Jonnas

FE rumours are almost always bunk. I'd bet against this one too. I am aware I'm always at the risk of looking like a fool whenever I reject these rumours so strongly. It's a risk I'm always willing to take.

You mean Shez, right?

Sad to say, won't be able to try the demo as it comes with awful timing (won't have time today, and then I'll be on holidays until the 19th). I'm hearing interesting tidbits about the plot presented so far (only the bits), and it sounds like they're speedrunning through the parts that happened in the original I'm guessing the story is pretty much mostly for those who already played Three Houses.

And thus, my fighting game journey of the past few months has led me to this: Skullgirls GENTLEMEN AND LADIES! So, this is going to be a meaty* one. Besides a mini-review, it's also going to be a retrospective. Yes, of the one game. I'll explain in a bit, it's a surprisingly eventful story. Skullgirls is an indie game first released in 2012, developed by Reverge Labs and published by Autumn Games. A fighting game by FGC enthusiasts for the FGC. And the small roster was all-female, which is unusual for a western-developed game: Fillia - A schoolgirl with shapeshifting hair; Cerebella - A circus performer with enormous biceps on her hat; Peacock - A wacky cartoon girl, Tex Avery style; Parasoul - A cool military gal who wields a parasol like a sword; Ms.Fortune - A punny, immortal cat-girl who can dismember her own body at will; Painwheel - A grotesque, vicious girl who attacks with a bladed wheel attached to her body; Valentine - A ninja nurse. An evil one at that; Double - A very disgusting shapeshifter lady As you can see, the cast was unique, but tended a bit for the violent and gross. Surprisingly, Japanese audiences took a liking to it, to the point that Konami offered to publish the game in Japan, and even get it into digital stores in consoles! With DLC characters on the horizon, things looked bright for Skullgirls. In 2013, Autumn Games was involved in several lawsuits regarding some other game they published. Despite being unrelated to Skullgirls, these lawsuits impeded most of the support that Autumn Games was willing to give to Reverge Labs. If that wasn't enough, some friction arose with Konami (apparently they were hard to work with, imagine that), the two companies severed ties, and it led to Skullgirls being delisted from the digital stores. As a result of all this, the planned DLC entered an extended hiatus, and Reverge Labs ended up laying off every developer involved with Skullgirls. The now-unemployed developers decided to form their own studio with more blackjack and hookers, Lab Zero, as to somehow continue developing content for their game. Luckily, Autumn Games still owned the IP, still believed in the project, and as soon as they were done with the lawsuits, they allowed Lab Zero to continue working on Skullgirls. Since the situation was still so dire, they decided to start a crowdfunding campaign in order to help, and... it was surprisingly successful! The fandom was loyal and passionate, and this support allowed for the creation of new content, the rerelease of the game on stores (now with the subtitle of "Encore"), got a new Japanese publisher (Arc System Works, which was very fitting), was and more importantly, several new, free DLC characters: Squigly - A zombie girl with a shapeshifting pet snake; Big Band - A big cyborg made of musical instruments. Also, the first male character in the roster; Eliza - A dazzling Cleopatra-like sexy sorceress; Beowulf - A male wrestler with a wolf motif; Robo-Fortune - A robot made in the image of Ms.Fortune. Joke character, but entirely new moveset; Fukua - A Fillia recolour, and almost a moveset clone. That's it, that's the joke All of this lasted from 2014 to 2019, and updated versions of the game being released in new generations (PS4, Xbox One, Switch) were subtitled "2nd Encore". The game - and its fanbase - certainly made itself known. After these crowdfunding goals were met, Lab Zero started work on a proper, paid DLC season. In 2020, they announced the first- no, nevermind, that's not it. What actually happened in 2020 was that accusations of sexual harassment came out against Mike Zaimont, lead designer and programmer. An internal investigation was made, the board of Lab Zero insisted for him to resign, and after a lot of back and forth... Mike Z disbanded the board and took control of the company. This caused a mass exodus from Lab Zero, until Zaimont was the only one left. The resigned employees decided to form their own studio with less blackjack and hookers, Future Club to keep working on the game without him. Autumn Games still owned the IP, and approved of the whole situation. ... In 2021, yes, Future Club started releasing the proper 1st Season Pass: Annie - A brave sword-wielding hero; Umbrella - Parasoul's cute little sister. She fights with a living, horrifying umbrella; Black Dahlia - A ruthless mafia hitwoman with a lot of firearms; TBA - To be announced And finally, after years and years of close calls and snubs, Skullgirls will finally be featured at EVO 2022! 