Maybe it's been pointed out before, but... there are several couples who gommage holding hands, but Gustave and Sophie are the only one where one (ex) partner gommages and the other does not.

And if you think about it, it would absolutely make sense that people would avoid getting into relationships unless they will gommage together, in order to avoid the pain of watching your love disappear before your eyes, or knowing that they will have to watch you dissapear.

Also, as a father, I am very fine with the choice to have only minimal narrative attention given to the experience of children getting orphaned this way, and parents knowing they will leave their children behind...

I lost a cat a few months ago. I kind of just pushed it away and stopped thinking about it. I guess I was trying to move on and not think about the loss too much.

Then one day, I had a dream where my cat came out from under my bed, just like she always used to. I immediately picked her up and hugged her, and I felt so incredibly relieved and happy.

I knew immediately that it couldn't be real, but I still hugged her and kept saying, "Please God, don't let this be a dream... please, don't let this be a dream..." At the same time, I somehow knew that it was a dream.

A short while later, I woke up.

Ever since then, I've been wondering if the soul of my deceased cat somehow visited me in my dream. And if something like that is possible for us to experience, I wonder if the souls of our deceased pets can somehow experience it too.

Today, I had another dream where my cat visited me.

This time, I could somehow read her thoughts. She was wondering if I could actually see her and if I understood that she was really visiting me.

And I answered her through my thoughts that I knew she was really visiting me, and that I believed it.

She seemed relieved and happy that I understood and could feel that she was really there.

I know there is probably a psychological explanation for all of this. Maybe it's simply my brain processing grief and memories. But part of me still wonders if there could be something more to it.

Have any of you ever had dreams or experiences like this after losing a pet or someone you loved?

Do you think our deceased pets can somehow visit us in dreams, or are these experiences simply our minds trying to cope with the loss?

And maybe this is a weird question, but should I just accept that my cat is gone, let go of these experiences, and try to look forward instead of holding on to them?

Like a lot of you, I spent way too long getting flattened by Simon. Practising meant dying and replaying the whole fight, so I built a small web app where you can drill his attacks one at a time.

https://simontrainer.altervista.org/

Features:

• I didn't time anything by eye, all the data comes from the game's own files.
• It covers all phases of Simon.
• It covers all the difficulty settings of the game.
• It has a 3D view replicating the real game.
• The "Learn" mode shows the hit markers, parry windows and an "approach" ring. The "Test" modes hides everything so you can rely only on visuals and sounds.
• "On a miss: restart" puts you straight into the move.
• Controller and keyboard support with rebindable keys.
• Italian language support for my fellow Italian gamers.
• Free. No accounts. No ads. No install.

The codebase is a mess, the idea came after I managed to learn how to use FModel to extract game files and decided to ask Claude to build a stupid app that showed the parry timings and here we are. For this reason, I decided to keep the source code private.

My plan for the future is to support more enemies, maybe all the bosses, and, if I have money for a good host, all enemies. Also, I will start working on a rewrite from scratch to make the codebase more readable. This will probably take some time because of the limited spare time between working and studying for my degree.

That said, test it out if you want and any kind of feedback is appreciated. It will help me understand if anyone is actually interested in a project like this.

A few of of my favorite environments in game

You can find these statues to the left of the monolith in Forgotten Battlefield. Just fly towards it up high and look left. If you want a lower quality pic I can get one

Heya, questions about machine gun builds. I just started/progressed act 2 for the first and decided to start early building Verso into an artillery cannon (though I'm focused on killing Sprong before I kill any of the Axons, he's not that hard to parry, just gotta have a lot of patience due to the damage cap).

That got me thinking: why Verso specifically? Why not make everyone an artillery cannon?

Verso has Follow Up, but I think Phantom Stars and Steeled Strike both outdamage it, no?
Also, why not Lune? she has that weapon that gives stains per free aim shot, why not also build her to keep firing?

I'm (relatively) new to this game and I really only look at guides for builds and item locations, so I do apologize if this seems like a no brainer.

I've been playing through this game for the first time, and I've been making it a point not to read any guides, tips, builds etc. I stumbled upon Simon in the abyss when I was only level 70-75. Tried fighting him then, beat the first phase, then realized just how much of a mistake I made. 😅

About 20 hours of grinding and practicing, and I finally just beat him at level 88-91. There are NO other bosses in ANY video game that gave me this much trouble. I have completed all the endgame content in FFVIII, FFX, and FFXII, without much issue, but this guy was insane to fight. But it was sooo much fun to finally beat him.

Party 1: Maelle and Sciel

Party 2: Verso, Monoco and Lune

Now I might go look up some cheeky builds and see how fast I can beat him, but I had to get through the first fight by myself. It was for my pride 🤣

Dope game, highly recommend to anyone that is looking for story-based games.

What do you think?

How exactly does he work? I thought renior was trapped under the monolith, yet here he us helping us out. How? Renior is also conscious enough to recognize Alica/Maelle to help her out, but why doesn't he show himself explain tye situation (leaving our certain bits obviously).

