Roblox Adventure Journal

Jovial Playground's revamp is here, and while I was a bit late to the party, I finally went to check it out!
I am a BIG fan of Roska's work, and before I delve in, I will say... they really overdid themselves. I'll probably say how incredible the revamp is multiple times here, but it is such a work of art. This update is visually STUNNING and I was left with my jaw on the floor at how incredible it is.
As a fan of original Jovial, this revamp didn't disappoint!
By the way, check out Roska's Neocities!

Not much about the layout has changed overall. I won't talk too much on the game overall for that reason, as I'll let photos do the talking. The visual updates bring so much more flavor to this world, with so many little details.
I'm attracted to the Birthday Room first, as it is one of my favorite locations in the game, and it's within close proximity to spawn.


All the new details introduced really enhances the vibe. I am VERY impressed with the mesh work especially. Jovial was once heavy on the decals for many details, but as we'll see a lot later, Roska and team have heavily incorporated a combination of mesh and decal into some really awesome spaces (dare I say... In Between inspiration? Likely just me comparing, but Roska does have it favorited!).

Sadly, balloons have changed. Once buggy nightmares, the original Jovial balloons are what inspired the notoriously-glitchy balloons in my sensory room game that cause unsuspecting new players lots of grief as well as the prop ones that will be in my future weirdcore game (which is inspired on Jovial in many other ways, too).

With the new decals and mesh work, the revamped birthday room is so fun. I love the cake and the chair the most.

I hope you didn't miss out on that sun that reads "DAY" in the GUI, by the way. That's right, Jovial has a new day/night cycle. When I left the birthday room, the place was plunged into darkness.
A lot changes, and the vibe is COMPLETELY different at nighttime. It is terrifying, in a good way! NPCs scatter to the wind, minus one...

Eidolon, who normally resides outside, provides us with some insight- sewer beasts are hungy. There are awful noises coming from the bathrooms, and I choose to investigate.

Sadly, there isn't a whole lot going on in here, other than the noise. The racket is really loud. I don't even know what the IRL equal to this sound would BE, it's some mix of dull metal clanging and the sound of a garbage disposal in one's sink. That probably doesn't do the sound justice either.

I explore the rest of the place at night, minus the employees only area, as I can't find the keycard in the dark.


The flashlight light is kind of annoying and inconsistent at best, but it's likely the fault of Roblox's shitty rendering system, which has a terrible time with updating the position of held light sources. It's like this in every game I play with a flashlight or lantern- Roblox just fucking hates updating lights in real-time, regularly leaving the player in the dark while they wait for their light source to update.

The environmental lighting is just FUCKING COOL. I have some issue with games being a little too dark, because I can't see shit, but it isn't too awful here. Roska knows how to use light sources and use them well. The mood is eerie.

Back to daylight!

Here's another instance of the sick as fuck mesh usage:
We're gonna see these a lot, because I'm kinda stunned! Once just png decals of teeth, the big chompies are now actual meshes, and the internals of these areas are as well, providing an extra layer of uncanny realism. Roska is clearly having fun with the materials, too.



Augh, what cozy old and new areas... I'm mildly obsessed with the starry tent-like structure. It's hard to get a good angle of it for photos, but it is so nice.
Instead of being open-top like it was before, the small open play area with the foam blocks, tent, and swings are now hidden away within the play structure at large. It makes a new confined space I kinda enjoy!


The bridge is super super cool. I'm definitely seeing some FNAF:SB inspirations, because we have to admit, I think every weirdcore-kidcore enjoyer's favorite location visually was the Superstar Daycare!
The follow-me eyes on the Jov heads are INCREDIBLY sick and sooo fucking spooky. I love that. What a great mesh.

HELL, EVEN THE FUCKING INSIDE OF THIS PIPE IS MESHED OUT TO BE FLESHY. Roska and the team really fucking outdid themselves!! Also did I mention I may be seeing In Between inspirations?


I will say I do miss the old pipe that once connected to the birthday room, but this new hamster tube is very fun, and the view from it... mwah. It's so whimsical...
I think I just miss what we affectionately called "the blender" or "the death pit", an area you could fall into in the left-side play area that would kill you.



The Pepper's Playhouse poster is such a cute touch, the relationship Pepper's and Jovial has is one of my favorite things about the two games. Always a wink and a nudge, I'm kinda inspired by dev friendships like that, and hope to have something similar with my own dev buddies in my upcoming works.

THE MESH HERE. IS SO FUCKING AWESOME.
We saw this in the trailer and I think everyone's reaction was the same, jaw on the fucking floor. I'm pretty sure it's the same as the old mesh, just retextured, but it makes me feral /pos

New Calm Down Room is so cool. I'm glad this place got so much work done to it.
And look at the little critters!!!