'Bout time! Got all that? Good. I bought the game for Steam several years ago, and played it for a while in 2018. I had never fully finished the story mode (or any single-player mode), which is why I finally decided to go back and take care of it. As it happens, my version of the game got naturally updated into 2nd Encore, which was very nice of Future Zero Reverge. Now on to the game proper. Presentation The game looks and sounds amazing! Like, you can see the sprites on-screen already, and it's gorgeous, right? I imagine it must be a huge amount of work to use this art style in the first place, but they've committed to it from the start. Even the more recent DLC characters fit right alongside the starting roster, so you know they've been prioritizing the visual consistency, and maintaining the frame count right about equal among each character. A lot of the music was composed by Michiru Yamane. If that name sounds familiar, that'd be because she's the Castlevania composer. Seriously, listen. Not sure how they got her, but damn! Her style fits the fighting genre like a glove. The art style of the game is chunky, bold, and cartoony, yes, but the general aesthetic of the game is "The American 20s and 30s". As such, there's mafiosi, divas, noir detectives and... anthropomorphic animals? Not everything is one to one, but it is appropriately silly. The backgrounds looked mostly dark at launch, but the later characters brought brighter stages as well. More detail too, with plenty of NPCs in the background, quite like how SNK does it. On the other hand, things can also get... gross. Often, too. Peacock smokes through her eye, Eliza spreads blood around and can disassemble her skeleton from her body, Painwheel is painful to look at, Bewoulf carries a severed arm for no reason, and the generally lighthearted and punny Ms.Fortune does... this. Things can get hard to stomach, even if being cute-but-gross is totally an American Cartoon tradition (which makes this game's popularity in Japan all the more surprising). To fit the aesthetic, most of the soundtrack is pretty jazzy. Seriously, listen. And then listen some more. A cool sign of polish is the very wide variety of available skins/colours that were added throughout the years. Almost all of them are a reference to something, and while plenty are obvious references to make (like how Fillia has Millia (Guilty Gear) colours, or Robo-Fortune having a Samus Aran skin), there are also some fitting-but-unexpected ones (like Cerebella having a Battletoads colour, or Big Band having a lovely King Dedede scheme), and some that are just obscure and surprising (Bewoulf with a Captain Planet skin, as well as Valentine having a friggin' Tales of Symphonia reference with a Sheena Fujibayashi colour scheme!). It's a smorgasboard of references, and while a lot are fighting game related, you'll be surprised at what you might recognize here. Speaking of which, you'll find a lot of fighting game references here and there. Voice clips, move names ("Furrserker Furrage" being a personal fave), and even the combo counter will drop a reference from time to time (I swear I saw "Tatsunical!" in there. "Marvelous!" is definitely here as well, as is "Dude!" for when you get a 69-hit combo). Finally, lovely voice acting all around. My favourites are Big Band's smooth voice, and the spunk from the default female announcer. The Plot No, seriously, there's a story. Hey! My words are down here! In a world where magic and sci-fi coexist (as well as anthropomorphic animals alongside traditional humans), there's a mystical artifact called "The Skull Heart", which is said to grant immense power to the woman who touches it, turning her into "The Skullgirl". The last Skullgirl was actually the queen to a country, and at one point, she went berserk and needed to be put down. Seven years later, a young girl called Maria re-emerges as the new Skullgirl, and she goes on a rampage on a city ruled by a powerful mafia, the Medici family. Several women (and a couple of dudes) go looking to defeat her and claim the Skull Heart, for various personal reasons. So, I kinda like the simple plot. "Character wants something, they beat up people until they reach the thing that allows it". The weird thing is that the base roster has some lackluster story modes, not just because they're super short, but also because each tale was clearly written with two endings in mind (there's always the one spot where the girl ponders what to wish for), with the final game only allowing one of them to happen. Luckily, the DLC characters, starting with Squigly, have better, more involved plotlines with twists and turns. I hope they update the base roster's at some point. My main issue is the inconsistency of the setting. There's a city and a mafia, but some characters talk about the politics of a neighbouring kingdom... and also there's a vague plotline about a religion that barely anybody knows... and also, there's secret labs running experiments (for whom? Governments? Private companies? The Medicis?)