Arc 253990: "Why We Fight"

Arc Name: "Why We Fight"
Arc ID: 253990
Length: Long (4 missions)
First Published: 7/7/2009 04:34 PM
Morality: Villainous
Description: Arbiter Webster uses the Architect Entertainment system to show loyal subjects of Lord Recluse the wisdom and benevolence of their monarch. Or...maybe not. A political satire in four acts.

Notes: This is an attempt at comedy largely at Arachnos' expense. Because it's a satire it has to be deconstructed a little to get the point, so I expect I'll take some flak from people who don't get it, particularly over Act III. Just try to remember who you're supposed to be laughing at. The writing is deliberately over-the-top in a lot of places as part of the joke. So far in its preview run on Test the arc has gotten good feedback.

The disjointed level range is a bit annoying, but my options were to either use a much more limited faction for Act I, squeeze the entire arc into the 20-29 range, or allow it the range to vary. I decided the last was the least of all evils.

Without having played the arc (yet) I already think you should have limited it to the 20-29 range. I'll give it a go after work.

Appropriately, I played it with retired Arachnos Political Officer, now professor of political science and Destined One candidate, James "Jimmy" McCool, a level 45 mace/mace Bane Spider Soldier. I 5-starred it ... barely. It was very, very funny, and it was very easily soloable, but I felt a powerful urge to nitpick it in so many places that I very nearly knocked a star off. Basically, you earned back the 2/3rds of a star I wanted to take away just by over-the-top creativity.

Now, the nits:

<ul type="square">[*]Throughout: In general, you wrote Arachnos propaganda better than I was expecting you to, but with one serious omission. Lots of talk about science and cleverness and so forth, yes, but you left out something that's key to Lord Recluse's propaganda: any reference to strength. Go listen to the "Strength to Take What You Desire" speech again. Praise the player for his strength and/or ruthlessness at least once, not just for his cleverness; we're not all nerds in Arachnos, some of us are bullies. And some of us are both, like Lord Recluse, who should also be flattered for his strength and ruthlessness along side flattery of his genius and cunning.
[*]Mission one: No nits. If I were fanatic about wanting XP in all my missions, or if this had been a longer mission, I would have complained. If it had been as long as I thought it was going to be (the splash screen made me think it would be the sunken Boomtown map, not the plain Boomtown one), I would have complained. As it was, it was nice re-purposing of standard mobs in a custom faction, bravo.
[*]Mission two: Brilliant satire, but I wanted to kill you when I entered the mission and saw what the last objective was. Fortunately, it was a head fake. But if I hadn't been inclined to give you the benefit of the doubt (and give the fake objective the old college try on what is not even vaguely my most tweaked character), I might have quit and 2-starred you right there and then. Risky move, my friend.
[*]Mission three: Funny, but I can not believe that you went there. (Are we to assume that Black Scorpion had a major influence over this simulation?) People with high offensensitivity may end up Reporting For Content, for both sexism and copyright or trademark infringement.
[*]Mission four: Without spoiling it, there's nothing even vaguely plausible about the custom mobs in this mission, not even as Arachnos propaganda. Yes, the hostage rescues were funny, but after all the attention you paid to canon in missions 1-3, it felt really off. There's also a bug in the final fight: the ambushes spawned friendly to me instead of hostile.[/list]
P.S. "Get your parking validated?" Silly humanoid, only tourists drive in the Rogue Isles.

P.P.S. If you'd restricted it to levels 20-29, you wouldn't have been able to use the Nemesis mobs you needed to tell your story. If you hadn't limited mission 1 to 20-29, you wouldn't have been able to use the other mobs. So unless you want to recreate your own custom army of radioactive diseased cannibal mutants, from scratch, you made the right choice. And repurposing mobs made it feel more like cheesy simulated propaganda. Not every one will agree with me, but I think the level ranges are fine the way they are.

I'm playing the arc right now with my level 23 dominator.

After clicking on a checkpoint in mission one I'm ambushed by level 29 enemies.

I think you should do something about that level range, but now I'm convinced that you should make the entire arc 30+ instead.