SOSOSOSO cute custom meshes with incredible textures. I'm OBSESSED with the plush Aisha.

Below the loft, I found you could move a painting (the, um, Moucha Lisa? Bah dum tish). It lead to this creepy vent (AMONG US) where once again, the vibe completely shifts back into horror.

It led to this space with a phone. On using it, it rang for a while... before awarding a badge! Another for the collection.

Roska REALLY nails this swing between the otherwise happy and whimsical playground into eerie horror. If the gore around Jovial didn't do it already, it really underlines that much more is happening behind the scenes. It makes you want to learn more...
Just what is going on in Vaje?

Back to our bullshit!

I reexplored the kitchen, finding some neat details!

Pickled mouch, anyone?

Night fell, just as Iron randomly dropped in!
For once, he seems unphased. He is normally easy to get curious and spooked by these types of things (which, he was; he was very impressed and creeped out, again in a good way, by the night phase), but he seemed rather unconcerned with the sounds eminating from the bathroom.
Iron is a very good weirdcore game partner. The perfect scaredy, questioning sleuth to the otherwise happy, unconcerned, "don't-worry-about-it" Pwushie I tend to roleplay in these games.

I grabbed the keycard when day hit, luckily located in the same general area as before (get up to the mouth slide, jump on the roof by going to the ledge on the left side if you're facing your character's back, and find the keycard towards the back of the roof), and went to check out the employees only area, leaving Iron to his own devices.

Naturally, the crew stocks the soda from Dream World. Delicious!


I reunited with Iron on the upper floor.


The Jov clock is probably my favorite mesh. I'd buy one.

Leaping through a false wall above a door, Iron found an open vent. Without hesitation, he went right in!

Taking us to a glimpse of the past...

Returning, I abandoned Iron to check outside, and HOOOLY...

This place got a major visual upgrade!
It matches the inside of Jovial a lot more now, feeling a less dull in color than the old version. It is so so cool.
I still want to leap over the railing of the bridges to discover more... Try as I might, there's an invisible wall.

Like the inside, the outside of Jovial is also VERY eerie at night. Probably more so than indoors.

Eidolon greets us when daytime returns. The gate to the pool is shut and locked at night, but when day returns, I go to it first!

The pool is another one of my favorite places in game, and it is so fun to see with its new updates! The revamp slide will give you slightly less tetanus than the old one.


Overall, Jovial is still a HUGE HUGE HUGE 10/10 from me. This revamp is so cool, and definitely what this awesome game deserved!
Roska and team, you guys did such a great job! I am in love with the place.

During a normal playsession in which I was joking with Player and Victim about them being gay, they said "screw it lets be gay" and decided to get married.
Player recorded most of the ordeal here, which I've reuploaded here. The quality kinda sucks but downloading it from the Drive should clear up some of those issues. Screenshots of things I forgot to screenshot are from the recording. Thanks Player!
Like Jimbo's funeral, this will include select chatlogs from the event.

ControlCoreAngel: please take a seat if you are a spectator
ControlCoreAngel: or dance on the couches i do not care
ControlCoreAngel: this is a autism wedding after all
ControlCoreAngel: do what you ewnat
Vinitile: is jimbo the priest
ControlCoreAngel: yes
Vinitile: multitalented king
ControlCoreAngel: ummm
ControlCoreAngel: i need a wedding script please hold
While I open a tab and Google "wedding script", Little sets me on fire. This is normal.
littlerascalminou: why is angel on fire
fuelcandies: because angels fit is fire
Vinitile: why arent you on fire
littlerascalminou: angel i think ur on fire


The guests filter in...

And the ceremony begins!


ControlCoreAngel: today is a celebration
ControlCoreAngel: a celebration of gay
ControlCoreAngel: and autism
Lark, sideways on the couch to our left, explodes.

fuelcandies: WHO EXPLODED
ControlCoreAngel: and of lark exploded
ControlCoreAngel: exploding
ControlCoreAngel: violently
fuelcandies: LARK EXPLODED


fuelcandies: lark pronounce plsplspls
Vinitile: l-arc
fuelcandies: no


fuelcandies: great Pronouns

ControlCoreAngel: please join hands


ControlCoreAngel: look at each other now and remember yourselves at this moment in time
ControlCoreAngel: or something
ControlCoreAngel: i guess
Vinitile: YEAHHHHH VIOLENCE
ControlCoreAngel: or dont i have amnesia


After a brief break to discuss how Jimbo is a priest and a judge and is protected by the "autism mafia dictatorship", we continued.
ControlCoreAngel: do you victim take player as your lawfully and mildly unlawfully but we dont talk about that spouse
guidinglightz: yes
guidinglightz: i do




