 1940s, reflecting Crowley's esoteric and mystical teachings. - Key Features: Emphasizes occult symbolism and the incorporation of Kabbalistic, astrological, and alchemical influences. Known for its detailed and intricate artwork. - Major Arcana: Thoth Major Arcana cards incorporate Egyptian, Greek, and Qabalistic symbolism, often with complex and abstract imagery, reflecting Crowley's magical and philosophical system. - Minor Arcana: The Thoth deck incorporates Crowley's unique perspectives on the Minor Arcana, with each suit reflecting one of the four alchemical elements.
Marseille Tarot: - Origin: Traces its roots to 18th-century France, with earlier versions appearing in the 16th century. Marseille decks often prioritize simplicity and direct symbolism. - Key Features: Recognized by its unique style of pips (numbered cards) and the absence of illustrated scenes in the Minor Arcana. Focuses on geometric patterns and essential symbols. - Major Arcana: Marseille Major Arcana cards feature traditional archetypes with distinct artistic styles. The imagery tends to be simpler compared to the Rider-Waite-Smith deck. - Minor Arcana: The Marseille deck uses pip cards, emphasizing the suit symbols and numbers without elaborate illustrations, encouraging readers to rely on their intuition and knowledge of numerology.
Comparative Aspects: - Artistic Style: Rider-Waite-Smith is characterized by detailed illustrations, Thoth by intricate and symbolic imagery, and Marseille by a more minimalistic and geometric approach. - Philosophical Influence: Rider-Waite-Smith draws on Hermetic and esoteric symbolism, Thoth incorporates Crowley's occult teachings, and Marseille has roots in traditional European mysticism. - Accessibility: Rider-Waite-Smith is often recommended for beginners due to its straightforward symbolism, while Thoth can be complex for newcomers. Marseille requires a blend of intuition and traditional knowledge. - Cultural Influence: Rider-Waite-Smith and Thoth have had a significant impact on Western esotericism, while Marseille reflects a more traditional European approach to tarot.
These tarot systems offer diverse perspectives, making each suitable for different practitioners based on their preferences, knowledge, and interpretative styles. Tarot de Marseille (TdM): - Cultural Influence: Rooted in European traditions, the Marseille Tarot has historical ties to playing cards and early tarot decks. It often retains a sense of the medieval and Renaissance eras. - Minor Arcana: TdM's Minor Arcana consists of numbered pips without detailed illustrations, relying on geometric arrangements of suit symbols. The emphasis is on numerology and symbolism. - Major Arcana: The Major Arcana cards follow traditional archetypes with distinct iconography. The Marseille style often includes unique elements, like the Pope being depicted as the "Papess" or the Tower featuring a crumbling building.
Comparative Aspects (Continued): - Symbolism: Rider-Waite-Smith uses detailed scenes and additional symbolism, Thoth incorporates esoteric and occult symbolism, while Marseille relies on core symbols and geometric patterns. - Reader's Intuition: Marseille encourages readers to rely on their intuitive understanding of symbols and numbers. Rider-Waite-Smith and Thoth, with their detailed imagery, may provide more visual cues for interpretation. - Astrology and Kabbalah: Thoth incorporates detailed connections to astrology and Kabbalah, influencing both Major and Minor Arcana. Rider-Waite-Smith includes astrological symbols, while Marseille may have subtle astrological associations.
Personal Preference: - Artistic Taste: Individuals often gravitate toward a specific tarot system based on artistic preferences. Some may appreciate the detailed scenes of Rider-Waite-Smith, while others prefer the abstract symbolism of Thoth or the simplicity of Marseille. - Philosophical Alignment: Practitioners with an interest in Hermeticism and Western esoteric traditions may favor Rider-Waite-Smith or Thoth, while those drawn to historical and traditional approaches may resonate with Marseille.
Final Thoughts: - Each tarot system offers a unique lens through which to explore the mystical and symbolic aspects of life. The choice between Rider-Waite-Smith, Thoth, or Marseille often depends on personal preferences, philosophical inclinations, and the level of complexity desired in readings. - Many practitioners engage with multiple tarot systems, finding value in the diverse perspectives each one brings. The rich history and cultural influences embedded in these tarot decks continue to captivate and inspire users on their spiritual journeys.
Evolution and Diversification: - Modern Interpretations: Over time, tarot systems have continued to evolve, leading to the creation of modern decks that draw inspiration from Rider-Waite-Smith, Thoth, Marseille, and other traditions. These decks often incorporate diverse cultural influences, artistic styles, and thematic variations. - Innovative Decks: Contemporary tarot artists produce decks that explore themes such as mythology, feminism, LGBTQ+ perspectives, and more. Decks like the Wild Unknown, the Modern Witch Tarot, or the Afro-Brazilian Tarot bring fresh interpretations to tarot symbolism.
Cultural and Global Impact: - Globalization: Tarot has become a global phenomenon, with practitioners and enthusiasts from various cultures embracing and adapting the practice to their own traditions. - Cultural Representation: Decks like the Ancestral Path Tarot or the IONA Tarot incorporate diverse cultural perspectives, offering a more inclusive representation of humanity's spiritual and cultural tapestry.
Practical Considerations: - Learning Curve: Rider-Waite-Smith is often recommended for beginners due to its accessibility, while Thoth may be better suited for those with a deeper understanding of occult symbolism. Marseille requires a blend of intuition and traditional knowledge. - Reading Style: Some readers prefer the narrative and visual clues provided by Rider-Waite-Smith, while others appreciate the esoteric depth of Thoth or the open-ended symbolism of Marseille.
Individual Exploration: - Personal Connection: The most effective tarot system often depends on an individual's personal connection and resonance with a particular deck. Exploring different decks and systems allows practitioners to discover which one aligns best with their intuitive and interpretative style.
Conclusion: In the vast and ever-expanding world of tarot, the Rider-Waite-Smith, Thoth, and Marseille systems serve as foundational pillars, each contributing a unique perspective to the art of divination. As tarot continues to evolve and diversify, practitioners are encouraged to explore, experiment, and find the decks that resonate most deeply with their spiritual journey and personal intuition.