... and then Bewoulf comes around and his plotline involves a great war from several years ago with giants (wtf?) that aren't mentioned anywhere else... and then Annie comes from outer space and... the writers just do whatever! It feels like they come up with a different setting for every character's backstory. One consistent thing is the existence of intelligent parasitic beings that latch onto a host: the one Fillia has on her hair, Squigly's snake, Cerebella outright compares her hat to one... If we're going to focus on the one thing going forward, that can work. Another issue is the inconsistency of tone. It's all very wacky, but then we have sexy ninja nurses alongside the grotesque tortured soul that is Painwheel. Then you have the mess of too many tropes that Bewoulf and Eliza are. Not to say that these things can't coexist (Peacock's story can certainly mix wacky and serious well), but there needs to be some firmer direction on the whole. Still, it's a pretty good effort, and a good way to play the game in single-player and get acquainted with a few mechanics. I'm kinda hoping they just update this game with a "Chapter 2" of the story instead of saving it for a likely-distant sequel. Then again, I don't necessarily want to feel obligated to beat this game again... Gameplay Things fall apart eventually. You knew there was a CATch, eh? Ok, it's not that dire, but it is true that the gameplay didn't call to me much. I mean, it's fun and all, and I won't turn away a session with it, but it hasn't truly enamoured me, you know? Best way to describe it is "Marvel vs. Capcom 2, but polished". There are 6 buttons for normal moves (3 punches, 3 kicks) like in Street Fighter, but the characters move fast and the attacks combo easy, like in Guilty Gear. With this combo, we get MvC2. I find it... not my cup of tea. The control scheme works in SF because that's a slower, more careful kind of game with small combos. A simpler control scheme works for Guilty Gear and Tatsunoko vs. Capcom because those are much faster games, and attacks work better when simple and efficient. By combining the two, you get a game that's too fast for each individual move to matter in neutral state, and when you start a combo it's really easy to twist your fingers when trying to combo whether via memory or improvisation. We're left with a game that truly was made for the FGC, and only the FGC. Not friendly enough for mashers, not friendly enough for methodic gameplay, not that intuitive, not that capable of easing in new folk. In fact, the whole gameplan seems to consist of "Learn 4 or 5 basic combos" -> "Try to hit one of your launchers during gameplay" -> "Once you hit, perform the combo, then link it into another combo at some point, and keep doing so until you've done all the ones you know (because you can't do infinites)" -> "Try to do that again". If you enjoy seeing interminable combos from MvC2 or MvC3, you're gonna love watching Skullgirls as well. Even zoners get complicated to deal with. Sprites are so large, that every projectile is hard to dodge. It feels like overcoming a bullet hell, and that's just when the CPU is controlling them! But if you're a MvC2 veteran, I'm sure you'll manage. You can also see this in the character selection: there are more characters with "gimmicks" than there are characters with solid fundamentals, it feels like. Fillia is meant to be the "Ryu" of the game, but she's got no projectiles, and her rushdown isn't intuitive. Peacock is hyperfocused on projectiles. Eliza had so many gimmicks, the developers literally needed to cut some. Parasoul could be a basic swordie, but her moves with mines, remote bombs, and minions prevent her from being just that. And don't get me started on Ms.Fortune's puppet head, how do you choose a concept like that for one of your starting 8? Heck, I'm not saying gimmicks are bad (Big Band can literally play music indefinitely with one of his moves, OoT style, and I love it), but you kinda need to build the basics before attempting those, you know? The other modes don't really help. There's a tutorial that's way too long (as in, too many lessons and missions, because that's how complex the game can get), a few trial combos that are horrible (too specific, too demanding in execution, not the most useful or intuitive bread-'n-butter combos), and a few unique missions that... actually are varied and show what the game can be, yeah, I'll give'em that. One thing I do like a lot is how tag teams work in this game: you can pick a team of 3, a team of 2, or a solo character. The fewer the number on the team, the stronger each character gets. So a team of 3 versus one opponent can feel like a boss battle. It's simple, intuitive, and promotes player expression. Sadly, one of the very few things in this game that's simultaneously simple and deep. There's also the option to pick your own assist moves for combos, but I imagine it must be a nightmare to balance (seriously, devs, how did you not think that option would lead to broken shit?). This is one of those things that was meant to promote creativity and player expression, but it just leads to variety into how each long combo looks like. I do like the cast a lot, each character does feel like they have a distinct gameplay identity, whether it be Big Band's huge size, Parasoul's range, Painwheel's super armour, or Eliza's explosive gimmicks. Even Fukua's kinda funny with how much of an alternate Fillia she is. The only one I didn't like was Bewoulf - notable, because wrestlers tend to be my favourite fighting game archetype - as he felt like an inconsistent mess without a good gameplan. On the whole, I did enjoy playing with a handful of characters (Cerebella, Big Band, Robo-Fortune, Valentine, Painwheel), even if I found the system itself obtuse. Yeah, obtuse is a good word. Great looking title, but very steep to learn. This game was true love Reverge Lab Zero Future Club were makin', but this wasn't my tuna and bacon. 4 stars out of 5! I'm still looking forward to seeing this game on EVO. (Sprites taken from Fightersgeneration.com) *Heh, an FGC reference right on the first sentence