ControlCoreAngel: will the both of you gays cherish each other from this day forward for probably the rest of your life unless you get a divorce ig

fuelcandies: angel you type like youve been working in a really boring office building for 40 years
ControlCoreAngel: FGDS DFSGKMKNFSGD


ControlCoreAngel: you have both chosen to hold these pikachus as a sign of your love for one another

ControlCoreAngel: people often say that pikachus are round
ControlCoreAngel: a symbol of no beginning and no end
ControlCoreAngel: because they are fat
silverpksp: angel are you infodumping during the
I'm not, Player, I'm turning the ring part of the stupid script I found into one about Pikachus instead of rings! Because we're in Roblox and all we have ARE Pikachus.
ControlCoreAngel: fat pikachu real
Said script goes on for a BIT about how the metals of the rings were in the earth and rose up or some shit I dunno.
ControlCoreAngel: these pikachus were formed from within the earth a million years ago
ControlCoreAngel: they are dinosaurs
ControlCoreAngel: and by chance
ControlCoreAngel: they rose to the surface
ControlCoreAngel: to be formed into pikachurs
fuelcandies: pikachurs
ControlCoreAngel: shut
ControlCoreAngel: and now they are signs of your devotion

fuelcandies: i thought you say "and now they are the size of your devotion"
ControlCoreAngel: player
ControlCoreAngel: please place your pikachu on victims head
ControlCoreAngel: and repeat these words after me
fuelcandies: guys please place your plachu on your victim's head
ControlCoreAngel: this pikachu symbolizes my love
ControlCoreAngel: and the commitments we made today

silverpksp: (Help me
silverpksp: (mouthing help me
RingTailedPaws: *wipes tears* so beautiful
ControlCoreAngel: victim
ControlCoreAngel: please place your pikachu on players head
ControlCoreAngel: and repeat these words after me
ControlCoreAngel: this pikachu symbolizes my love
ControlCoreAngel: and the commitments we made today

guidinglightz: this pikachu symbolizes my love, and the commitments we made today

ControlCoreAngel: victim and player
ControlCoreAngel: you have come today out of mutual agreement of love
ControlCoreAngel: in the presence of your gamily (gay family) and loved ones
The above text censors.
ControlCoreAngel: heck
RingTailedPaws: GAMILYYY😭😭
ControlCoreAngel: GAMILY
ControlCoreAngel: I HATE IT HERE
ControlCoreAngel: YOU UNDERSTAND.
ControlCoreAngel: you ahve given each toher pikachus to symbolize your love
ControlCoreAngel: and your promies
ControlCoreAngel: to maybe not get divorced
ControlCoreAngel: but idc
ControlCoreAngel: so
Player tries and fails to name themselves their name with the first letter of Victim's last name (presumably), and fails. The result is "E."

silverpksp: new name just dropped
Vinitile: E.
ControlCoreAngel: by the power invested in jimbostune miku
ControlCoreAngel: he now pronounces you gay
ControlCoreAngel: and gay
Vinitile: homosexualkity wins again





ControlCoreAngel: NOW FOR THE RECEPTION








Sinni showed up late.

We held an extremely important poll,

I got stolen,

and then I blew everyone up.


We have a new badge I awarded to the newlyweds,

which will be awarded to others in case this occurs again in the future! I hope it does, this was fun.

And now, a final word from my admin Little:

LAST NIGHT WE KILLED JIMBO (on accident).
Metta evaporated him with a laser, not thinking it would kill him. Anything with a Humanoid can die in Roblox, and Dummies have one!

We held an improv funeral with the whole server. For those who weren't present, this will contain some of the chatlog entries from the event!
I built a little gravestone and pedestal for the ceremony.

ST4R1L3: WAIT ARE YALL REALLY MAKING A GRAVE FOR HIM??? SALGJWKLAGJ
ST4R1L3: SINNI I ACCIDENTALLY MURDERED JIMBO
Sinnibunni: facepalm


ControlCoreAngel: WE ARE GATHERED HERE TODAY
ControlCoreAngel: TO CELEBRATE THE LIFE OF JIMBO THE DUMMY
AvaIsAlive: sobs
Izzy_budgie2: *cries*
ControlCoreAngel: WHO DID NOT DESERVE HIS FATE
Sinnibunni: sobs into floor
ControlCoreAngel: HE WAS A GOOD MAN