Chapter One
On February 25, 2018, Feng Ji returned to Shenzhen from Shanghai by plane. It was late when he arrived, and as he took a taxi back to his company, he sensed that it was time to make a decision. He called his fellow partners to convene at the office to discuss the path forward. At 2 a.m., Feng Ji wrote three options on the whiteboard in the meeting room: "First, everyone dedicates themselves to creating a standalone action game; second, to develop a popular RPG+SLG mobile game of the time; third, to split into two teams, one for mobile games, with five or six people allocated to prepare for a standalone action game."
They all opted for the third option.
Before leaving for the meeting upon Feng Ji's call, Yang Qi posted on Weibo. Anticipating what Feng Ji would propose, he had been waiting for this call. His post read, "Starting the new year with a grand gamble, ten years in the industry feels like it has all been leading up to this day. Heading out for a midnight meeting, the trees in my entire neighborhood whisper my name..."
On August 16, 2020, sitting in Feng Ji's office, he recounted this story to me. Reflecting for a moment, Feng Ji shared that the meeting at 2 a.m. wasn't really a "turning point."
"It wasn't that dramatic," Feng Ji told me. "We had discussed this for a long time before. And I recently revisited our business plan from 2016 when we were fundraising—you know, you have to write these things for funding. I found that one-third of it was about our intention to create a standalone game—I had even forgotten about it until I checked our chat records...it was indeed the case."
Feng Ji is the founder of Game Science Studio. In 2014, Feng Ji and several colleagues who had collaborated on 'Fighter of the Destiny' left Tencent to establish Game Science.
Game Science's initial projects were trendy at the time. Yang Qi's artistic style was intense and prominent, and Feng Ji knew how to elevate the sophistication of games. Their strategy involved identifying the most popular game genres in the market and combining them with top-tier art, world-building, and storytelling. 'Hundred Generals March' was a card game, 'Art of War: Red Tides' a real-time competitive game, and 'Red Tide Auto Chess'...an auto-chess game. When launched, auto-chess was trending, and the game saw decent online numbers, but then, seemingly overnight, interest in auto-chess waned, and so did their player statistics.
In November 2017, two months after the public beta of 'Art of War: Red Tides', the company partners believed an RPG+SLG project could generate revenue quicker. Thus, they embarked on developing a game of this type, set in the same universe as 'Red Tides', with Feng Ji as lead planner and co-founder Yang Qi as lead artist.
By early 2018, Yang Qi had sketched numerous concept designs for the new game, and Feng Ji had done some preliminary planning. However, Feng Ji felt that the game lacked excitement. "I couldn't take it anymore—you understand what I mean?" Feng Ji explained. "By 'couldn't take it,' I mean that the game we were making wasn't something I particularly wanted to play."
"Although we all believed we'd eventually make a standalone game, we always felt the timing wasn't right, waiting for conditions like having a large sum of money or...just waiting for the right moment," Feng Ji elaborated.
But Yang Qi was not willing to wait any longer. "During a meal, Yang Qi firmly insisted we must proceed," Feng Ji recalled. "He said you can always find a reason not to start, whether it's insufficient funds, manpower, or other inadequacies...If we kept waiting, we might never begin. But he felt if we didn't start soon, the company might lose its appeal to him...So we began seriously discussing it."
That afternoon, in Feng Ji's office, I met Yang Qi. Compared to Feng Ji, he appeared calm and detached, as if accustomed to observing himself and the situation from a third-person perspective. With his mask pulled down to his chin, he smoked cigarettes with fruity flavor capsules. We chatted while smoking.
When I asked Yang Qi why he was so resolute about this, he casually replied, "We've waited for a while, made some other games, because we need to live, after all, survive first."
I posed the question again.
After a moment of thought, he earnestly told me, "Because I don't think I can keep making games like this for many more years...my health won't hold up. Before, I could work around the clock for days without issue, but now, one late night and I need rest. Moreover, a person's creative lifespan is limited; one's golden period of creativity might only span a few years, where you have experience, energy, and a sharp mind...This is your most precious time, and if you don't create something great during this period, you may never get another chance in life..."
After deciding to develop a standalone game, Yang Qi's spirits visibly lifted. At the time, Game Science didn't have a Hangzhou studio; all development staff worked on the second floor of their Shenzhen office. Post-meeting, they cleared a small corner on the first floor for the project, and Yang Qi moved there the next day. Feng Ji, as the founder of Game Science, felt responsible for the "people who came out with him." He also wanted to see his friends engaged in something enthusiastically—even just being enthusiastic was enough.
Chapter Two
Game Science's Hangzhou studio is nestled within a startup industrial park on the outskirts of the city. The park, newly built, boasts a scattering of Hui-style buildings with their characteristic white walls and black tiles. I arrived on a scorching summer afternoon, discovering that due to the lingering pandemic, nearly all the buildings stood empty. A few workers were seen maintaining the roads.
"Initially, we were told there would be things like Starbucks, but because of the pandemic, none of that has opened yet," Feng Ji pointed out to me, gesturing towards vacancies.
Game Science occupies a four-story building here. When I visited around 2 PM, their workday was just beginning. The rooms were dimly lit, with almost everyone slumped lazily in chairs, seemingly on the verge of dozing off. Screens displayed animations or game videos, or interfaces that looked intricate and impressive. All windows lacked curtains; some had cardboard pieces taped up with transparent tape to shield against direct sunlight.
"We haven't had the chance to install curtains yet," Feng Ji mentioned as we climbed upstairs. The second floor served as a common area, housing a few treadmills and exercise bikes in a corner and tables and chairs in the center. The third floor was vacant, save for a 70-inch display on one wall and several wooden swords and shields in another corner. Feng Ji explained they conducted initial inertial motion capture here, which served as a reference for more intricate optical motion capture later. The fourth floor housed Feng Ji's office, though he admitted he seldom stayed upstairs.
The single-player project team moved to Hangzhou in December 2018. Feng Ji appreciated Hangzhou's ambiance, its pace less hectic than Shenzhen's and with more affordable housing, fostering an environment where "everyone can patiently persevere." As a mature company with ample development experience, Game Science sidestepped many pitfalls common in game development. Their core team had collaborated for years, intimately aware of each other's strengths. Familiar with game development processes and backed by successful titles, they maintained a small but highly experienced and cohesive team, deliberately controlling project scope.
Initially, there was consensus on creating a game: a weakly online, strongly combat-focused, melee-centric action title. Debates arose over specific style, but the overarching direction remained. Conversations about the game's style, character traits, and details organically evolved over daily chats during meals and at workstations. Inspired by Feng Ji's fascination with Dark Souls and Yang Qi's preference for Monster Hunter, they agreed on a game featuring "intensely pressuring enemies," "intricately designed levels," and "a mysterious narrative conveyed through fragmented storytelling."
Up until then, Game Science primarily used Cocos and Unity engines, known for their simplicity and low learning curve. For the new project, Unreal Engine emerged as the optimal choice, prompting the entire team to start from scratch learning Unreal. Feng Ji learned camera manipulation, Yang Qi experimented with scene setup and lighting adjustment, and planner "Village Chief" began constructing whiteboxes, determining obstacle placement and setting up barriers.
In May 2018, the preliminary research group assembled their first basic scene to experiment with fundamental combat feel, AI behavior, and combo mechanics. Upon success, they ventured into crafting a demonstrative level showcasing the "final visual effect." They chose Flower Fruit Mountain. A scene in the video depicts the protagonist advancing amidst clouds, accompanied by a dragon, against a backdrop of lush peaks – this is Flower Fruit Mountain.
By late 2018, the Flower Fruit Mountain level was largely formed, implementing basic gameplay functions. The protagonist emerges from a cave to find heavenly soldiers besieging Flower Fruit Mountain, engages in battles, fights a celestial general, and eventually ascends to the clouds to confront armies under the watchful eyes of the Four Heavenly Kings. "Waves of 100,000 heavenly soldiers would come, with the staff transforming into an exaggerated state..." This level was showcased at the year-end meeting. Portions appear in the video's conclusion, with Feng Ji noting plans to revamp the less natural-looking aspects of the heavenly soldiers.
In 2019, the team grew to around 20 members, focusing on delivering "a complete level experience." Deciding it should mirror the final quality players would experience, they named the level Black Wind Mountain. In 'Journey to the West', Black Wind Mountain appears in the chapter "Monk of the Jade Spring Temple Plots for Treasure; Monster of Black Wind Mountain Steals the Robe." It marks the first demon encounter for Sun Wukong on his pilgrimage, which is prominently featured in the video's gameplay demonstration.
Chapter Three
The challenge of creating the Blackwind Mountain level surpassed the expectations of most people, despite prior preparations.
"When you actually start working on it, you realize how difficult it is to create a level that's narrative-driven and emotionally immersive for players," Feng Ji shared with me. "There are so many things you want to include – should monsters engage in dialogue with you? What are they doing when you're not around? Why do you have to fight them? Shouldn't there be some buildup before encountering them?"
All these "desired elements" are intertwined with technology and industrial workflow. In today's era, for a high-investment commercial game, creativity is no longer the sole determinant; realization matters more. In reality, "realization" entails multiple concurrent workflows, each needing to maintain controllable efficiency and quality.
To produce a short in-engine cutscene, the process typically unfolds like this: the narrative designer first scripts the scene, followed by the creation of 2D storyboards. Then, a simple level model is constructed using polygon models without textures (everything appearing white, hence developers call this a 'white box'). Once the white box is ready, dynamic storyboarding takes place within it. If character close-ups are required, motion capture comes into play, starting with a preliminary performance using inertial motion capture devices, tested in-game. If the mood isn't right, it's back to the drawing board. If satisfactory, optical motion capture is used to generate the final product.
Throughout game development, countless production pipelines run concurrently. The larger the game scale and the more advanced the technology, the greater the unpredictability. Any loss of control—be it in quality or efficiency—can spell disaster.
They treated Blackwind Mountain as a minimum viable product. The development team dared not embark on large-scale production until everything was proven feasible. Feng Ji meticulously explained, "Optical motion capture, for instance, involves a studio with 60 cameras and a team of dozens serving you. The daily cost is around 200,000 to 300,000 yuan. If you say, 'Sorry, we weren't prepared today, let's not proceed,' the bill still stands."
Feng Ji demonstrated a playable version of the Blackwind Mountain level, which I also tried out—it wasn't entirely stable, occasionally crashing. He seemed a bit anxious, constantly reminding me that "the handling is far from optimal," "some skills aren't finalized yet," "the stats need adjusting," and "it's not the final quality; many details are missing."
I was already sufficiently astonished. The demo video matched the actual gameplay visuals. I heard a streamer who saw this game's demonstration was thrilled, telling friends, "Triple-A gaming from China has arrived!"
But Feng Ji avoided mentioning the term "triple-A." On one hand, he feared it might invite criticism; on the other, he found the definition imprecise—"What do you mean by triple-A? We know what each 'A' stands for, but this specific definition... is very vague."
"At least one aspect is about spending a lot of money," I said. "Can you disclose the development cost of the game?"
"You can estimate it this way: for every hour of gameplay the player experiences—not including constant stuck points or deaths, but relatively smooth gameplay...," Feng Ji told me, "the development cost is 15 to 20 million yuan per hour."
Chapter Four
Navigating through Zhihu, China's equivalent of Quora, one would periodically encounter a string of questions intertwined with the terms "China," "3A," such as "Why doesn't China have any triple-A games?" or "When will China have its own triple-A titles?" and even "Does China necessarily need triple-A games?" These inquiries are steeped in both hopeful aspirations and a sense of frustration—given our country boasts the world's largest gaming company and a highly lucrative gaming industry, why haven't we produced a triple-A game yet?
For many, myself included, the term "3A" symbolizes an Olympic gold medal, embodying a myriad of aspirations and accomplishments. Anyone with over a year's experience in the gaming industry can easily enumerate the gaps between us and triple-A standards. However, sometimes, one cannot pinpoint precisely what's missing until the endeavor begins.
Watching the 13-minute promotional video attentively reveals that the protagonist, the monkey, remains largely silent, devoid of dialogue or facial expressions, just like all other characters. This led to a perceived lack of character development in the video, issues that Feng Ji attributes to classic "technical problems."
"There's an unconfirmed rumor that Naughty Dog's ratio of artists to technical artists is 1:1," Feng Ji shared. Technical artists can be thought of as individuals who are adept at both technology and artistry, a simplified yet not entirely inaccurate depiction. In essence, technical artists ensure that artistic visions are realized to their fullest potential by providing technical support and enhancing the quality and efficiency of art production. Where tasks require a seamless collaboration between technology and art, a technical artist becomes indispensable.
"One reason we seek technical artists is our determination to excel in storytelling," Feng Ji emphasized. "Motion capture introduces numerous challenges in connection, environmental interactions, and positioning. Remember the final battle with Ling Xuizi, the wolf, in the video?"
"I do."
"Initially, we designed a sequence where the protagonist transforms into a giant ape, leading to a spectacular execution. The wolf would leap down from a roof, only to be caught mid-air by the ape, who would then grip its teeth, pin it to the ground, and pounce. Sounds impressive, right? The problem was, the moment the hand gripped the teeth, clipping occurred. We couldn't stabilize the protagonist's position, causing the teeth to protrude through the fingers."
"This is where technical artists come in," Feng Ji continued. "They ensure proper alignment and can even determine the material properties of each model. Ideally, the wolf's tooth material could simulate piercing flesh... But we couldn't execute it well. After two months, we abandoned the idea and revised the ending. We lost several months due to this design issue, and ultimately, we couldn't resolve it."
Thus, this scene never made it to the final cut. Feng Ji assured me, however, that they're not giving up and will eventually create this climactic moment.
Feng Ji recounted a legend at Naughty Dog, where each artist's desk had a dedicated button. Pressing it summoned a technical artist to address any issues the artist encountered. "Is it a particle emitter problem? An issue with fluid dynamics? Scene interaction? I'm here to fix it on the spot."
Game Science understands the significance of technical artists but lacks a sufficient number. Not just Game Science, but domestically, there's a scarcity of seasoned technical artists, with most "working in giants like Tencent and NetEase."
Nonetheless, they've overcome some obstacles. In the trailer, when the monkey picks up a blade called "Chì Cháo," Feng Ji revealed that it wasn't pre-animated. The monkey could walk up to the blade anywhere, grasp it, and tuck it into his ear. The key was the natural movement of approaching and extracting the sword, a process that took the development team roughly two to three months to refine.
Feng Ji stood up to demonstrate, "You've played 'The Last of Us Part II,' right? After playing that, I felt quite despondent... Did you notice the characters' movements? Say I'm sitting here, and the game prompts me to pick something up—I could be facing it head-on or sideways, yet the action feels incredibly natural?"
I struggled to recall this seemingly insignificant detail in the game. Feng Ji went on, "Initially, we thought it involved capturing more actions, but we discovered the subtlety in character orientation, particularly the feet. If we only captured frontal actions, what about when the object is on the side? Do we rotate? Smooth turning wasn't in our assets, and programming it looked odd. To avoid awkwardness, we could brute force it, creating 32 actions just for picking up this knife, covering every angle. But in the game, you don't just pick up knives; you open doors, wield hammers. Multiplying all actions by 32 would be unfeasible in terms of production costs and resource consumption."
Feng Ji continued, "We researched solutions and studied presentations by major studios at GDC. That's when we discovered Ubisoft's proposed solution, Motion Matching. Its power lies in requiring only a set of base motion capture animations, which Motion Matching then uses, without manual tweaking by animators, to generate a complete, fluid character movement system."
I inquired, "Is this library open-source?"
"There are some open-source versions online, but they're very immature. We refined it to a product level... We reverse-engineered Ubisoft's methods, filling in the blanks where they didn't disclose specifics, like designing the entire action set, accommodating unconventional locomotion animations...," Feng Ji explained, "Yet, comparing to 'Odyssey,' or even more impressively, 'God of War' or 'The Last of Us,' you realize you're still not on par. Their foundational animation libraries and corresponding mathematical algorithms remain a black box to us. It's their moat, their defense."
I asked, "If you manage to develop all these, would it become your moat too?"
"Absolutely," he affirmed, then added, "But they have generations of product iterations under their belt; this isn't something that can be achieved overnight."
Chapter Five
They were constantly faced with choices. For instance, should the game emulate the style of 'Monster Hunter', or that of 'God of War', or adopt the 'Soulsborne' genre? They realized each style entailed different focuses and nuances. Emulating 'God of War' would necessitate a focus on cinematics and execution moves, while 'Monster Hunter' would require tackling the intricacies of large enemy animations. A 'Soulsborne'-style game would demand attention to character progression and dueling combat mechanics—each direction posed its own challenges. The team's primary concern was defining the overall feel they wanted players to associate with their game. They sought to pinpoint how players would describe it.
This quandary persisted until Feng Ji reached a realization: "When we aim to replicate a very specific product... we inherently risk becoming a second-rate game. Even if we pay homage well, it naturally positions us as a lesser alternative in players' minds."
They made a conscious effort to differentiate from the best in the industry. "I acknowledge they may represent the optimal solution for action games today," Feng Ji told me, "but we must distance ourselves from these titles." They avoided direct references, opting instead for innovations like "Bronze Head Iron Arm" and using "Golden Cicada" for stealth.
Level design posed another challenge. Feng Ji was once enamored with the 'box garden' design philosophy of Soulsborne games, characterized by meticulously designed pseudo-sandbox levels prevalent in Japanese games. However, by the end of 2019, the team recognized that 'Wukong' wasn't suited for this approach. They decided that to convey the grand epic feel of 'Journey to the West', multiple levels interconnected by teleportation would better represent a vast, authentic world, allowing for more creative freedom in map design.
Feng Ji still aimed for a "box garden feel" within individual maps, respecting the art team's pursuit of realism. He explained, "In 'Dark Souls', many scenes take place in cathedrals, which lend themselves to looping designs with verticality, but you can't force stairs or elevators into a forest setting. So, it's context-dependent; Black Wind Mountain is flatter, while Leiyin Temple can be more intricate... Yet, I insist on maintaining some openness for exploration within the maps."
Feng Ji was eager to share the game's lore and aesthetic, but I've chosen not to reveal much here. Prior to seeing the final product, any assessment would be premature. This game isn't a replication of 'Journey to the West', nor do they intend to perpetuate the radical, rebellious spirit of 'Asura'.
At times, they're hesitant to mention 'Asura', seemingly wary of player associations. Nonetheless, they do link the two, as evident in the promotional video's closing caption, "After the White Bones, Revisit the Journey."
"Why do you think we said that?" Feng Ji asked me. "'Asura' players have a joke: 'After White Bones, there is no more Journey.' We planned five chapters; Chapter Three, Farewell Lady, referred to Lady White Bones. Our story stopped abruptly there, with later parts reduced to text quests. Thus, players joked, 'After White Bones, no more Journey.'"
On August 20th, when the video was released, Yang Qi posted on Weibo: "This theme has been a burden for over a decade. Many colleagues don't speak of it, but we all know this heartache can't be ignored. It's an honor to Stage display our progress today, and we'll give it our all going forward, hoping not to disappoint again."
I messaged Feng Ji on WeChat, asking, "Can you ask Yang Qi why he used the word 'again'?"
Feng Ji replied, "He probably feels 'Asura' had regrets." He added, "So do I, but without resentment."
"When you say 'resentment', towards whom?" I queried.
"Mainly towards myself," Feng Ji said. "Back then, I wasn't brave enough."
Chapter Six
I shared a portion of my written article with a friend. I told them, "I don't want people to think this endeavor is arduous... as if it's some '80s reportage literature."
"It's alright," they said. "It still feels a bit tough, but not overly so."
"I'll revise it then," I replied. "I'm just afraid people might think they're struggling when, in truth, they're ecstatic."
In conversations with Feng Ji and Yang Qi, I asked what concerned them most after the video went public. Feng Ji worried that the video wouldn't gain the attention it deserved, fading into obscurity. Yang Qi, on the other hand, feared that their team would be poached by numerous companies post-release. As an observer, my greatest concern was the skepticism and attacks from public opinion –doubting the video as CG, animation, or a deception; accusing them of exploiting emotions, making empty promises, and playing up their hardships.
It's not the fault of gamers. Each query can be traced back to several actual cases where they were misled by inexplicable promotions, leading to anger and then cynicism, believing that trust and enthusiasm come with danger. Meanwhile, "sentimentality" has turned into a pejorative due to overuse. There seems to be a pattern: when we talk about people pursuing their ideals, we must emphasize their choices and sacrifices, including some lofty and melancholic keywords, typical moments—like a lone figure walking towards the sunset.
But Feng Ji and Yang Qi didn't exhibit gloom, resentment, conflict, or sacrifice. Feng Ji was radiant when discussing the game. He would start from one point and branch out like a Wikipedia entry, constantly associating and digressing further. This made me repeatedly examine whether my article truly captured their immersive joy. You see, when people engage in what they love, nearly everything appears joyful.
Towards the end of our conversation that day, for some reason—maybe a comment or a particular moment—we veered into an odd direction.
"Yang Qi once told me, if we crawl now, we could reach a mountain of gold and silver—a huge fortune. If crawling guarantees success, I'd kneel right away without needing persuasion. I desperately want to make money. The problem is, which path guarantees such success through this method?"
"I couldn't answer him," Feng Ji told me. "Many people point at a successful product and ask if emulating its strengths will guarantee success. But as you know, many have better execution and resources than us. What sets us apart? In the end, you rely on your intuition—you must first move yourself. Only when your intuition is strong can you more easily touch users. If you're insensitive to something yourself, leaving aside ego, if you're not sensitive, your pace of improvement will lag behind those who are passionate about it. How can you succeed then?"
Yet, even so, success is not guaranteed for them. Game development is a prolonged process, especially for a project of this scale. The promotional video still had issues; they quietly developed for two years, with the team growing from seven to thirty. They anticipate another two years of development, more work, more team members, and countless unknowns ahead.
After the video's release, Feng Ji started feeling anxious. He messaged me on WeChat, worried about being overpraised. "There's no real sense of security yet..." he said. "I'm the type who struggles to feel happy until things actually happen."
I told him he'd get used to it—not just as a hollow wish. In my view, perhaps unknowingly to him, it's already happening. All this praise and astonishment are part of it, the team's deserved reward.
I still choose to believe that good things come when one decides to pursue what they truly love.
Chapter Seven
In the days leading up to the trailer's release, Game Science consistently posted trailer posters on their official Weibo account. One poster each day was accompanied by a few lines of text or a short poem. On August 19th, the day before the trailer dropped, the caption Game Science provided for the poster read: "Once I was so old, now I am in my prime."
These words are derived from "My Back Pages," a song by American folk legend Bob Dylan. In this song, Dylan unhesitantly criticizes and ridicules his past actions and stances – poignantly, he was only 23 at the time. The song is composed of six verses, each beginning with reflections on the past and ending with the line mentioned. The final two verses go like this:
With the stance of a warrior,
I aimed my spear at those full of empty talk,
Uttered my manifestos,
Caring not if I contradicted myself.
My life was guided by a tumultuous vessel,
Where rebellion brewed aboard at every turn.
Once I was so old,
Now I am in my prime.
Indeed, the imaginary threats fueled my fighting spirit,
The sense of moral superiority made me reckless,
I deceived myself constantly,
Fantasizing about what I must protect.
For some reason, back then, I drew a clear line
Between good and evil.
Once I was so old,
Now I am in my prime.
Epilogue
At 7 PM on the 20th, I arrived at a cinema in Hangzhou. Feng Ji had previously informed me that all Game Science employees were to watch a movie together that evening, a team-building exercise and a celebration of a milestone achieved. He had invited me along and also mentioned a surprise he had prepared for his colleagues – before the film began, the cinema would screen the trailer for 'Black Myth: Wukong.'
As the hour drew near, developers from Game Science trickled into the cinema in twos and threes. They appeared no different from ordinary college students or overworked white-collar workers numbed by their jobs. One wouldn't guess they were the creators of this game. Glasses perched on their noses, clad in T-shirts and sandals, their faces devoid of overt emotion, they seized every opportunity to glance at their phones.
I approached one of them, asking, "Are you with Game Science?" He turned to me and confirmed, "Yeah."
Casually, I inquired, "The video you guys put out today did pretty well, right? How are you feeling about it?"
He eyed me suspiciously, pausing for a second before replying stiffly, "Ah... this... I have nothing to say on that..." Then, he walked away slowly but resolutely.
Feng Ji couldn't make it; he was tied up with other matters. After the video's release, his WeChat exploded with messages—congratulatory notes, inquiries, collaboration proposals. The admin staff at Game Science told me that several groups had visited their office that afternoon, including two groups of players. "They said they were nearby, got excited after watching the video, and decided to drop by—we gave them a tour of the office," the admin shared.
Game Science had reserved a small theater. About thirty people sat inside—the very team behind the game. In the morning, they had been stars in the eyes of gamers nationwide, yet now, their faces betrayed little.
But their excitement was palpable. Seated, they fiddled with their phones, surfing the web. Some discussed the video's view count on Bilibili, one voice wondering, "It's already hit 5 million views, do you think it'll reach 8 million tonight?" Another responded, "Are you kidding? Views don’t grow linearly."
Close by, I guessed a pair of planners, chatting while scrolling through their phones. One said to the other, "Some comments suggested making the death screen look better since players will die a lot." They chuckled, and after, the other commented, "We should definitely make it spectacular!" More laughter followed, then one suggested, "Why don't we write, 'Victory and defeat are common in war, hero, please try again!'" The other clapped, exclaiming, "Great! Retro!" They put down their phones, grinning at each other.
The lights dimmed abruptly, and Game Science's logo flashed on screen, causing a brief stir among the audience—only for silence to swiftly descend. The trailer they crafted, which had electrified the entire internet that morning, played out, yet everyone sat upright, the theater utterly quiet.
When the trailer ended, as expected, the cinema remained hushed. A smattering of applause started but quickly died when few joined in. An atmosphere of silence enveloped the room, devoid of cheers, applause, or whistles, none of the excitement one might expect at a movie screening. I guessed it wasn't due to being stunned or numbness, but shyness—the developers weren't accustomed to expressing their emotions. They just sat there until the lights came back on.
The admin entered the theater, informing everyone that the main feature would start in eight minutes.
The developers sighed collectively, and tranquility returned. After a moment, a voice asked, "Can we watch it again?"