I think they don't. I believe that's the crux of it. ------------------------------- Anyway, Street Fighter VI looks freakin' fantastic, which is hella surprising, considering the Luke-warm teaser from last time. I can't believe they finally gave Chun-Li a new canon outfit! More importantly, there's this whole stylish Hip-Hop vibe to it, and it seems fully committed to it. It's funny, listening to the Triple K.O. podcast, it feels like all of those guys' wishlists came true (including the desire for more Hip-Hop aesthetic, which was the most specific thing). Looking forward to seeing more of the game.

I legitimately thought this was the name of a game when I read it

Right, so I need to weigh in on today's reveals, and talk about Iberian representation so far: Smoliv I approve. Kinda weird that the olive's kernel is already removed and ready to serve (it's like, imagine a Banana Pokémon where the banana itself is already peeled and sliced), but this is good. It is smol, so I'm looking forward to seeing its evolution. I'm also curious as to why it's a Normal-type, there doesn't seem a clear reason for that. You know who immediately capitalized on Smoliv? A Spanish Twitter account with low, low prices They tweeted that less than 10 minutes after the trailer dropped! Lechonk Once again, yes. But I need to clear one misconception: Lechón (ES) or Leitão (PT) is not a dish per se: it just refers to a piglet (or a suckling pig, whatever you will). It's just that baby pigs are delicious, and the dish is named the same as the creature. In fact, I had some today, I'm not making this up, suckling pig was literally my lunch today. Anyway, the specific pig we see here is a Porco Preto (PT), or more simply, a Black Pig (according to Wikipedia, Black Iberian Pig), widely known in Portugal for its exquisite meat and strong flavour. Typical of Alentejo, dishes made with black pig are prestigious. I also just learned from Wikipedia that they also exist in Spain (I figured, makes sense), and are the principal ingredient of the famous Jamón Ibérico (that part I didn't quite know. No wonder it's so good). Kinda weird to just learn this, but I never felt the need to google black pigs before. Definitely the star of the trailer, it's an excellent choice to represent Iberia, and one we natives are sure to immediately recognize. Pawmi It doesn't seem to reference anything in Iberia. However, there was once this brand of fizzy drink in Portugal called Champomi (marketed as non-alcoholic Champagne, for kids), and it is pronounced close enough to Pawmi that I might occasionally call it champ. That's all I got. Also, if they were looking for it to be this gen's cute mascot, they failed: out of the 8 Pokémon revealed so far, this is the only one nobody cares about. Professors Sada and Turo This is a weird one. "Past" (the noun) in Spanish is "Pasado" (or "Passado" in PT). The only way "Pasada" makes sense is in declining the word "past" (the adjective). For example, "The past night" becomes "La noche pasada". They likely feminized it because the Prof is a lady, and it doesn't go any deeper than that. I will admit that when I first saw the names, I thought of "Salada" and "Churro". The Massive Multiplayer Online Riveting Pokémon Game experience In Iberia, we also like to hang out with friends, doing activities we enjoy. GameFreak got that part right. The Legendaries I don't fucking know, man. Motorcycles do exist here. I don't know what else to tell you.