ControlCoreAngel: WE DO NOT COME TO MOURN JIMBOS DEATH...
starspeed1711: minecraft drinking sound
ControlCoreAngel: BUT TO CELEBRATE HIS LIFE AND ACCOMPLISHMENTS
Izzy_budgie2: *cries and screams LOUDER
ControlCoreAngel: BECAUSE JIMBO WOULD HAVE NOT WANTED US TO BE SAD AT HIS LOSS
ControlCoreAngel: HE WOULD WANT US TO CONTINUE
kagehiwa: [AUUUUUGH ZOUNDEFFECT]
ControlCoreAngel: WITH OUR LIVES
ControlCoreAngel: hic. sob
ControlCoreAngel: WITH OR WITHOUT HIM
Izzy_budgie2: *screams and cries and shakes


AvaIsAlive: i said hello to jimbo every day when i visited this place!
AvaIsAlive: i told him all my deepest fears
AvaIsAlive: my thoughts, my dreams
AvaIsAlive: and he never judged me once!
AvaIsAlive: he always was there to listen!
AvaIsAlive: thank you

Izzy_budgie2: jimbo was a very good man
Izzy_budgie2: and he was the greatest man in the world
Izzy_budgie2: and he would never hurt a bug

Then Metta took the stand...

ControlCoreAngel: METTA THIS IS A FUNERAL
ControlCoreAngel: NOT A COURTROOM

kagehiwa: I ALWAYZ FELT ZAFE WITH HIM...BUT...TODAY
kagehiwa: TODAY WAZ DIFFERENT
cute_lexiunicorn: QUGAHAH IM COVERED IN IZZY TEARDROPS
(At this point I had cloned the water from the pool, made it smaller, and placed it below Izzy and a few other users.)
kagehiwa: WHEN I HEARD THE NEWZ I CAME RUZHING TO HOPE IT WAZNT REAL...
IronBoy2632: [sobbing hiccups fade, breath remains juddery]
Izzy_budgie2: *cries violently and shakes and screams
AwesomeA_13: *CRIES VIOLENTLY*

colechar6: i spoke with jumbo the day he died. he ws a good man
colechar6: always cracked me up
colechar6: great at conversation
And, uh...


colechar6: i laughed at all his jokes
colechar6: it was great
colechar6: your honor i plead innocent
Izzy_budgie2: WAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAA
cute_lexiunicorn: snores

starspeed1711: *pulls out special carbine mk2*
Sinnibunni: I will now never be able to repay him

Thing1 (AwesomeA_13) then made a bold statement.
AwesomeA_13: Jimbo, our beloved, I will honor him, BY TAKING HIS PLACE *sniff*
ControlCoreAngel: how brave
ControlCoreAngel: jimbo was the bravest of us all
kagehiwa: ZOBZ...ZO ZTRONG

Izzy_budgie2: *kicks demigirl to wake her up
Izzy_budgie2: this is a funeral

IronBoy2632: I was... there from the moment Jimbo was here at the Sensory Room for good.
(Iron promptly gets evaporated by Metta. He returns to the stand.)
IronBoy2632: He was always a friendly face. Silent as a stone, but it was all in the eyes, and the way the corners of his mouth seemed like they were going to fly into the sky when I brought out a Pikachu.
ControlCoreAngel: METTAS GOT A GUN
Sinnibunni: GET DOWN MR PRESIDENT
(Meanwhile, in the tear puddle...)
kagehiwa: GETZ A MOP MEANWHILE IN THE BG
Izzy_budgie2: infinite water source
(I scramble to give Belphie (kagehiwa) a mop gear. One, for some reason, is blacklisted by HDAdmin. The other is a weapon. They begin stabbing people mopping the tear puddle up.)
IronBoy2632: ...I don't know how we'll proceed without him. We will proceed, I... [shaky breath]... I am sure of that, but for the moment the road looks obscured.
IronBoy2632: But Jimbo would not have us falter. Indeed, he may-
(Iron gets evaporated again.)
IronBoy2632: .....He may not know where we go, either, and he may agree that it is... wise, to feel what we feel-
(And again.)
kagehiwa: MOPPING ZFX
IronBoy2632: -....but he would not let us be held down by it. Our grief is but just another emotion. An expression of all the love with nowhere left to go.
Izzy_budgie2: *eats mop cutely
IronBoy2632: I'm going on for a while. ...There's going to be a hole in my heart, shaped like the impression in a beanbag chair that... that's going to gather dust, and the Pikachus immortalized on the Pinball prize counter wall. But... he would have us get our needle and our thread. and... and get stitching. I leave you all with this: let us stitch together.
IronBoy2632: May he know only peace.