Hello everyone,
I'm writing this post to help players when it comes to building their characters. I've noticed helping people over the years that there seems to be a lot of people who ask for help with a multiclass character when that character concept doesn't actually have to multiclass for the character concept to be created. It seems like people what to multiclass just for the sake of multiclassing. So, here are some tips to help you think about if you really need to multiclass to build your character.

1. Choose a different class/subclass: When helping my friend creating their character they wanted to play a Ranger so they could wield a bow and be sneaky. However, they didn't really care for the Ranger spellcasting. So I suggested they instead choose to be a Rogue. They still got to use a bow and be sneaky and they had more skills to help them with being sneaky. And by choosing the Scout subclass they got to still have some nature themed flavor. So don't be afraid to use a completely different class for your build.
   
2. Look for skills outside of your class: I've seen people making a build and they want to have more skills for that class so they decide to multiclass to get an extra skill. For example, building a Paladin and multiclassing into Bard just to get an extra skill. If you are wanting to have more skills for your character think about choosing a race that gives extra skills such as Half-Elf, Tabaxi, or Changling. The Skill Expert or Skilled feat are also another way to get more skills for your character. Lastly remember that you can always create a custom background to suit your build. Maybe you want to play an Alchemist Artificer with a focus on nature. Create a custom background called Botanist and select Medicine and Nature as your skills.
   
3. Look for alternative sources of spells: Sometimes you want to create a character to have just a splash of magical abilities and you decide to multiclass into a caster class to get some spells but now your character is falling behind the power curve. Much like gaining extra skills, look to selecting races that can give you bonus spells like High Elves, Tieflings or Genasi. Also, the feats Ritual Caster or Magic Initiate can grab you some spells. I had someone make a Monk 3/Cleric 3 multiclass and they didn't like their character because they fell behind the other players in the group. When I asked why they multiclassed into Ceric they said they really wanted the Cleric spells that allowed them to talk to their deity. It turns out that they could have just taken the Ritual Caster feat and gotten what they wanted.
   
4. Different abilities with the same effect: Do you really need to cast Fireball or do you just want to deal fire damage? I saw a post about someone who wanted to build a Fighter that can cast Fireball. So, people suggested they play an Eldritch Knight so they could do just that. But the original poster said they didn't want to wait until level 13 to be able to cast Fireball. Well another person in that post asked why do you want to cast Fireball so badly? The original poster said they just wanted to deal some AOE fire damage. Well someone else suggested if they just want to deal some fire damage they should be a Dragonborn as their race. Don't be so set on building a character in only one way when there could be several different ways to achieve the same end goal if you just think outside the box a little bit.
   