Switching to a higher-level character to try the rest.


Act 2:

I never saw any Nemesis in this mission, but the debriefing says I did.

Act 3:

I concur with the poster above.

Act 4:

I was prepared to quit as soon as I loaded the mission. I slogged through and wish I had saved myself the trouble. There was nothing funny in this one.

Final verdict:

There is some good writing here but it's wasted on this dubiously humorous drivel. You should make a real Arachnos propaganda arc instead. By the end I wasn't sure who I was supposed to be laughing at - but I wasn't laughing so it's a moot point.

Two stars.

I'll go check out some of your serious stuff now.

This arc is hilarious and well-done. I gave it 5 stars and it's on my "would play again" list.

[ QUOTE ]
Mission four: Without spoiling it, there's nothing even vaguely plausible about the custom mobs in this mission, not even as Arachnos propaganda. Yes, the hostage rescues were funny, but after all the attention you paid to canon in missions 1-3, it felt really off.

[/ QUOTE ]

I kind of looked at the presence of these ridiculous custom mobs as making a point about the absurdity of Nemesis plots. I think we're all aware of Venture's love affair with Nemesis...

I reviwed this one back when it was on test. The review can be found here.


WN

Replies to various points:

Lots of talk about science and cleverness and so forth, yes, but you left out something that's key to Lord Recluse's propaganda: any reference to strength. Go listen to the "Strength to Take What You Desire" speech again.

I agree that strength is part of the package, but there's enough going on in here already. Besides, I see this as being aimed more towards the proles and less ambitious villains, the ones that need to be kept down.

Brilliant satire, but I wanted to kill you when I entered the mission and saw what the last objective was. Fortunately, it was a head fake.

I know that's a possibility, but anyone with any brains at all should see there is no system warning for AVs or even EBs (there is nothing bigger than a Boss in the entire arc).

Mission three: Funny, but I can not believe that you went there. (Are we to assume that Black Scorpion had a major influence over this simulation?) People with high offensensitivity may end up Reporting For Content, for both sexism and copyright or trademark infringement.

The IP issues are well within the satirical exclusion principle, though I suppose PS/NC may disagree. As for the content I'm prepared to defend it if necessary.

Without spoiling it, there's nothing even vaguely plausible about the custom mobs in this mission, not even as Arachnos propaganda.

They were the most ridiculous thing I could think of. Either they'll work for you or they won't.

There's also a bug in the final fight: the ambushes spawned friendly to me instead of hostile.

That's not a bug, it's a feature. As the dialog says, they're following the wrong plans.

Of course, the real horror is in the Big Bad's speech. Differential equations...*shudder* (I so need him to be doing the Calculate emote from the Science pack....)

P.S. "Get your parking validated?" Silly humanoid, only tourists drive in the Rogue Isles.

I assume the civilians have cars, even though we never see them, and the program isn't flexible enough to know that you probably flew or teleported or whatever. And yes, the souvenir is the validated parking ticket even if you did fly (etc.)...you got it validated anyway because you're evil.

I think you should do something about that level range, but now I'm convinced that you should make the entire arc 30+ instead.

Obviously the system is not working as advertised. Best I can do, I think, is to lock the first mission to level 29. I'll do that ASAP.

Those ambushes, by the way, are set to Rogue so there's a good chance of them getting stuck on the mutants.

I never saw any Nemesis in this mission, but the debriefing says I did.

There is an ambush when you destroy the last cyber-zombie chamber. You should have heard their bark even if they didn't reach you.

There is some good writing here but it's wasted on this dubiously humorous drivel. You should make a real Arachnos propaganda arc instead. By the end I wasn't sure who I was supposed to be laughing at - but I wasn't laughing so it's a moot point.

I'm sorry it didn't work for you. It would be very unusual to have a humor arc that everyone thought was funny, especially a fairly-complex satire. In my own defense, though, I will say that if you just didn't like it but thought there were no major technical problems a three-star rating might have been more appropriate.

I kind of looked at the presence of these ridiculous custom mobs as making a point about the absurdity of Nemesis plots.