ControlCoreAngel: AHEM
ControlCoreAngel: AND NOW
ControlCoreAngel: A WORD FROM OUR SPONSORS wait. sorry
ControlCoreAngel: A WORD FROM JIMBOS HUSBAND HAIROLD
ControlCoreAngel: "JIMBO DID NOT DESERVE TO DIE FOR HIS PIKACHUS" (/memeref)
ControlCoreAngel: "BUT HE WOULD WISH FOR US TO CONTINUE HIS LEGACY IN WAYS OF KINDNESS"
ControlCoreAngel: "OF PATIENCE"
ControlCoreAngel: "AND UNDERSTANDING"
ControlCoreAngel: "AND GAY"
ControlCoreAngel: "BUT MOSTLY GAY. BE GAY DO CRIME"
ControlCoreAngel: "MY FINAL MESSAGE"
And then Metta shot me, obliterating me instantly.
ControlCoreAngel: that concludes todays lecture

Here's all the gifts left at the gravestone.

Iron then alerted me that Metta had killed THE DONATION SHIRT MANNEQUINS. These are display Robloxians used to showcase a few shirts I made.
ControlCoreAngel: giving metta a gun was a horrible idea
ST4R1L3: ASKLUJWKLAJGKLAS
Only 1 mannequin survived. I was told to give him a crown, but instead gave him a hat that was gonna say "I survived" on it, but I couldn't find a normal "I survived" decal so...

Thing1 became a noob and promptly replaced Jimbo.

Sinni sat at the grave and mourned.

Actual post date: 30/01/23. This entry is however about stuff I did on the 23rd.

Iron and I went on a huuuuge world adventure while in a call with Little (who sadly did not join us, despite how much I think he'd like places like Moth Heaven and In Between).
These chunk of games were in my backlog of to-explores. Iron shares my curiosity with exploration games. We had a ton of fun!
Most of these games I found on Roska's Roblox profile. That's the best way to find games like this, honestly, is looking through people's favorites. I still have a few from it left to explore! Anyway.

While we started out with Hellscape Hospice, it's a massive WIP game. Like, suuuper WIP.
Baseplate, dummy, yadda yadda. And that's okay! I just hope it's not an abandoned project because I'd like to see it. Even the barebones of it is cute.


We moved to Moth Heaven, and it had precisely the aesthetic I expected. Expert use of Roblox's terrain tools (which are very hit-or-miss) and working with natural colors. Moth Heaven was ADORABLE and the world was huge.





Naturally I got a lot of photos of the playground.


We found some oddities. A massive tower led up to a huge tree and bench. Iron manually climbed it while I flew up. Hidden by the terrain was a photo of a Robloxian.

Above the top of the tower was an island with a building and two NPCs, a cookie vendor and hot dog vendor. Lots of edible food.

What was funny about Moth Heaven was the items. And the big shark. Did I mention the shark?

The items included what you'd normally find in games like this. There were plushies that changed every time you reset, a bottle of milk, and a hug emote, but there were also guns made of marble, a big bat, and a katana. Iron was not spared.

Next up was WhimsyWake, a play area based off the dreams of its creator. And LOOK AT THIS PLACE it was HUGE.

We picked up a lot of food before beginning our exploration of the playplace!

Iron and I had a blast. Look at this place, holy moly. It's so cute and so fun.




The trans pipeline is REAL.

So is the lesbian one.

There was a bee swing! Look at this guy's fucking FACE!!!! I LOVE him.

A hidden ballpit was tucked away in the playplace, like a little hidey hole. So comfy.

Obligatory slide gifs because these slides were so fun.



And a few from a lookout point at the top! Very nostalgic. Also note, nonbinary pipeline.

While Iron found WhimsyWake mildly eerie, not used to playplaces in large "warehouse-like" spaces, I found it very comforting. While large playplaces like this weren't a thing where I live and continue to not be, I'm very used to areas for kids to play in places like this, like my local bouncy house/go-cart/arcade place, which I'm pretty sure still exists, but it's located in what feels like an empty shell of a supermarket space. I will say the lack of people does make spaces like this kinda eerie even in the real world, and it was just Iron and I! That probably contributed to it. Either way, it really adds to the experience.
WhimsyWake is SUPER underrated and only has 19 likes and 1k visits. VISIT WHIMSYWAKE!! It was super cool and definitely has what a lot of people want in Roblox playplaces.

We were gonna visit Dimension 32, but it crashed Iron's game and he couldn't play without closing Discord. I still have some screenshots anyway.


Some awesome GUIs.

We'll revisit someday when Iron's on his computer and not his phone.

Next stop was Dream Depths, which lagged the ever-living HELL out of me but was still playable (more so than Critterspace is right now. auuugh)
We checked in at reception, admiring the pretty colors!

Afterwards we moved on to the playplace, and whoooa! It's really different than other games' playplaces, lots of unique and fun aspects.

We found a few hidden side-areas before I looked through the playplace.


Time to have fun!



Look at this neat little hangout space!

The picnic area on the bottom floor is also super cute.

I dropped by the cafeteria. The cereal looks a bit suspicious...

While waiting around for Iron, I poked my head into the bathrooms.