These are the majority of the reasons I've seen people wanting to multiclass when there might not necessarily be a reason to multiclass. However, in the end you are free to build your character as you wish and I hope you have fun playing the character you choose. If you still decide to have your character multiclass do keep these things in mind: think about when you decide to multiclass. One of my first 5e characters was a Bard 4/Warlock 3. However, I took 3 levels in Bard then 3 levels in Warlock. Because I did it like that I didn't get my first feat until level 7. It would have been better for me to have taken the fourth level in Bard so I could get a feat then go into Warlock. And my last piece of multiclassing advice is to think about how long the campaign is going to be. If you have a build concept that won't really come online until level 9, but your campaign will end around level 8 you're probably not going to enjoy that character.
I hope these tips help you out without sounding to preachy. And if you have other tips feel free to post them here and help each other out.

I’ve built quite a few Wordress websites over the past two decades for side income, mostly using prebuilt themes and plugins based around client needs. I haven’t done any real heavy development work though (coding), as I would usually subcontract that out when needed.
I’m looking at building a website for an idea I have which will revolve heavily around certain types of events all across the US, which visitors will be able to submit to through a front end submission form.
My first thought was to buy an Events plug-in, but as usual, none of them have all the features I need, or they have some I don’t need. And then there are some that have multiple paid addons that would be needed to get close to what I need.
Would it make more sense to just use some core plugins to create custom post types (Custom Post Type UI) and custom fields (ACF) to build it out from scratch using a builder like Elementor? I’ve never used Elementor or Divi but I know they’re very commonly used by developers to save time. I don’t know that becoming a true developer is in my plans so I’m thinking that learning Elementor makes sense.
Building from scratch might take longer due to the learning curve but I could then use that experience in other projects later. I don’t plan to build websites for clients, but I likely will build more websites for my own business projects.
Thoughts?

[tl;dr: Haven of the Embraced is ready for new Mudders (builders to help expand the world, Storytellers to help with in-game Helpfiles and promoting roleplay, players to just enjoy the world). Code/Area updates/additions are currently in progress (QoL code done over past couple years, multiple areas revamped over past few months). Stop on by and look for Gilean. Thank you!]
Address: havenmud.net Port: 2000
Discord: https://discord.gg/s9W2RjB
Having been around for over 20 years in some form or another, Haven of the Embraced has undergone a number of facelifts, a couple of changes of ownership/admin, and a handful of major overhauls. The theme and setting is based upon White Wolf Publishing's Classic (Old) World of Darkness line, specifically the Dark Ages: Setting. The core is a Modified ROM codebase, with heavy original additions supplementing or replacing stock attributes to work within the (D10) ruleset of the Classic World of Darkness (CWoD - heavily drawn from Revised/20th). Much of the combat system and skills systems has been overhauled in this manner, and new additions/tweaks are ongoing.
SYSTEMS:
Character Development centers around your Character Sheet, which lists your Attributes, Abilities, and other Specialties your character possesses. This should be familiar to anyone who plays the World of Darkness D10 system. (Knowledge of the CWoD is by no means required to play). Your skills and abilities available in-game are based upon your character sheet and are unlocked as you upgrade your character. Progress for a character is determined in two manners. Firstly, leveling up from 1 to 100 through hack and slash, roleplaying, or some combination of both. Upon reaching level 100 by your wits and specialties (based upon your race, and character sheet), you are given the option to 'Remort'. 'Remorting' starts you back at level 1 (with all skills and items retained), and provides you with points to use on your character sheet to permanently power up your character. You might learn new toys to play with, or simply increase a Statistic to give yourself better rolls on existing abilities.
HISTORY:
Unfortunately, Haven did stagnate a few years ago while the MUD's sole developer was away due to personal issues. A large portion of the playerbase dropped off after an extended time period where nothing new was added, or refined. Our Admin staff has been working to revitalize the MUD to what it has proven to be prior. With much needed improvements having been implemented over the past few years (and updates ongoing), Haven is poised to receive a fresh influx of players to help bring the community back to the thriving it once enjoyed, as well as help us iron out new ideas and fresh perspectives.
FOCUS:
There are a few factors that we specifically wish to focus on at this time to help bring about a more refined experience for players, both new and old alike. Some issues due to being outdated cause a bit of a learning curve for newbies (outdated/missing helpfiles, or no older players online at the time to help). We believe that new additions and tweaking older staples are equally important to helping both newbies and veterans. I (Gilean) am available in-game or Discord to answer questions/concerns.
THE WORLD:
The world of Haven is expansive, but by no means complete. Miles and miles of European wilderness cross the map, however a portion is left barren as leveling zones (while boasting many, with close to 10,000 linked rooms), are typically clumped together. As Head Builder I have begun reworking older zones, as well as filtering out zones that no longer fit Haven's current theme. This leaves a lot of room for areas to be added. Unfortunately, we lack builders to assist in this endeavor. While building/tweaking areas falls under my purview, I also assist in much of the codework being done to improve the game. I am looking specifically for individuals who have a passion for creating, to help expand this world that has brought joy to many over the years, and hopefully bring joy to many for years to come. Building positions are available for those willing to help us.
ROLEPLAY:
As stated earlier, many helpfiles are inaccurate after 20+ years of changes, but are being updated as they are discovered. Potential Storyteller positions are available to assist with enhancing the lore of Haven, fixing helpfiles, and promoting RP on Haven. We are an RP-Encouraged MUD, as there is a mix of perks that come from both RolePlay and Hack&Slash. Currently the mix leans around 30 RP/70 H&S, but we are pushing forward to encourge more RP with new players. I, myself, am around most of the time and willing to RP with a variety of mortal characters.
CONCLUSION:
If helping in either of these capacities sounds right up your alley, or if you just want to hop on to chat/level/explore, I encourage you to give us a look at [ havenmud.net : 2000 ]. You can typically find me logged in as Gilean throughout the day. Additionally, you can always find me on our Discord Server [https://discord.gg/s9W2RjB]. Feel free to message me here or on Discord, or on the MUD and I will be happy to answer any questions/concerns you may have.
Thank you for taking the time to read, and while I do hope to see you and chat more, whatever your decision I hope that your gaming experiences meet all your expectations and have a wonderful day.
Gilean, Balance Incarnate

Project Title: Work
Overview: I'm developing a psychological horror 2.5D hack-and-slash game centered around themes of depression, mental health, and survival. This game draws heavy inspiration from titles like Omori, Undertale, and Don't Escape: 4 Days to Survive.
Key Features:
Unique Mechanics: The game features a will meter (acting as both health and influencing otherworldly elements), a fear system that impacts spawn rates and other aspects, and intricate item interactions. Setting: The game is set in a large, foreboding city, providing an immersive environment for psychological horror.
other things about the project, it's semi-meta, for example the item description are the main characters thoughts, (This is all up for change as development continues of course)
What I am: Im a programmer, learning C# But Im figuring it out quickly as I've worked on other languages that are similar.
I need an artist who is experienced with creating pixel art for both characters and environments. I'm going with a 2.5 d I guess, basically, 2d characters in a 3d world
Depending on how well the project goes I might need a sound/music designer, in which case Ill make a separate post, on here, or hire one.
I'm still learning Unity after switching from Game Maker Studio, so there might be a learning curve that could slow down development. I have a Game Design Document (GDD) available for review
DM me your portfolio and a brief introduction if you're interested in working on the project. I look forward to working with anyone who is interested
(might go about actually releasing this project if it goes well)

Hey everyone! The current meta isn’t for everyone, but I’m having a ton of fun, and Frog Shaman is a huge reason why. Finding a deck you really click with makes all the difference, and this is the most I’ve enjoyed a deck in a while. This is an aggressive deck with surprising flexibility, and a lot of fun quirks. You might expect the matchups would be a tad pole-arised, but I’ve found this has game into everything, and has been a generally ribbiting play experience for me. If you ever looked at Nature Shaman and thought “this looks cool, but I wish it wasn’t so all-in on combo and could actually fight for the board”, then this is the deck for you. So continue reading and I’ll help you hop to the top of the ladder with this toadally incredible deck.
1. Climb & Stats
Legend, and matchup stats.
A few notes on my climb:

• I started playing this deck while on holiday, so I was away from my regular PC and did not keep stats from D5-D3, though I did it without much trouble and with a worse list. The pictured stats are from D3-Legend.
• Most of this climb was done over a week after the miniset launched, meaning the meta was a bit more refined.
• On the other hand, most of the climb was in the last week of the month, meaning that my stats may be a little lily-padded.

Credit to this post from makiahtime for sparking my interest in the idea, worldeight for helping me improve the list, and the people who helped me come up with frog puns.
2. Decklist & Game Plan

Frog Shaman

Class: Shaman

Format: Standard

Year of the Pegasus

2x (1) Flowrider

2x (1) Lightning Bolt

2x (1) Murloc Growfin

2x (1) Novice Zapper

2x (1) Overdraft

2x (1) Pop-Up Book

2x (1) Shock Hopper

1x (2) Conductivity

2x (2) Flametongue Totem

2x (2) Jam Session

2x (2) Trusty Companion

2x (3) Turn the Tides

2x (4) Backstage Bouncer

1x (4) Pozzik, Audio Engineer

1x (5) JIVE, INSECT!

2x (5) Rocket Hopper

1x (6) Golganneth, the Thunderer

AAECAc+LBQT0yAXI0AWN9QXplQYN6ucD+Z8EhtQExNAF5eQF9PIFh/sFw48G7JUGv54GqKcG0NAG0dAGAAA=