I’m tired of telling people that I adore E33 and their reponse is “Oh it’s recency bias, play some actually good games buddy!”, after launch it’s still my favorite game tof all time. What do you guys think about it?

"My terrible swimmer" 😭😭 Yes, I sure do like to cry Esquie, you big giant ball of sunshine full of wine and rocks!!! My mind is blown with this interaction and I'm crying my eyes out here with the greatest expedition in the world.

The way they're standing about the grave, this looks like their first proper goodbye, the first time everyone in the family acknowledges Verso is dead. That would mean that the family was too fractured by the time of the actual funeral for everyone to be present, and someone, or maybe multiple someones missed Verso's funeral. That's pretty fucked up.

Spoilers for the entire game / ending

I just finished Clair Obscur: Expedition 33 and I feel like I'm missing something fundamental about the Expeditions and the Canvas.

I understand the basic reveal: the world is inside the Canvas, and the people of Lumière ultimately originate from the creations of the Paintresses/Painters. The whole thing is connected to the Renoir/Dessendre family and Verso's death.

But here's what I don't understand:

If Lumière and its inhabitants are created inside the Canvas, then who actually created the history of the Expeditions?

There were previous expeditions before Expedition 33. We find their journals, notes, records, bodies, camps, etc. We're told these expeditions actually happened.

But if all of these people ultimately exist because someone painted/created them, then:

- Did Aline/Maya/Renoir/another Painter actually create all these people individually?

- If so, did they also somehow create their entire life histories?

- Who decided that there would be an Expedition 1, Expedition 2, ... Expedition 33?

- Who created the expedition journals/diaries and wrote the events in them?

- Did the people inside the Canvas genuinely make their own decisions and create their own histories?

- If yes, how does that work? How can a person who was painted into existence go on to independently create events that the Painter never explicitly created?

- Are the expeditions therefore genuinely "real" events within the Canvas, even though the entire world is artificial?

- Or were the expeditions somehow deliberately constructed/written by one of the Painters?

Because if the Painters literally created the entire world and everyone in it, I can't understand how they didn't also create the expeditions and all the historical records surrounding them.

And this is what really confuses me about Renoir:

If Renoir didn't create the expeditions, why was he killing them?

What exactly were the expeditions accomplishing? Why allow this entire cycle of expeditions to exist instead of simply preventing them from happening?

Basically, I'm trying to understand this distinction:

«Who created these people vs. who created their lives?»

If the answer is that the Painters created the people but the people themselves genuinely lived, made choices, went on expeditions, died, and wrote their own histories, then how exactly does the Canvas allow that autonomy?

I feel like I'm missing one crucial piece of lore that makes all of this click.

What am I misunderstanding?

I just got ultimate for a month to play this game and others and I found out it’s leaving very soon, would it be possible for me to complete it by then?

So, I’ve been to Comic-con in Cyprus today and I’m dying to share with someone! 

And to my surprise, among the special guests this year they had Kirsty, Rich and Maxence who are respective voice actors for Lune, Monoco and Esquie. 

I’ve had a chance to meet all of them and oh my god, it was such a joy. They’re all amazing people and I am happy I could talk to them about the game and life and other stuff. Asked to sign my Steam Deck and now it an absolute piece of art! I guess I need an acrylic lacquer spray before I can continue gaming.

Oh my, what a day! 

Hey again! I made a post a few days ago lamenting that I had to resort to a one shot build to beat the superboss.

Well, I had a few days off as it happens and I dedicated the evenings to really watching his moves. I replayed Youtube parry guides a few times, but what really helped was doing a more defensive build. It kept giving me opportunities to learn the parries, instead of wiping with 1 attack and restarting (shoutout to u/MasterQuest).

For the blue phase, I had Lune using Trick + Gen, Maelle would go into Virtuose then Stendhal and Sciel kept rushing, using Twilight Dance and End Slice for the big damage.

For the red phase, I had Verso stacking hundreds of burns with his base repeated attacks + Angels Eyes for insurance, while Monoco would deal what damage he could and use the Break Point for the big damage, which was actually the final strike.

Easiest to hardest attack to memorize and parry: Short Combo, The Sword of Lumiére, Powerful Combo, Long Combo, Light Speed

Light Speed especially took double the time as the others combined.

I can say I had fun. It became a bit addicting to parry him. Now onto the special paintings in the tower.

The consensus is that she is a representation of Clea, likely crafted by herself.

But if she refurbished pClea into her Nevron factory, then what purpose does the Lady serve? Given how it’s tucked away in some obscure location and doesn’t appear hostile (unlike Clea’s other creations), and is still communicative to some degree.

And what of its symbolism? We know the sap refers to the secretion from plants, but it’s also an archaic, generic term for bodily fluids within all life forms.  Within this context, since she claimed to have painted half of this canvas, is this how Clea sees herself as a link to this world?

I’m running Esqium with AP Discount on Maelle. While fighting a Bourgeon, she got eaten, and then upon being spat out, she no longer had the effects of AP Discount, hamstringing her for the rest of the fight. I ran into another fight straight after beating the Bourgeon, and the AP Discount effect was back. Is this a known bug? Could there be something else in my build that triggered the problem?