Boys' bathroom is pretty normal. Nothin' to see here. So is the girls'. Stuff's broken, a few messes.

Till I peek into the blocked off stall...

Ah.
Honestly, this is actually pretty typical for a girls' bathroom.
Back to the cafeteria I go. Iron has a bite to eat before we break off again. We like video game food bro.

Iron had mentioned earlier a space he couldn't get out of with an ominous sign outside it. I found it to the right of the playplace.

After getting eaten, I had to visit the nurse's office. They really have everything in here, it's pretty neat. A mini-hospital.

My travels resumed by visiting the big worm in the ballpit.

Sorry, snake.

Returning to reception to explore the rest of the map, we found a big room full of teeth portals that would take us to different areas.

The main one lead to what Iron dubbed the "Church of Chaos".



A side door led to a little living space.

Under the stairs was a...

GARFIELD CAVE!!!
Going through the other portals, we found a garden.

Then we stumbled into a circus tent with a big worm and a jester, of course.
Curiously he had a few of the creatures around the place in cages.

Next we found a big mall with an arcade.


We also stumbled into a prison cell smeared with blood! Wonder what happened here.


We wrapped it all up by heading upstairs.


Dream Depths was super neat and the art is stunning. Incredible work. I hope to revisit it with a bit less lag!

Next was Yo-Yo's Big Show. We woke up in these tall bedrooms.

Of course, there was a jail.

The signs around the place (not decals, to my surprise, but 3D letters placed individually, talk about impressive!) gave us some laughs.

We headed to reception. The design of these rooms are GORGEOUS, with heavy mesh use. Reminds me of Kawaii Monster Cafe (/pos).

According to the receptionist, we were there for a tour, but weren't quite getting one. So we vouched to explore for ourselves.

Hey look, it's me!

We poked our heads into the fun room, a huge amalgam of shapes and colors! Very nostalgic in some ways to me, a lot of details reminded me of a playground in a mall we frequented when we lived in TN.


I am OBSESSED with the lack of polygons in the ballpit and the way it's textured. It's so funky.

We came up to the stage. This place was really stunning!

There was a TBH wandering around! This guy's a free model and I also picked him up for the sensory room.

We also found...

speeeeeeen.
Connected to the stage was a side area. Only one door here lead anywhere.

It led to a cafeteria! More food.

Or, um, alcohol. The cafeteria was serving totally-not-Jack-Daniel's, and Iron and I proceeded to laugh and get shitfaced.

The kitchen had a radioactive warning sign on the front. I wondered what could possibly be back there...

Oh, yeah, damn. It absolutely IS radioactive in here.
The amount of skill and effort put into Yo-Yo's was really incredible and absolutely stunned me. What a pretty game! It really was like abstract art, and I really loved that.
However, I wouldn't recommend Yo-Yo's for anyone who has particularly bad trauma. There are some very heavy themes of it throughout the game, especially self-harm.

Finally, we visited In Between. I wasn't expecting much from this game but... holy shit.
It delivered soooo much. I am geniunely stunned by it.
The mesh work is pretty sick. The thorny vines that appear a lot are really cool.

In Between is a very artistic game, with a clash of rough and gritty Roblox textures and smooth, cel-shaded decals. I've never seen decal work this incredible and what In Between did with decals was breathtaking.

But our adventures in In Between were just beginning...
Through a mirror was another world, much brighter and happier. Lots of Maple Story, Mother(?), and Paper Mario pixels!


Crawling into the tubes, I didn't find a whole lot. It was too dark for me to see initially (till I upped my gamma and revisited later).

When we exited, the bright and colorful mirror hub had become...

much darker.
The NPC guy we met at the tree previously was gone. This is where a lot of the cool stuff with In Between begins.
See, this twist isn't you getting teleported to another world. This is the same map. The map itself changes into this after you reach a certain point in the pipes. And it's not the first time the world changes.

In Between has a ton of hidden triggers, toggled by exploring or talking to NPCs. NPCs can disappear or change location, change dialogue, and the look and feel of the world around you changes.
In Between is an adaptive story. This is when Iron and I realized that. I have never seen something like this in Roblox, and we HAD to dig deeper. Seriously this is SUPER cool and I crave to know how this was all done.
The venture continues. We came across a nice, peaceful little side room.


The plants have little chompy mouths. We'll see that again.
What game is complete without a cafeteria? We sated our hunger for video game food by exploring the cafeteria and its kitchen. Tons of Pinkie Pies scattered the place.


There was an upstairs area to the cafeteria too, and on going up, we found...

Big chompy!! Iron volunteered to see what happened when this guy ate him, and he was promptly sent to what we called the "meat room", the respawn point after you enter the mirror.
There was a guy up here and some HUGE feasts.