Those who have read Sun Tzu’s The Art of War may remember the quote "the only thing better than some cute lil froggy fellas is one huge-ass froggy fella with two giant fuck-off rockets strapped to its back". Wise man.
So, what’s the deal? Well, by an incredible coincidence, this deck happens to make incredible use of four frog-themed cards, and the result is one of my favourite accidental themes of all time. We run Book for lil taunt frogs, we run Shock Hopper, we have Backstage Bouncers, and then we take off with Rocket Hoppers.
This deck gets onto board hard and reliably. We have a wide range of turn 1 plays and powerful turn 2 follow-ups, allowing us to regularly dictate the early turns. We have cards that can function as tempo or burn tools. We’re usually the beatdown deck, but we have the pressure and juice to be able to finish things against the slower Reno decks of the format. We also have enough flexibility and strong swing turns to outpace, outdamage, or answer other premier aggressive decks.
3. Card Choices
Turn 1 & 2 Plays
Murloc Growfin, Pop-Up Book, Shock Hopper, Jam Session, Trusty Companion (TC), Flametongue Totem
These are the cards that win us early board control. We generally hard mulligan for some combo of a 1 and 2 cost card.
2x Murloc Growfin - One of my favourite 1-drops of all time. Not only are they adorable, but the efficiency you get from the card slot is insane. This is an incredibly strong and flexible turn 1 play that can be good later too due to rush. It also gives us a card that later in the game is very powerful at both answering big threats and establishing them.
2x Pop-Up Book - Wait, why is this in the Turn 1 & 2 plays section? Because although this is one of the most flexible cards in the deck, what really makes it sing is that this can summon 2 bodies on turn 1. 2 bodies make it and Growfin the best lead-ins to a turn 2 Flametongue. It’s also paired with Growfin as our only ways to get bodies for 1 mana and trade in the same turn, making it often the best turn-1 play on the coin. And it’s just overall such a multi-purpose card; burn, bodies, taunts, this book has all the thrills.
2x Shock Hopper - I love this guy. There are currently 13 cards it can generate for you, and every single one can be useful. I’m always excited to play this card because it’s high variance but consistently positive. The overload pool right now is very good! Having another resource-neutral T1 play is nice, given we don’t run a ton of draw. Speaking of, we’re gonna discuss tribes more when we get to Trusty Companion, but the Elemental/Beast dual-tribe is nice too.
2x Jam Session - You stuck something on turn 1, and now it’s time for that minion to start jamming. This is one of the most important cards in the deck because A, it’s the most powerful upfront turn 2 buff we have, and B, it’s our only cheap source of AoE damage. This will massively affect how you play this. For example, versus a Mage or Warlock, the 1-damage AoE is unlikely to be that relevant, so this is almost entirely for the stats. Against Hunter and Paladin, the AoE can be extremely relevant, so there can be value in holding it or timing it into a turn which includes multiple 1-hp minions.
It does have the occasional drawback of hitting our own stuff, but don’t get distracted by this. T1 Book or Growfin into T2 Session is a perfectly valid line, even if you destroy one of your own bodies. It’s also worth noting that this can be a bigger AoE with spellpower totem and/or Zapper. The complexity of sequencing and targeting with this card can be surprisingly high at times, especially with Conductivity or when you have to consider how it affects your own board and the possible answers your opponent could have.
Also consider that if choosing between this and TC for turn 2, Session is usually better on turn 2, because the overload curves perfectly into a turn 3 TC, with no overload on turn 4 where we want to play Bouncer or Pozzik.
2x Trusty Companion (TC) - So this is giga-cracked Hand of A’dal. It’s a +2/+3 buff, and on almost every target it draws, with predictable outcomes.
We run 2 copies of a single Naga (Flowrider) and Murloc (Growfin) so you have 100% draw predictability when using TC on either of those. 2 copies of Flametongue Totem means TC can draw when used on a hero power. Shock Hopper being elemental means you can TC a TtT token. And of course all our Frogs are Beasts, so they draw each other.
The only 1-drop we play which this isn’t a great follow-up to is Zapper. And sometimes, you do just have to take TC as a +2/+3 buff without the draw.
2x Flametongue Totem - This is sort of the third place T2 follow-up behind Session/TC, because it works best with only Book and Growfin. It might not justify the spot in the deck if not for the consistency boost to TC, but it isn’t bad. Remember to be careful about positioning - if you play this between two frogs/Growfins, you generally want to trade the right-hand one first, because hero powers/TtT tokens will summon to the right.
EDIT: Something awesome I totally forgot. Always play Growfin to the left of Flametongue. Growfin will be considered a 3/1 (due to being buffed by Flametongue) as it summons a token. The token will therefore natively be a 3/1, and will get further buffed to 5/1.
Spells & Face Damage
Flowrider, Lightning Bolt, Novice Zapper, Overdraft, Turn the Tides (TtT).
These are a flexible set of cards which can generally be either burn or some sort of combo finish, or strong tempo tools. There’s some overlap between this and the last section - Flowrider and Zapper are potential turn 1 plays/keeps, and Book/Session can be used more as burn/clear spells, especially with Zapper.
2x Flowrider - Solid workhorse. We spend a lot of time overloaded, and we run 8 spells which usually means there’ll be high reliability of finding damage by the late game. So it works as a combo piece, but also a general mana-filler that gives a body and cycles, and even as a turn 1 play. Don’t worry about losing the discover if it means you get a turn 1 body, especially as it works with both TC and Session.
2x Lightning Bolt - Lightning Bolt is Lightning Bolt. Direct face or boardwards as appropriate. If you’re against a deck that’s going to constantly be responding to your stats without developing its own as often (Reno WarPriest, primarily), you more often want to save your burn tools for a combo finish and push through with stats as much as you can. Against decks that run out of resources and will struggle to regain initiative once they lose it, you can feel much better about using Bolt (or TtT) purely for board control. Do be aware though that in some of these matchups you can race.
2x Novice Zapper - Zappy does zappy things. Of all the 1-drops in this deck, this is the one you’ll least often play T1 and most often want to mull due to the overload and that it doesn’t work with TC. If on coin however, T1 Zappy into T2 Coin+Session can be a good line. Other than that it’s flexible though. Sometimes you save for a combo, sometimes you jam it for pressure, sometimes it helps you hit removal breakpoints or juice up a Session to be an actual board clear.
2x Overdraft - This card feels so great in this deck, and fits the general vibe of flexibility. One of the most important things about this deck is turn planning and making the right sequencing decisions regarding overload so as to not interrupt important turns (T4 Bouncer or Pozzik, T5 Hopper or Jive, T6 Golganneth, or T8 Giant Growfin). Overdraft greases the wheels very nicely. You can use it at the end of a turn to clear all your overload for your next turn play, or the turn afterwards (which is double funny if your opponent planned around you having no mana).
Of course, it doesn’t just unlock those crystals, it does damage too. T5 Hopper into T6 Overdraft represents an insane amount of damage if they don’t deal with the Hopper. Also, when calculating your Overdraft damage, keep in mind that a Zapper will give it +2 damage, 1 from the +1 spell damage and 1 from the overload.
Trading Overdraft is something you’ll often want to do, especially if you have both spare mana and nothing particularly good for your next turn. Generally the situations that I don’t trade it are when I’m either beginning to put together a combo, know I’ll need to remove things with overload tools going into an important turn, or when I have Rocket Hopper.
2x Turn the Tides (TtT) - This card doesn’t really do much specific, and if you wanted to try other cards, this is a cut that doesn’t really impact the rest of the deck. But it is good! We really need to keep board control in some matchups, and this lets us swing at 2 things, while also providing burn damage/rush to get through taunt later.
The Rest of Em
Conductivity, Backstage Bouncer, Pozzik, JIVE INSECT, Rocket Hopper, Golganneth
Our bigger bois, funky cards, and legendaries. This is the top-end of our curve aside from Giant Growfins.
1x Conductivity - Conductivity is really fun and really flexible. A bit too situational to be worth running 2 and it’s another good candidate to replace if you want to try something else, but I love it. You can use it with Book to make a wall of taunt frogs. You can use it with TC or Session for lots of buffs and multiple draws or lots of AoE damage - though you gotta be careful here because if, say, your right-hand Conductivity/Session target has 1 or 2 HP, it dies before it receives the buff (EDIT: apparently that's not true and I'm just dumb). You can use it with Jive Insect too - either to make multiple Raggies (you can get 2 on an empty board on T8 with Book/Growfin + Conductivity & Jive), or to transform opposing taunts to get your final damage through.
Another really important thing to keep in mind is how it interacts with Overload, particularly Lightning Bolt and Jam Session. It’ll overload you as many times as there are targets, which sometimes means this is a non-viable or last-ditch combo that can ruin your next turn (this is why Book/TC, as non-overload spells, are often better with Conductivity), but this can sometimes be turned into a really strong positive because extra overloads are more juice for your Overdraft. Getting +9 attack and +3 Overdraft damage can be a pretty powerful and surprising way to get the damage you need.
2x Backstage Bouncer - I enjoy saying the name of this card. Also looking at it. Also playing it! Given that this deck tries so hard to have early board control and spare bodies (be they frogs, totems, or 1/1 growfins), this is a very consistent source of stats and one that lines up well into a lot of things. If you have the coin, you can often get this out on turn 3 which is a lot to handle. This is our pond now.
1x Pozzik, Audio Engineer - Pozzik, alongside Bouncer, makes our package of powerful T4 plays that need a response and also don’t overload you going into your strong T5 plays. Pozzik is as Pozzik does - he’s really annoying because either he’s great stats and pressure for the cost, or your opponent has to play really suboptimally. Remember, if your opponent plays the bots you gave them, that’s good for you. Boards are easier to control and games are easier to win when your opponent spends 3 mana on a 3/3.
1x JIVE, INSECT! - For when you’re feelin’ the timin’ for some jivin’. You regularly have small bodies to target, and though this card is very hard to use into some matchups where there’ll be lots of small bodies soaking fireballs, in other matchups it can be incredible. It’s often my favourite T6 play alongside Overdraft following a T5 Rocket Hopper if I have an appropriate body. Can also remove a huge unkilliax or other taunt body. That all said, if you’re playing on a strict budget, this is probably the best legendary in the list to cut.
2x Rocket Hopper - Our largest and froggiest friend. Happy things happen in my brain when I play Rocket Hopper + Overdraft. This is stats, and a lot of em. Especially if your opponent has been on the back foot or lost control of board, they can really struggle to deal with this. This can clear huge bodies while leaving one behind for you, and it also gives Overdraft a lot of juice. If Hopper survives, chances are your opponent’s gonna croak.
The other side of that pairing is that both cards become a lot less good when they aren’t being paired. Overdraft is acceptable due to our other synergies and tradeable, but actually dealing with Hoppers huge overload bill can be game-losing. If you do have Hopper but not Overdraft, I’d often recommend trying to set it up as the last of your planned plays, with the idea that it’s played in a way that simply ends the game if they don’t answer it. This also, conveniently, gives you more time to topdeck Overdraft (or a Flowrider to discover one).
1x Golganneth, the Thunderer - By now you probably know that this guy does a lot. You actually have bodies with large health pools that can gain value from his heal, and it’s both the only lifegain we have and the best offensive AoE in the deck. We also have 6 overloads to draw, so we’re always gonna have targets, and often be able to get a high % chance of drawing specific things. Loses a little value sometimes when coined out because you don’t get the spell discount, but can be worth it anyway.
4. Mulligan
The guiding principle is very easy - you need a turn 1 play, you need a turn 2 follow-up. If you have one of those things, you can full mull for the other. If you have both (and this is surprisingly likely) you can start to be more contextual, but generally you want either more copies of Session/TC, or your powerful midgame plays like Bouncer, Pozzik, or Golganneth. We have a wide variety of acceptable keeps and finds, and it’s also pretty nice that two of our best 1-drops (Hopper & Growfin) give you both an early body, and value/something to play towards.
Things get a lot more interesting when we’re on the coin. Our options massively expand, because A, we have 4 cards to play with which makes it near guaranteed that we start with either a T1 or a T2 play, and likely to already have the other. Especially if you full mull, you're near guaranteed to have something decent to play. Being on the coin also opens a lot of lines - T1 Zapper into T2 Session is only possible on the coin, as is T3 Bouncer or Pozzik. Another note is that Book is much better on the coin than on the play. On the play, T1 Book goes face, which is fine, but kinda eh. T1 Book on the coin though can sometimes answer their development, and even if it doesn’t it will often leave a body on the board for T2.
5. Matchups
This won’t be exhaustive because some MUs I saw too rarely. Also, variance is real, especially in under 50 game sample sizes like mine, so I may have gotten a mistaken impression of some.
All the Reno decks - Good news, if you haven’t won by turn 9 you’re either going to with damage on hand or, more likely, you lost already. So you won’t see him much. Reno decks are everywhere though, and generally this is a matter of playing smartly for tempo while hoping they don’t have the right answers. We can go for a while with our top-end, and I have decently often pulled back games I thought were sure losses, but these tended to be my least favourite matchups.
Hunter - Mostly saw Secret Hunters. This MU is same as ever, get a deck tracker or a picture, learn and then keep track of the secrets, and over-think the correct order in which to test them, trigger them, etc. It’s a great big faff but the good news is that it works, and once you have the hang of it, it’s perfectly winnable because we have good answers to a lot of their stuff and we can often outrace.
Mage - Went 5-0 in kept stats and I believe 1-1 or 1-2 before that. Feels like a bit of a coinflip MU based on whether or not they drew Malfunction and whether or not their answers line up into your threats. Usually went my way though - they don’t contest board so much as they answer it, and we do have a lot of stats and a lot of burn. This felt like one MU that I absolutely could not outrace though unless I got stuff to stick.
Paladin - Saw more before I started keeping stats.
Flood: Tough MU, particularly because you have to play it differently than almost any other. As opposed to usual, you’re not the beatdown deck, and you have to play like it. You have to stay ahead on board, you have to be fastidious about clearing things until you can turn the corner, and you have to make sure your things line up well into their plays, which should be doable because Pala is quite predictable atm. If you stay ahead, you win - if you play it right, you usually have more and better resources than they do. Jam Session is very important for this.
Handbuff: This one is tougher. They scale very hard, can answer your things well, and also have a lot of healing. It’s not a great time. Good news is that this deck signals itself very early a lot of the time so you can instantly flip a switch and go pure rush. You win when you stay ahead and make them use their stuff inefficiently. Their early plays usually ain’t all that so it is possible.
Priest - Like Paladin, this is another one that you play very differently based on who your opponent is. Let’s assume it’s Reno atm because it’s always Reno. You hope they don’t have the right answers, you pressure like crazy, and you try and push it through before they turn the corner.
If it’s Zarimi, it’s not dissimilar from Flood Pala. Control the board, limit their options, be smart about when to pivot from board to face. They are very direct, stat-based, and predictable in certain ways, and we’re better at this than they are unless they get some nutty Drifter play or get ahead of you early.
Rogue - Just smorc these guys, what’re they gonna do, excavate at you? Play a Gaslight Gatekeeper on turn 4? Kill them in the face.
Shaman - I saw Reno and Nature. The Nature game was hilariously one-sided because he simply could not respond to what I was doing efficiently enough. Even if he had managed to stop me from powering through, he’d have used so many of his crucial tools to do it that he’d have struggled to win.
Reno was Reno. I played good cards, he didn’t have the responses he needed, and despite an early Hollidae I was killing him before his staff could summon a 4/4.
Warlock - Now this is fun. Warlock can do some crazy bullshit so sometimes you just get blown out by a Painlock or Pop’gar Crescendo’ed or something, but we generally have a very good time. We’re good at getting board, and given how much we can pull out from hand, their self-damage can be a real problem for them. Also, Pop’gar can do big things, but if you have a Rocket Hopper, Golganneth, or Giant Growfin to answer it with, that lines up real nicely and they often don’t have a ton left in the tank. Even TtT clears it and leaves something on board.
Warrior - See Reno section above. Keep their removal toolkit in mind, and if you don’t see an early forged Bellowing Flames you might be able to stick a board. Remember Bladestorm, don’t overcommit into a Brawl, and play to your outs by making decisions based on optimistic assumptions.
Odyn Warr is kinda exactly the same general principles except they’re running an actual deck. One with a lot of armor too, so once again your only hope is for your aggression to line up well into their draws and make sure you don’t fall into obvious traps.
A few closing remarks.
I don’t actually know how good this deck is. Maybe I’m just really lucky and blinded by how fun it is for me, and I’m a real sucker for Shaman chicanery. But I hope enough of you enjoy it that we can get some real data and maybe leapfrog over some decks in the next report.
Plan your turns. Can’t stress enough. If you just play one turn at a time this deck will be garbage for you because you won’t be able to play your good cards when you want. Try to have a plan for 1, 2, even 3 turns ahead if you can, and be careful with calculating your damage totals and use of Overdraft
Pay attention to when you pivot. We have a lot of damage we can muster, so even in MUs where you’re playing more defensively, you always need to ask yourself if it isn’t just smarter to go face and rush them down. If their stuff doesn’t trade well into your board, pressure their life total and make them trade into you.
If you want to try other cards, feel free! I’ve seen various lists with more of a top-end or other substitutions. TtT, Flametongue, Jive, and Conductivity all strike me as replaceable.
And of course, have fun!