Lechonk? ... Yes

Haven't post much lately. I've been mostly revisiting fighting games as of late (like KOF 2002, or Street Fighter III), or simply dedicating more time to Smash Bros. But I have been playing single player stuff as well... that being three of the VC games from my 3DS: Donkey Kong Land Can confirm: it was a spotless yellow Yes, it's the Game Boy version of the famous Nipo-British game. Kind of. DK Land is a somewhat different game than DK Country, as I'll get into in a bit. Fun fact, also the first Donkey Kong game I've ever played, borrowed from a friend. This is how I knew early on what Donkey Kong was about, despite me being a Mega Drive kid. I hadn't played it since... third grade, or something. So how is it? Very odd. As in, DK and Diddy don't immediately start running after a roll, there's this weird 1-second delay in-between. Also, performing a roll slows you down to a crawl in the moment. Also also, it doesn't link into the jump at all. Then there's the graphical limitations. It's impressive that they recreated the DKC sprites, but the monochromatic colour scheme is not easy on the eyes. Donkey Kong wasn't the only one doing it (I recall several Game Boy games with scenery that was way more detailed and messy than it should be), but the comparison to the SNES game is right there. Furthermore, if one of your monkeys falls off-screen (literally, might as well be "off-camera") then you just get kicked back into the map screen with one fewer life (no "Game Over" jingle or anything!) Finally, K.Rool is miniscule in this game. I remember thinking as a kid that the main villain was super lame. But outside of those issues... it's a very memorable and unique entry. Rather than recreate the various worlds from DK Country, this game does a lot of original levels, like pirate ships, sunken ruins, sky/cloud levels, and modern cities. It also brings some new unique tracks to the series, such as Kremlantis (lovely tune). And it still followed the tried-and-true series philosophy of using one gimmick per level (most of which were unique to this game), so it was plenty of fun regardless. (And you know what? The roll thing was super weird, but once you get used to the slower pace, it doesn't even feel bad, just different) The flaws are significant, but despite that, I was happy to revisit this one. Donkey Kong Land 2 Glimmer doesn't even appear in this game! Can't say the same about this one. Sure, they course-corrected the game-feel to be closer to DKC. Sure, they improved the contrast so that the backgrounds don't blur as much with the sprites. But instead of coming up with new locations and such, we instead get a summarized, theme park version of the DKC2 worlds, with admittedly new levels, but still designed to resemble the original ones (Glimmer's Galleon is a water level with the Loopy Lights gimmick. The fish ain't there) The result? Everything is just a pale imitation of DKC2. Graphics are obviously worse, the music is the same, but in 8-bit, and the whole soundtrack wasn't brought over (it feels like Lockjaw's Locker is used for half of the levels in the game), the new mechanics aren't perfect recreations (there's no team-up throw. Plus, roll-into-jump has a stricter window of opportunity than in the SNES games), the monkeys' running speed is too fast for the small GB screen (which also makes the rollercoaster levels hellishly hard), the animal friends require the Select button to access their abilities, and the level design is dull, and filled with superfluous bananas that feel like red herrings (because they don't actually lead into bonus levels). Heck, even the Kong Kollege save system is far harder to deal with on a handheld that won't save how many coins you have. (Also, the first few levels all had secret, easy to find, barrels that warped you straight to the end of the level. So bizarre) I blazed through this game, and I wasn't happy about it. Donkey Kong Land III Roman numerals!? The inconsistency is annoying... Finally, another one I remembered from my childhood. A kid at my school had this one, and I occasionally saw him play it. I thought it was weird that the monkeys could turn into other animals, and also I didn't understand how the world map worked. That's what I remembered. And playing it properly now... Easily the best of this trilogy. The mechanics are smoother than in DKL2 (still no team-up throw, though), the DKC3 soundtrack feels like it was implemented properly, and while they still do a "quick" version of DKC3, the new levels they came up with actually feel well designed and inspired (they even took out Ellie's fear of mice, which is an improvement in my book). The new levels even have new names, like "Red Wharf", "Miller Instinct", or "Ugly Ducting". Just lovely. For flaws, I'd say that the levels do feel a tad too long at times. The rollercoaster levels are also just as obnoxious as in DKL2. Other than that, I had the most fun with this game out of the trilogy. I even bothered to find all of the collectibles, that's how much I liked it.