It's a minor thing only other devs would notice, but care to look at the food detail here?

This ramen isn't one big mesh as most high-detail items in Roblox will be. This ramen... is made from multiple small parts and meshes. It's hand-built. And the attention to detail in such a small thing is huge! I am obsessed with this ramen. This ramen is the way you can tell so much love went into this game. This ramen inspires me /hj.
At the back was a room we'd encountered in the non-mirror world's reception area, but this time different, the NPC, Onion, who had previously not wanted to talk to us, now did.

Afterwards, we ventured outside. There was a church-library mix and some deer. Using the red flower vines, you could also scale the building... and reveal the sky wasn't real.


In Between is really a game you need to take in slowly, or else you'll end up triggering a lot of the changes when you're not ready for them. There's three main "states", I'll call them, based of the changes in the mirror hub, but a lot of other very small changes occur too depending on your actions!
In Between is CRIMINALLY underrated. Only 60 likes and 1k visits? This game is fucking incredible. The work put into this thing shows and it's very unique. I'm absolutely fucking blown away by this game. I'm still stunned over it. Mildly obsessed with it. I want to put it in my MOUTH /pos.

After that experience Iron and I needed to take a break. In Between had sooo much stuff in it. How awesome. Go experience it for yourself because I can't put it all into words and I don't wanna spoil some of the juicy secrets.

Actual post date: 16/01/23. This entry is however about stuff I did on the 10th.

After a long time away, I revisited Furhazard Facility. It's been small since the fallout with Greystone, so there was only one server, but there had been some large updates I hadn't seen yet. So I swapped into my Furhazard OC Norah and joined the server.

There were 8 FDs online (not counting me)! EIGHT!! I primarily play FD, so holy shit. Prior to this update the rule-of-thumb was "4 FDs per server is enough," but it seems like that's changed and seeing 5+ FDs is not uncommon.
Even with more FDs, the facility is still extremely difficult to control, and during this game I primarily had major issue with some newer Test Operators and a BUNCH of Revolt raiders. So much for that "no raiding excessively" rule that was recently implemented, huh. I had a harder time roleplaying now than I had before the updates.


It was so bad when I arrived that we had to detonate the nuke, and it does NOT treat lower-end computers nicely. I know they can make it better too, so it runs smoothly, seems like for now it just won't. The lag was so bad I couldn't even get to the bomb shelter in time!

At least I got a badge?

The new rundown after the nuke was pretty cool though, despite being SUPER laggy and delayed. Very like, EAS-style horrory, I don't have a better way to describe it. Reminds me of a nightmare I once had that really stuck with me. Either way, it's sick, just wish the nuke lag didn't fuck it up so much.

Note the low numbers are because people crashed or left due to the lag. Both should be higher.

I thought the next round would start easy with a freshly reset world. But nope! Instantly we got raided again. Seriously, the Revolt outnumbered us, and while the rest of the Facility staff cowered in the bomb shelter, I kept running out to deal with Revolt. I got told to just hide, since FDs aren't supposed to be fighting, but no one else would!
Also that particular TO I mentioned earlier that was causing me issue was freaking out for no reason. Like, calling for nuke when just one object had breached, which is such a ridiculously minor issue. They kept spamming the radio saying to detonate the nuke, only used for worst case scenario, and just REFUSED to listen to anyone higher up in the ranks than them. For once, Security and HRT were really competent. I'm lucky to get such good HRT, I seem to at least attract HRT with functioning brains. But the commander of HRT and I (still FD) were practically YELLING at this low-ranking, newbie TO to stop spamming calls to enable the nuke.
In other news the new fire looks AWESOME and acts realistic too. It's sick.

I left because I was getting rather frustrated with this TO and the constant raiding making it impossible to even get any KIND of control over the facility. In the past getting things roped in wasn't terribly difficult, just requiring a firm hand and a competent HRT (which I had here too) and guards that will actually watch the subjects when emergencies arise, but now it seems like a fucking mess. I'll try again later, but Furhazard takes a certain energy.

I made the sensory room VR compatible via NVR. Sadly they're deprecating VRPointing which I use, and the Github docs have vanished overnight (THANKS GUYS /sarc), but it works very well! I've actually come to like Roblox VR a lot more now that I can jump with my spacebar and actually press things in sensory, but that's probably gonna break soon. Roblox VR is still super in need of work.



Iron is short and cute.


I also visited Clinic of dreams, which I'd been meaning to look into for a while! Naturally, I swapped into Pwushie, my dedicated weirdcore/dreamcore/kidcore OC.

We greeted the nurse at the front desk and made our way back into the clinic. I heard a "YIPPEE!" off in the distance.

I first checked out the patient rooms! They're really cool.