Review for the U1 courses, posted two years ago.
Review for the U2 courses, posted the year prior.

Preface

This is the last edition of such reviews - I'm graduating with a degree in joint honours physics and computer science, minor in maths. So, this is the review for the courses that I have taken in my U3 year.
I would structure this pretty similarly as before; I will list off my course selection, comment on how the workload is, then give some review on each course, and also instructor if applicable. After that, I will wrap it up with a short commentary on the entire programme and degree. I will also talk a bit more about my favourite courses throughout the degree.

Course selection

I took four classes in fall, and five classes in winter. The courses are:

• Fall: MATH 564 (adv. real anal. 1); PHYS 559 (adv. stat. mech.); PHYS 352 (hons. EM waves); COMP 350 (numerical computing).
• Winter: MATH 455 (hons. anal. 4); MATH 323 (probability); PHYS 514 (general relativity); COMP 302 (prog. lang. & paradigms); COMP 598 (maths for ML).

As before, a very healthy mix of courses. Such is the perk for being in such a programme in the crossroads.

Course load and a disclaimer

You should read the previous edition of my reviews, much of the commentary there remains true here. I'm also a very bad student, meaning that I almost surely cram content before my exams - not a great habit. So, if you are the type of student that is constantly up your game and stay on top of things, you might find your experience easier.

Course and instructor reviews

Maths

MATH 323: Probability

Taught by: Nadarajah, Tharshanna; Sajjad, Alia. Delivery: purely online.
Impression
A introduction to probability of some sort. The first section of the class investigates the probability measure itself and its properties, whilst the rest of the class focuses on different distributions - where and how they are used, their different manifestations, etc.
Although this is a maths class for maths majors (at least on the surface), this is not really too serious of a maths class. There are not really any proofs, the computations are elementary, and there isn't really all that much content being taught. MATH 356, the honours version, is an entirely different beast in comparison. I have not attended any lectures nor watched any recordings, reading the notes suffices for the assignments and exams. I would even go as far as saying that this is the easiest maths class for maths majors.
Assessments
This class has 4 assignments (1 was cancelled due to TA strike), a midterm, and a final in a 20-25-55 (or 20-0-80) split. They are all online, and the questions are all quite trivial so long as you read the lecture notes. Since it is open book, you will have the notes with you during the online exam.
Instructors
I have not attended any lecture whatsoever, so I do not have an informed opinion. Some friends who took the class previously said the instructors were quite all right, though.

MATH 455: Honours Analysis 4

Taught by: Dimitry Jakobson. Delivery: online midterm, else in person.
Impression
This is the last undergraduate analysis class, and I think it was taught a bit differently this year. From what I gathered, previous iterations of analysis 4 consist of a unit continuing measure theory from analysis 3, although I think this was barely being done this year. Instead, the course focused on three large themes: topology, functional analysis, and Fourier analysis.
The material is, in my opinion, quite hard to grasp. We covered almost all the topological topics in Royden-Fitzpatrick, before diving into functional analysis in R (also in the same book), starting with Lp space theory. We continued into Hilbert space theory but with Stein and Papa Rudin as our textbook, then finally Fourier analysis - although no textbook this time.
In my opinion, the material is interesting if not a bit too dense. I would recommend one to stay of top of their readings. I did not do that and I paid dearly for it (cramming).
Assessments
The class had 5 (?) assignments, an online midterm, and an in-person final in a 20-30-50 split. The assessments were really generous, in that all of them have many bonus points. The assignments and midterm had hard questions, but they were online take-home, so there was plenty of time to do them as well. Moreover, each of them was something like "pick 5 questions from 8", and anything done in excess would still be graded as bonus.
The final was in person, but it has the same bonus structure. As a result, although I have questions where I blanked out, I made up by answering other questions. There was no cribsheet allowed though.
Instructor
Dima is an interesting prof. On the one hand, he is quite disorganised and his lectures have topics jumping around quite erratically, and not all his musings are examinable. On the other hand, he is very chill and approachable, and can actually explain things quite well. He also has a huge repertoire of jokes on disposal, which makes the lectures lighthearted. Since he is also a softie in terms of assessments, I would recommend him as an instructor if you are prepared to do some self-reading.

MATH 564: Advanced Real Analysis 1

Taught by: Anush Tserunyan. Delivery: in person lectures, online midterm, hybrid final.
Impression
One of the best courses I have taken in McGill, and probably the best maths course I have taken. This year was the first year that they merged the tradition MATH 564 & 565 into one single class, and making 565 purely functional analysis. As a result, MATH 564 was basically a full-year course on measure theory in abstract measure spaces, and also an intro to Lp spaces at the tail end of the course. In practical terms, MATH 564 and MATH 454 is mutually intelligible until maybe the end of the second week, after which MATH 564 covers the entirety of 454 in maybe half its run time, after which we cover the rest of the measure theory in Folland, our text.
The material was really really interesting, and the professor did a good job motivating it. We not only covered the theory of measures, but also introduced some of the immediate consequences of measure theory like probability theory. I would not pretend that the course is easy though, it is possibly one of the hardest, most rigorous classes you will take here in the maths department, and the difficulty is not fully reflected by the high average. The cohort and the professor gave the course its good average.
I know last year I said I'm not great at analysis and I went on and did this, but given that I came out of this not regretting a single second of it, it should tell you how highly I think of this course.
Assessments
We had homework, online midterm, and hybrid final in a 30-30-40 split. The most interesting part would probably be the hybrid final. Instead of letting us have cribsheets, the professor made the exam the following way: she first accepted suggestions of final exam questions from students, then from those questions she selected a few, and together with some of her own questions she gave us a super set of the final exam questions about 24 hours before the exam. We then have those 24 hours to solve those questions (quite difficult but fair), and then we walk into the exam close-book. In my opinion the format worked out really nicely; we learnt a lot from those questions, and at the same time were assessed on them quite fairly.
We had 6 homeworks, all of which are quite long and difficult, and a lot of them cannot be stackexchanged since the prof wrote them. They were rewarding though. The online midterm was hard but fair, and given its online nature it wasn't hard to do okay.
Instructor
See previous years, but I will say something new about her. Anush really shines when teaching higher level courses in contexts that she is passionate about. In this class, she managed to gave us a lot of relevant examples in her research, as well as in areas that she has dabbled in previously. Moreover, the fact that she records her lectures and also provides electronic notes significantly aids our learning. I honestly think that I stuck through my maths minor because of her, since the three classes that I took with her have all been a great pleasure. Will definitely recommend.

Physics

PHYS 352: Honours Electromagnetic Waves

Taught by: Bradley Siwick. Delivery: entirely in-person.
Impressions
I will say it: I really dislike E & M. Maybe someone who has masochistic tendencies around vector calculus would like it, but I really hate it. The course finishes Griffith's E & M after the content in 350; since we almost followed exactly the textbook progression, I would not repeat the topics that we had covered - just check the reference text. Sure, there are some parts that are a bit interesting (for example, the discourse on the nature of light as a wave), but all the fun was bogged down by a slew of vector calculus mumbo-jumbo. Again, if you love vector calc, you would absolutely love this course.
Assessments
The assessments in this class are honestly a bit unfair, since there are so many of them. We have assignments, midterm, final project, and final exam in a 20-20-20-40 split. The assignments were very, very long, but since they are all Griffith questions you can probably find answers to almost all of them if you cannot finish them in time. The midterm was open book, and it was quite hard honestly. However, it wasn't very computationally intensive, so you don't have to be brilliant at calculus to do well.
The biggest problem of this course comes in the form of its final assessments. The final project, despite only taking 20% of our grade, requires us in groups of 3 to submit both a 10-page final paper, as well as a 10-minute presentation in class. For a normal course, this might be it for the final, but lo and behold we still have an actual final exam - and this time, it's not open book. We are allowed a several page long cribsheet, but the questions were very computationally intensive and difficult unless you have done extensive practice over Griffith questions. The good thing was that the prof probably curved in the end.
Instructor
Siwick is not a mean person, that's for sure. He seems reasonably approachable, and is very nice in general. However, his lectures were often quite disorganised, and sometimes we encounter topics where he seemed uncertain about the content. I would personally avoid him as a professor - maybe his chemistry classes would be better.

