Semantic Nonsense: Sonic Unfounded

Sonic accidentally exposed

Ho, boy. While the Internet mercilessly mocked the previous two teaser posters of the upcoming Sonic the Hedgehog movie, we were still ill-prepared for the real thing.

Honestly, the design looks like they were aiming for something similar to the “Realistic Pokemon” style found in the upcoming Detective Pikachu, only the texturing wasn’t done to make it look like he’s made out of actual living tissue. It’s more like Sonic’s fur consists of carpet samples.

The Internet has a predictable reaction (field day), but I think what really powered the reaction wasn’t the design, but the style guide that came with it. The webpage has since been taken down, but the Internet forgets less often than an elephant.

You see, this reveal came from the leaking of said style guide for brand-management firm Hamagami/Carroll Inc., who have done such a fine job managing the brand that they added their materials to their public, online portfolio before street date.

Taking a look through the remaining video game-related entries on their website, they’ve had a number of unlucky picks. Their video game hall of fame mostly consists of work on Electronic Arts titles, including the endearing classics Mass Effect: Andromeda, the new Star Wars: Battlefront, and Titanfall 2.

While I will praise their graphic design, their strategy materials are so vigorously drenched in marketing-speak as to mock itself.

I’m very un-hyped for Sonic the Hedgehog, though I feel that’s somewhat unfair judgement. These images really are the first and only thing we even know about the movie so far, after all.

End of an era for Star Trek Online and Neverwinter

Today came news that user-created content in Cryptic’s Star Trek Online and Neverwinter games will be closing on April 11.

This feature, known as The Foundry, allowed enterprising players to create missions anybody in the game could play. It also allowed players to tip the mission-crafters using the most valuable in-game currency.

While the news release was light on information, an STO community manager who goes by the handle Ambassador Kael covered the nitty gritty. Long story short: the Foundry was programmed a long time ago, the people who did it are long since gone, and every new expansion to the games was breaking the Foundry code so much it took months to get it working again.

Extra Credits has a good primer on the “design by landfill” strategy if you’d like a Dumpster deeper dive into these kinds of issues.

Though I must ask, is this the beginning of the end for the 9-year-old STO and 7-year old Neverwinter (both built on the 11-year old Champions Online engine)?

I can’t speak as much to Neverwinter, but older systems and content in STO have been in a slow death spiral fo a couple of years, though the shuttering of the Foundry is the largest and most drastic example by far. While there have always been doomsayers in the community, people are really looking at this as a game-changer, if you pardon the expression.

It’s unlikely that the STO train will come to the station anytime soon, though. CBS has been using it to push Star Trek: Discovery, and I imagine they’ll want to use it as a promotional vehicle for the three new Star Trek spinoffs coming to CBS All-Access over the next two years. But even so, nothing lasts forever. And a change this significant reminds people of that.

Kit Kat Flavor of the week: Strawberry Maple

This one is another KitKat that splits its flavor between the wafer (maple) and the coating (strawberry). Both flavors are pretty true (the Strawberry here is MUCH improved over the previous entry), but I’m not sure what they’re doing together.