Venturing to the playground next, I found some very curious things!

Within a hidden portion was a big heart with eyes.

I learned some more lore and got a move on. Next stop was the cafeteria. To which I found...

Hm! Surely this means nothing.

Oh. They weren't lying, those chairs and tables sure can float.
Exploring further, I found the source of the yippee,

a Miku operating room,

and a place that stores the traumatic memories of patients, for sake of their health.


Overall Clinic of dreams was pretty cool! Definitely inspired me some to continue work on my own weirdcore game.

I made some more layered avatars today and finally came up with a design for this strawberry protogen.

Short n' sweet, I'll probably make her in VRChat too. I ran around a little as her on Jovial.



I saw a lot of people using VR in Jovial, which I'd never seen before outside of VR Hands. It intrigued me, could I do this myself?

I knew I had to use Shadow to do so, so I downloaded Roblox over there and surprisingly it automatically opens SteamVR without any issue! Not many Roblox games are VR-compatible themselves, as Roblox isn't a VR platform, and I have a few choice words about VR Roblox.


Roblox on VR runs okaaaay? It's no VRChat, but it's pretty solid for a non-VR platform. VR-compatible games generally use NVR, a free-to-use resource for making games VR-compatible. It has a few limitations itself, but it's pretty crucial, I think, to making games VR-compatible. I'll probably be including it myself into sensory.

But ooow. Roblox VR is clunky, and it feels like it was literally just thrown together. I understand its in its VERY early stages, but it does feel like Roblox just gave up on it and left it to die, never working on improving it...
Roblox only supports HTC Vive, Oculus Rift, and the Xbox controller for VR- some of the older and most expensive headsets on the market. Bizarrely, there's no Quest support! Still, I was able to play it via Virtual Desktop and SteamVR on my Quest 2. But the keybinds can't be changed and instead of going to the very similar Oculus Rift control scheme when seeing you're using a Quest, Roblox defaults to... the Xbox controller? The Quest 2 controllers are missing half of the Xbox controller's buttons, so you can't do some crucial actions.
You can't jump, reset, or reliably click on things using Quest alone. You can't get out of things that make you sit, like chairs. You're just stuck. Then you can't reset out of it. (EDIT: You can hit spacebar on your keyboard to jump! But good luck if you don't have your computer nearby.) Every button opens a menu or makes you turn. Considering Quest is the cheapest thing on the market and makes up a large portion of the modern VR community, why NOT Quest support? It's probably the standalone feature that's off-putting, it does make Quest difficult to account for, but most Quest players with the right mind and the right machine (or right VM, in my case) use Virtual Desktop. I'm pretty sure in the VERY, VERY least Roblox could just default the control scheme of the Quest controllers to that of its big brother, the Rift, and not of the completely unrelated Xbox controllers.
Roblox VR also has no option to change your turning to smooth turning. Snap turning is the only option. Snap turning is SUPER jarring to me personally and really kills the immersion. At least you can make it so your walking is smooth?
Finally, on your computer, Roblox VR presses the screen down to a small cube instead of taking up the whole window (like, say, VRChat), putting two garish black bars at either side of your screen. You can't get rid of them, either! What the hell. They're ugly as fuck and make screenshotting and recording a pain in the ass. Just do what VRC does pleeease. Typing is also super hard, you need to type on your computer and sometimes it just moves you. Also running into objects can turn your character and thus your view, and... there's just a whole host of issues.

Ramble over, I'm probably not gonna play Roblox in VR again though. Yikes! Cool concept and it looks awesome from the outside, but... man, just play VRChat if you want that experience. It sucks because Roblox has SOOO much more to offer in terms of worlds and games compared to VRC, Roblox is what VRChat WANTS to be in terms of worlds and games, but Roblox has never been meant to be a VR platform... and it shows in how shit VR controls on it. If VR got more support on Roblox, maybe we'd see more VR players!

After I left Jovial, I went to test Critterspace on my Shadow. I've been having issue with Critterspace lately, it even caused my computer to kernel panic this morning. It looks like a graphics issue and hopefully with implementation of new features I'll be able to play again normally. But it runs fine on my Shadow! So I ran around as my funny scene dragon guy.


I don't think I've ever seen these areas connected to the playplace before? If I have, I think its changed. They're super fun!

Before joining our final Off the Grid watch party stream, I decided to put the things I learned about making awesome avatars with layered clothing and Rthro from several of my friends to the test and made a big scene dragon.

They don't have a name quite yet.
Winter was taking a bit and RoPets was getting boring, so I decided to muck around on vaje's Jovial Playground for a little while, maybe find a small public RP to barge into as this guy.


He fits right in.

I never did end up finding roleplay partners, but it was a nice revisit and someone called him cool. I always love coming back to these games.