PHYS 514: General Relativity

Taught by: Alexander Maloney. Delivery: in-person.
Impressions
This is about as polar opposite of a course compared to PHYS 352 as humanly possible, in my opinion. In this class, we follow the topics of Carroll and gave a relatively rigorous treatment of general relativity, and the content of this class is just so nice. Throughout the class, it felt (to me) as if the secret of our universe slowly opened up in front of my eyes, and suddenly our cosmos isn't such a mysterious thing anymore. We started with a long but necessary introduction to differential geometry, before going into how the language of diff geo helps describe the geometry of curve spacetime in addition to flat Minkowski space. We touched on many classical topics of general relativity, such as how black holes behave, how gravitational lensing work, how GPS is affected by GR, etc. Since the professor has worked on theoretical cosmology and related fields for a long time, he was able to give us many unique insights about the subject.
In essence, I would recomment everyone - including maths students who are curious about how our universe behaves on a large scale - to take PHYS 514. It's truly a gem at McGill.
Assessments
Our class consists of entirely 11 homework assignments. The assignment questions were quite well written, and they complement the lecture content very well. However, they were quite challenging to complete alone, so it would be best if you have friends in the class to work on them together. For the last three assignments, we got to choose from a list of very interesting problems, which was a very fulfilling end to our course.
Instructor
Maloney is a brilliant prof. He has the rare skill of knowing exactly what to say to almost every question being raise in class, and he delivered the lectures in an extremely approachable manner. He was able to retain the students' interest over the entire class period. Moreover, he also gave us many resources to study for the class, including his recordings and notes from the previous years. I would 100% recommend his classes.

PHYS 559: Advanced Statistical Mechanics

Taught by: Bill Coish. Delivery: in-person.
Impression
This is a natural continuation of PHYS 362: stat mech. I will admit - I registered to this class only being very interested to one unit of it (information theory), and so the fact that I didn't do too well is entirely my fault.
The course gave a very deep treatment of classical statistical mechanics (we barely did anything quantum here). We started with a review of stat mech and thermodynamics from before, before diving into information theory, fluctuation about equilibrium, Ising theory, and finally renormalisation group theory. All very interesting topics if you are an aspiring solid state/condensed matter physicist.
I'll say now why I didn't like the class: stat mech at this level is just so tedious. We sometimes would spend entire lectures working through the derivation of just one single equation, and as someone who enjoys rigorous maths, there's a bit too much hand-waving going on to my taste. If you enjoy those though, the course is by no means taught badly, and it may be enjoyable to you.
Assessments
We had 4 assignments, midterm, and final in a 30-20-50 split. The assignments were long and conceptually quite difficult, and since I was rather unmotivated I did not do well in them. The TAs are very helpful though. The midterm and final were similar and are both open book; however, they were still appropriately difficult in spite of that, and the questions require some inspiration to take a crack it. One thing I do not like about the exams is that sometimes future marks are contingent upon previous problems, so if you're stuck early on, there might not be enough for you to go on in the following parts.
Instructor
Bill is a good lecturer. Since he works in the area of physics that he teaches, he's fairly passionate about the subject, and knows what he is talking about. He also provides handwritten notes on the courses that are quite all right (the page references are all wrong though). I would recommend him if you like the subjects.

Computer science

COMP 302: Programming Languages and Paradigm

Taught by: Jacob Errington. Delivery: online quizzes, otherwise in person.
Impression
A rather unique CS course, where it's not just focused on teaching a language or a theory, but rather a mixture of the two. This is a popular course so many reviews have been posted in the past, and I will be brief here. In my opinion, the hardest part about this course is the introduction of a rather novel way of thinking; that is, the emphasis on functional programming. In this paradigm, every line of code needs to be rather deliberate, and a huge part of this course can be done in one (or three) liners. Once this way of thinking is mastered, the course itself becomes rather simple.
There are of course other things, such as programming language theory, and some proof techniques. For example, the last unit consists of a project where we essentially built our own programming language from scratch, using OCaml as our foundation. That part was a bit tedious, but overall the course is fun.
Another impression that I have about the course is that it is very well structured. Each lecture is well planned, and the professor larged adhered to the course plan. There are many support outside of class for self-learning as well, which is something that a value very much.
Assessments
We had 9 homeworks, a project done in pairs, 3 quizzes, 3 midterms, and a final, in 18-7-15-30-30 split. Quite a doozy. In practice, the assessments weren't hard to manage, and the midterms and quizzes were good ways to keep us up to date on the course material, which makes the cramming time minimal during the final period. The homeworks have the highest concentration of one liner solutions that I talked about previously, so they require some thinking. The project was mostly tedious, but having a partner helps a lot. The quizzes were meant to be some sort of wake up call before the midterms, and they were quite difficult. Fortunately, the midterms conform rather well to the respective practice exams posted before them, so they were overall fair. The final was long, but it was divided into 3 sections corresponding to the sections of the class. This means that if the section sees a better final grade compared to the midterm grade, then your midterm weight for that section shifts to the final. This was a very good policy that made our exams a lot less stressful.
Instructor
Jake is also a very good instructor, although perhaps not for the same reason as the others. His charm doesn't come from his wild research stories or whatever, but from the fact that he is a genuinely caring instructor. He is very accessible outside of class, and he is always willing to answer questions. He is also of course a good lecturer. His teaching style is clear, and he is a very good programmer in functional programming. I would recommend his classes.

COMP 350: Numerical Computing

Taught by: Xiao-Wen Chang. Delivery: in-person.
Impression
A mixed bag of a course. On the one hand, the content in this course is crucial to scientific computing; on the other hand, it's a bit too tedious for me, worrying about the nitty-gritty of numerical Taylor expansions or whatever. But overall, it's fun enough.
We start the course with computer numbers, which has been addressed ad nauseam by that point in classes like 250, 206, and 273. Afterwards, we do a bit of an introduction of MATLAB, then cover the main themes of numerical differentiation, interpolation, approximation, and integration.
Although MATLAB is technically one of the course objectives, you don't actually need to program anything yourself. Every programming problem in the assignment can be done by directly repurposing the prof's code. So really, this course is about numerical analysis, without the analysis part.
Assessments
We had 6 assignments, midterm, and final in a 20-20-60 split. The assignments were straightforward by repurposing the prof's code, and the theory questions were also quite easy. I genuinely do not remember what happened in the midterm. I recall that it was relatively straightforward, though. The final was long but also fair, and I had no complaints. I would advise to go to the review session before the exam since they go over the topics that are going to be covered on the final. The only thing I will note is that unlike many COMP courses where you are taught a language, you will not get any coding questions in this, not even pseudocode.
Instructor
I did not attend many lectures at all, so I cannot say much about Chang's teaching. He does have a very peculiar accent though, and whilst some of my friends had no problem understanding him, I wasn't really able to do it without some effort.

COMP 598: Maths for ML

Taught by: Prakash Panangaden and Florence Clerc. Delivery: in-person
I will not give a traditional review for this course, not because it is bad or not worth taking - on the contrary, the course offered many valuable insights in theoretical machine learning. I abstain from reviewing it because it might not be offered ever again, since Prakash is retiring, and Florence might not teach this course on her own.
If anyone had taken a course with Prakash before, you would understand how much of a gem he is in the computer science department, and he deserves to enjoy is retirement after the career that he has had.

Course ranking

This is a new section that I haven't done before. Essentially, I will divide the courses that I have taken into four sections: extremely worth taking regardless of your major (so long as you have the background, of course), worth taking, courses to avoid if possible, and run-of-the-mill ones.
The two courses that I will unequivocally recommend both to physics students and to others, are PHYS 357 Honours Quantum 1, and PHYS 514 General Relativity. They are the courses that changed the way that I view our universe, and anyone with the background should given them a try. They are not bird courses, though.
The great courses I think are worth taking are MATH 235 Algebra 1 (I suppose it's MATH 245 Honours Algebra 1 now), MATH 254 Honours Analysis 1, MATH 564 Advanced Real Analysis 1, PHYS 251 Honours Classical Mechanics 1, PHYS 362 Statistical Mechanics, COMP 252 Honours Algorithms and Data Structures, COMP 302 Programming Languages and Paradigms, and COMP 551 Applied ML. I think they are worth taking if you are doing this programme, or are trying to do a minor in this discipline.
I will personally avoid PHYS 253 Thermal Physics if taught by Ryan and PHYS 350/352 E & M.
The rest I think all average - not much pain and not many gains.

Final thoughts on the programme

I thoroughly enjoyed my four years at McGill doing my programme study. The combination of classes that I took prepared me well for graduate level studies in at least subareas of physics, computer science, and mathematics, and I particularly liked the amount of flexbility that I have had during the degree. I had the opportunity of taking 500-level classes in all three subject areas, without having to overtax myself too much.
I will warn you though, this has by no means been an easy journey - you are doing three of the most difficult subjects in science, and it's going to take its toll. Whether it's on your mental health, your social life, your personal time, or something else, it's up to your personal work ethics and your passion in your studies. But from my personal experience, you will be able to get a good grade, have some degree of social life, juggle personal relationships, and obtain good research experience at the same time.
So go for it if you think it's something you love! Remember, McGill makes it very easy for you to switch gears should you ever change your mind.

Hi Everyone,
I recently made a dubious trade for a fairly large but very broken collection. I wanted to thank everyone for their advice, I kicked up a big fuss and he while he couldn't revert the trade (he had immediately traded my Marvel Champions collection off) eventually he offered another game to even it out (unopened KS of Thunderstone Quest with expansions - which I was looking for also).
Anyway, with all the backstory out of the way, I have a lot of releases, but the guy must have split the player cards with a buddy because while I have a TON of quest content, their are huge gaps in the player cards portions of the releases.
So, I am currently working my way through the quests. I initially started with some pre-con decks he had built that were fun, but I think they must have been for coop and not true solo as they were pretty one-dimensional and also had very high cost curves. I managed to get through the first couple of core quests (anduin stomped me a bunch), skipped the 3rd (as I am playing one-handed solo), and made it to the carrock where the holes in the deckbuilding really became apparent.
So I build a deck using all the cards I have access to gimli/eowyn/theodred (red/blue/purp) and have hammered through mirkwood (skipped rosgobel as I didn't want to make a new deck with healing at that time, and now that I think of it, I'm not sure I went back to the carrock either), all of khazad-dum and did 3, 4 and 5 from Dwarrowdelf.
Pros:
1) I'm loving the theme and how smart the quest design is that they each require different approaches, and how the mechanisms evoke thematic elements of the story.
2) The card design is very good. I've played CCGs since MtG revised edition so I have seen some sub-par iterations in the past, and this seems quite good.
3) Deckbuilding seems quite robust from what I've seen and what I've read on here.
Cons:
1) Quests seem very short and detached from one another. I love the world and the theme so much, but I feel like this is a miss - at least to the point I'm at in progressing through my content. - Does this change later in the releases? - Do any of the re-issued boxes have a more campaign-y feel?
Other comments:
1) I'm disappointed that my deck is rofl-stomping through the content. I have quite some experience deckbuilding, but this was more just looking at what each color had and throwing in some stuff to beef gimli, blue control for events/shadows, red control for first strike/null attacks, the obvious gandalf/sneak attack nonsense, and then just low cost curve allies to round the deck. Now, I still don't think the game is easy, I have had a run of amazing luck. Every single game was tight - 49 threat on one victory, and the watcher in the water felt like a total crapshoot and every single card pull could have been my last. Almost every game I had multiple moments where I pulled a shadow and thought to myself "boy if that was my quest phase card I would be dead right now". - How does the difficulty change as you move up the releases? - Am I just lucky right now, because I feel like I am flying through the content too fast.
Anyway, I don't even know the purpose of this post other than I am really enjoying the game so far, and I wanted to thank the community for being awesome.
Thanks!