It does make sense as an evolution for the character: originally, he starts out as a cheery choir boy, and he turns into a more confident, composed adult. This in-between feels like his awkward tween years, or maybe his early uni days, where he's stuck at a job he hates (he's dressed like a knight, so that tracks). In that sense, I only like it least because he looks unhappier than at other points in his life. ...Or maybe it's really the messy hair, not a fan.

The Deer are here! Raphael finally gets the glow-up he deserved. We see proper displays of raw strength! Plus, he finally confirmed the Brawler class/style. Ignatz be playin' Splatoon in another game. Not a fan of his new look, but it is an apt in-between look for his previous designs. Marianne with her hair down looks weird, but not bad. Love that Dorte is just an attack, instead of a ride. The Deer have shown a lot of personality with these animations. Love it. You can trust these opinions, I'm biased as fuck.

Well, you can colour (hardy har) me surprised. Every device of the time I've ever seen was just black.

In other news, I just caught up to Spy x Family. I started reading the manga shortly before the series debuted (thanks to a good bit of foresight from the Portuguese manga publisher), and I can say that this is a very good adaptation, which is not easy to do for comedy. There's even a new scenes/segments that fit the original material like a glove. I'd say the first couple of episodes feel a tad rushed (makes sense, they're trying to establish the premise & status quo ASAP), but it's all smooth sailing after that.

I mean, it was designed to function like one (its cartridges are inserted horizontally for that reason, I wager), but I'm not sure if it actually looks the part. The VCR machines I remember of the time were almost all black, while the NES has a much softer colour scheme.

Ah, so that's why the original PS2 felt so clunky and fragile. I always thought that console felt needlessly impractical. (Not that I ever owned a PS2, but I never got that clunky feeling from, say, the Sega Saturn, the PS1, or the Dreamcast) You know one I personally dislike? It's just... so square! The edges are rounded, but it doesn't feel like it! And the hinges are kind of fugly, too. I always thought the original GBA had a very appealing, warm form, and it felt comfy and nice in your hands. The SP feels like it was made by Skynet in a future gone horribly wrong.

How apropos: for Season 3 Part 1, the anime kept most of the things that happened in the manga, but changed how everybody reached those points.

Seems like Bernadetta has similar moves to Ashe (as I predicted), but very unique animations otherwise. Interesting. There's also the possibility that Dorothea, Hubert, and Linhardt will have unique movesets from each other, despite all of them being mages. (The weirdest part was Caspar not being a brawler, despite that being his preferred class. But he still punches, despite wielding an axe..? And the eff happened to his hair!?) Anyway, now that the students each have three distinct designs, it's time to rate and compare their looks pre-timeskip, post-timeskip, and these... midskip(?) designs: Ironically, it's the house leaders that look worse overall in these new designs. Makes some sense, as their original looks were already so strong. Looking forward to seeing the Golden Deer.

Seems like H-o-T's playthrough was just determined to prove you wrong

I'd argue, when the assets look nigh-identical. I swear, after a passing look at the trailer, I legitimately thought it was one of those Chinese knock-offs.

Lithuania, France, and Serbia really caught my eye, along with the three I posted originally. I hear Spain's is well liked, but I found it aggressively meh.

It has now occurred to me that Nintendo may have saved Crystal Shards for now, just because they expected Forgotten Land to raise demand for Kirby. Normally, you'd expect a company to use the older games to promote the latest release in a series, but Nintendo instead used the latest release to promote an old game (and by extension, the NSO). It's an unusual situation.

Jonnas will remember that

If the point is having multiple paths, it makes more sense that the priority is that each House/Path/Hope has 8 unique movesets. I doubt we'll get one moveset per character (for example, I'm betting Ignatz and Bernadetta will be archers who fight just like Ashe), especially when we're likely to get even more playable characters beyond the core, like Death Knight, Seteth, or Holst. It's also possible that mounted classes will diversify the movesets more (for example, horse archers will likely fight differently to Ashe or Claude), so maybe we'll still reach 20+ movesets when all's said and done. And also, every character is a Koei Tecmo OC: they developed the original game too.

Well, well, well! Seems like they finally started to reveal the rest of the characters' designs, along with some more combat gameplay. I'm very glad for the look of Mercedes and Ingrid, much better than their original adult design. In fact, I like all of the new designs, even Anette... except maybe for Dimitri's ponytail, I don't think it suits him. (Hoping for Golden Deer students next!)