Amidst this rise of Y2K nostalgia I do think it's fair to address this rising talking point
We should keep in mind that contextually speaking mid 80s to Y2K was a Golden Age for Videogames, with Golden Age being a period marked by rapid advancements (from Rudimental 2D to quite objective 3D [ergo a car is a car not a textured box like in GT(1997) ] ) and a plethora of foundational achievements were made, for instance most gaming genres were born in that period.
While so called survivorship bias and nostalgia can warp people perceptions a fair bit, still, I can somewhat accede to people thinking games were better then than now, though I personally would not agree with the opposite.
Having played many games from that era I can safely say that if we put graphics aside for a minute, accessibility / quality of life is arguably where most of the improvements/refinements have taken place since then, and it was done not so recently (in the 00s), furthermore they can be easily remedied with emulators:

1. CONTROL SCHEMES : controls can just be remapped in an emulator, sure, if the controls were digital in origin, they might feel limited due to their 8-way nature, however, most of the unintuitive-ness is gone
2. SAVING AND LOADING : Many older games lacked convenient save systems, sometimes even a pause menu with a retry mission option, making retries time consuming, they might even be lacking in terms of checkpoints, especially before an arguably tough/out of the box section, easily solved using emulator's quicksave features

While Such things can significantly impact a game in terms of rhythm, momentum and fairness of the challenge (occasionally), they are arguably quite ancillary, proven by the fact that they can be mitigated quite easily on an emulator, plenty of games from that era feature arguably quite solid core mechanics, albeit with substandard quality of life / accessibility, if compared to now.
Mind you there were also exceptional games with none of these issues, like, for instance Spyro The Dragon.
Comparatively if we look at the state of modern Games/Gaming, a few things/trends can be noticed, (and I am going to put the monetisation and patching arguments aside):

1. Mc Donaldisation : it's a lot of food/content for the money! leading often times to bloated games with a lot to do, a myriad of side activities with a substantially flattened difficulty curve cause the developer does not know in which order the player will tackle them; the result can be seen as similar to playing a screen in Streets Or Rage 2 with shuffled enemy placements, 20 times over,
2. Bureaucratisation: it all comes down to quantifying everything such that a long list of boxes to be ticked can be given to players, a phenomenon most likely marked by the increased presence and authority of finance and management over designers and engineers, the end result of such a phenomenon can be for instance, seen in many open world games. This design mentality shift into a preordained list of activities which are easily defined and replicable, emphasises the impression that the seller wants to give to the buyer: It is indeed a lot of food/content for the money!
3. Standardisation and Expansion : Starting from debatably Y2K times, game development shifted away from making games for people who play them into arguably making games also appetible to people who don't, this phenomenon may have many facets however, easily apparent is the:
4. forced Cinema-ification: this can be a very long topic, summarising, the trend seems to have made games and their mechanics subordinate to story telling, a panorama in which writers may have not effectively realised what are they writing for, case in point is how the writing in apparently cream of the crop AAA action/FPS games do not seem to take into account that gameplay in which a protagonist mass murders a horde of bad guys™ is not really to conducive to profound themes nor is it plausible or relatable to physical reality and real life experiences, resulting in:
5. Mechanical Uncanny Valley: Modern Games look so dazzlingly close to physical reality visually meanwhile functioning as surreally as games from 20 years ago, a logical disconnection in which what you see doesn’t really match how it feels to play.

Conclusion: game design has not really advanced all that much from 20 years ago or so, graphics may now greatly approximate physical reality compared to then, and games might be far more accessible (no tinkering like old school PC gaming) than they were on average, however :
Games Back then had a relatable fixed length, they overwhelmingly started and finished, the end result appeared aware of being a game, with developers focusing on how the game functioned rather than how to solidify a game loop out of pre-existing game design building blocks, such that the experience and the game could be stretched, preferably ad infinitum.
Brilliant and not so brilliant games have been both released back then and recently, however the landscape in the golden age was often fresh and inventive albeit recurrently rough around the edges (sometimes even its very core), and now is mostly safe and derivative., albeit the result often being well ironed out.
I have tried to be as succinct as possible, yet this is hardly exhaustive. On a side note, the multiplayer sphere has changed quite a bit, but I’ll leave that topic to someone else.

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I'm starting a series, where I discuss where characters can go from where they currently are in the story in the context of their football gameplay. Since this is the first entry in this series of mine, I'll start with the protagonist: Isagi Yoichi.
Contextualizing Isagi:
Isagi playstyle is fairly straight forward. He runs up field evading and juking defenders when necessary and places himself in the most dangerous position not only for the defensive line but also for the goalkeeper. His goal scent/Metavision allow him to pinpoint said area. If he were to get the ball before being in said area he usually trades short passes with any allies as he makes with way through the enemy team using his off the ball. And once left unmarked, he waits for his pass so they can repeat the process until he can get in range to use his signature direct shot. This weapon can be fired from both of his feet, with the stipulation that his left foot is 60% less accurate/powerful (not sure which maybe it's both) then his right. When the opposing team has the ball he routinely uses his incredible stamina to fall back and help the defensive line or if the opposing team haven't reached the attacking third yet, he usually goes for interceptions. With his incredible vision, information gathering skills and general field IQ he can lead a match, without even having the majority of his team backing him up. With all of this taken into consideration, on top of the fact that his IQ on the human psyche (egocentrism and ego types: World-type/Self-type) and it's effects on players during matches, Isagi Yoichi can essentially see into the future.
Basic Improvements:
For how Isagi can improve his base play style as it is now, It's fairly simple.
Maintenance on defence
As is illustrated here
And the problem with such a play style
Given the length of NEL matches presumably shorter than geniune 90 min. matches. Going from end of the pitch to the other would require pace and stamina that allows him to complete both his offensive duties and his defensive ones. He would have increase his speed so he can get to his "Meta Burst Points" more successfully as the competition keeps ramping up. And he'd also have increase his stamina so he doesn't tire out during the full 90 minutes. But he seems to have remedied this problem in the NEL, so his current endurance regiment should be enough as long as he keeps breaking his limits during training.
As for the rest of his physicals he should be pretty good when it comes to being physically pressed even by larger opponents.
Karasu, larger opponent who gave him trouble in the past...
...He manages to hold his own agaisnt long enough to keep the ball safe from him and begin a tiktaka sequence his Kurona. Good chop pass as well
So when it comes to getting physically pressed Isagi's not as powerless as he was before and with the addition of his Two-Gun Volley to his arsenal he should be fine when it comes time to score.
Moving forward when comes to shooting, there's only two things he really needs to do.
MASTER IT
Mastering the Two-Gun Volley can entail so many things. Increased shot accuracy with his weaker foot, the ability to perform longer feint sequences, (more than one feint) or maybe increasing his shooting speed so he can still shoot with foot he feinted. There's a plethora of improvement that can be made this fundamentally dangerous weapon.
That's where I'll wrap it up for this section because frankly Isagi's base play style is already dangerous as is. And as your about to see in the next section there's very little overt or drastic additions or changes you can make to it, that won't fundamentally change Isagi as player.
Additions going forward/Story relevant changes:
Isagi is own to add weapons to his arsenal that aren't necessarily viewed as conventional: Metavision, Egocentrism and now his Egocentrism is evolving to take into account player's ego types so he can better predict their top performances. I'm sure that Isagi will continue to gather these brand of weapons, let's just call them mental weapons for simplicities sake. As for what they will be I have ZERO clue. I expected Metavision or something to the effect of it be introduced of course I didn't expect it to be depicted in the way it is. I did see Egocentrism coming especially considering how simple it is in nature. But Isagi's been characterized as some one who takes mental aspect of the game into account far more than other's do, so I can't be surprised at this development. Especially since having a protagonist who thinks in such a way helps us see how he makes these crazy decisions. And our protagonist behaving in such a way also helps us delve deeper into the psychology of the other players on the pitch, especially from outside view like Isagi's. Take for example is employment of verbal abuse towards Kaiser, to further deepen his adversary's obsession with him. Isagi taking the pride and joy's of his opponent's into account will always be part of his game. And how this evolves I cannot tell you. I for sure did not even think about ego-types when reading. But in hindsight, it's par for the course considering this is manga about "Ego" as a concept first and foremost. Holistically the football and it's logistics take a backseat to this central theme. It's more accurate say that football is simply medium in which this theme of "Egoism" is expressed in the story. But I digress. TL;DR I can't tell what Isagi's next mental weapon is going to be.
But I will attempt to make an estimation on what PHYSICAL weapon he might acquire. And this theory is going to be based on not only story implications or events that have previously happened in the story, but also on taking into account what his arsenal and play style already look like. So what's this weapon?
A Rainbow FLICK!
Yes I know Isagi sucks at dribbling (for the most part) but he's gotten drastically better as seen here:
Impressive lift
Not necessarily dribbling but still an impressively perfomed feint that lend credence not only for my theory on whether or not Isagi can learn the move. But also on why the Isagi will learn the move.
Even complimented by Yuki
Well executed evasion of a slide tackle
But with that aside, how would he even learn this? Simple the same way he acquired his left shot. His friends. It is perfectly within Isagi's character to reach out or take from those whom he needs help from. I predict that he'll go to Chigiri the same way he went to Kunigami. Of course not for the matter at hand, that being the rainbow flick but rather with help on his physicals, since Chigiri has great stamina, speed and probably everything else since he was a part of manshine. While, like I aforementioned, Isagi could use some of that. As for the rainbow flick I think he'll go to Hiori and/or Bachira for help on how to develop the ball control and skill to execute it.
Now as for WHY Isagi would want the rainbow flick. It's fairly simple, It's to aid his Two-Gun Volley.
My Idea for it's utilization in Isagi's bag is in the scenario he gets pressed from behind or even from the front he can use it to start using his off the ball (which is way better than his dribbling) to catch up to the ball while getting pass the defenders. From there the ball will still be in the air and he can use his two Volley from there.
I mainly got this Idea from rereading Ubers. (And watching football stuff on instagram) But I saw this sequence from Hiori in Ubers and I thought that if Isagi could do that but instead finish with a Two-Gun Volley in front of the goal he'd be a monster.
https://preview.redd.it/nxlahe2lca3d1.jpg?width=800&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=aaa1961ec910ca57fc77c4dcbcaf63b66254f150
https://preview.redd.it/sc17sugmca3d1.jpg?width=800&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=3a2b083b0e17ee99b834c98c18272ef524bcdc78
https://preview.redd.it/acpoj0onca3d1.jpg?width=800&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=b2ac49dcc6e71043e47106a04c9abf42ee6e5ed5
And another reason why I think this is in character for Isagi is that it follows (almost) the same principle as the lefty shot.
Simple weapon to help in tight spots
He doesn't need to be the next Bachira, Sae or Hiori but also doesn't need to be next Noa or Kunigami. He didn't seek to become completely ambidextrous after Kuni's warning, so he simplified his goal. He can't play completely ambidextrous like Kuni and Noa but he doesn't have to he simply needs to be able to shoot with left leg not play the entire game with it like it's his right. I believe this follows the same pattern, he doesn't need to perform 20 elasticos and nutmegs in a row but just being able to get the ball over his head, like how Hiori has done for him in the past with the no look assist and no look goal. But this time his Two-Gun Volley is waiting for the keeper on arrival, that's just what he needs to get pass the hurdle of a demon press from someone like Aiku when he has the ball.
Case in point
And even from that position he can get caught lacking from behind (no Diddy) while having do deal with defender in front of him if he can't pass
So i'll leave you with this sequence i've stitched together along with a in-motion I found to open up to better visualize it.
https://preview.redd.it/whb21mvgia3d1.jpg?width=1492&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=c527ee48ace4a4a115af758c2203ca7a69ce53d0
https://i.redd.it/c1jajgx3fa3d1.gif
But yeah... Other than that I don't know how else Isagi can evolve. I mean there's always drive shots and more curved shots but I've seen that suggested so many times that I think I just wanted some different. But anyway, what's your Idea for an Isagi evolution. Please let me know and also let me know what you think of my theory.