There actually is a point to the Nemesis content. The purpose of propaganda is to get people to believe false things are true or true things are false. The program shows Nemesis as being a bumbling meddler who can't even keep his own plans straight because that's how they want the proles to see him. The truth is that Recluse probably doesn't understand Nemesis any better than anyone else. Regardless of what level of threat Nemesis actually represents, Recluse is going to be afraid of him because Recluse is essentially a coward (all bullies are cowards) and will fear what he doesn't understand or can't control.

I tried this with my 32 blaster (yeh, I know, she played a villainous arc -- Ooo! naughty!) and had a blast. A lot of the ha-ha comes from PLAYER knowledge of the game world and so on, sort of "inside jokes" that the ~character~ might not know about.

Actually I guess technically ALL of the humor is for the -player-, now that I think about it: the ~character~ may recognize it as propoganda, but I don't know how FUNNY that would be to the -character-.

I loved the custom foes in the Boomtown map (and the mix of standard foes felt perfectly in-line, too)

While the custom foes were -great-, I confess the dialog in Act III got my hackles raised a bit and I had to keep reminding myself that this was what Arachnos wanted the "loyal citizen" to think would happen if the events in the simulation actually took place. Clearly over the top, to the point that even a devoted loyal citizen of Arachnos might raise an eyebrow and wonder if things would REALLY be that bad.

Oh, and I loved the NPC dialog in the Chocolate Factory (and the /info screens) in, I think, Act II. FOR THE CHILDREN!

While the final act DID seem a bit silly, it also felt entirely appropriate as a representation of what Arachnos might warn would happen: not only do they want to show a 'bad' result but also a result that showcases Nemesis' stupidity (as they want the citizen to think anyway).

I confess I got a little startled at the end when the allied Nemesis spawned en masse. Then I saw their dialog and realized they weren't peppering ME with fire.

And in my circuitous way, I conclude by mentioning the Arbiter's great dialog in introducing and debriefing. I love that it doesn't -assume- you are The Right Hand of Recluse or some uber-powerful godling --- it's clearly a propoganda program that could be "played" by the regular grubby citizens of the Isles. And THEIR reaction to it might very well reinforce Arachnos' goals. I have to believe / hope, though, that the citizens would see through the propoganda --- although even if they did, I imagine they wouldn't ADMIT it to anyone.

The level range on the first mission is now locked at level 29. That should keep lowbies from being ganked by the ambushes.

I liked this arc overall, but i think some of the humor, especially in the first two missions, will go over some people's heads. It REALLY felt like someone who didn't have any idea what they were talking about writing a really bad and misinformed arc.

Thing is, I get that it's a parody of propoganda... but I've never ever seen Recluse pretend to be anything other than an evil archvillain (even if he does paint the Freedom Phalanx an their ilk as oppressive). So an arbiter trying to paint him as a heroic figure is so over the top that the humor loses effect. Ones mileage will differentiate, I'm sure.

Btw, nice stab -nay, assassin strike- against Twilight!

I gave it 4 stars; like i said, if i hadn't known you did this arc and that it was intended to be humorous, the first two missions would have been complete wall-bangers. Far be it for me to postulate suggestions, but methinks the ridiculousness needs to be cranked up a notch in the first two missions. Dunno -how-, just sayin'.

Thanks for the feedback!

Thing is, I get that it's a parody of propoganda... but I've never ever seen Recluse pretend to be anything other than an evil archvillain (even if he does paint the Freedom Phalanx an their ilk as oppressive).

There are examples of Recluse using "spin" in the canon, such as plaques 3 and 4 in the Arachnos Rising series:

[ QUOTE ]

Warburg is a symbol of Arachnos' strength. The city is dedicated to the many faceless soldiers who have given their lives to the cause of our benevolent dictator during the Arachnos Revolution of 1964. Warburg was once protected by a ring of nuclear-tipped rockets capable of striking both North America and Europe, but those were removed under an extortive 'treaty' with Paragon City in 1982.


[/ QUOTE ]

[ QUOTE ]

The vigilante known as Statesman crept into the Rogue Isles one cold night in 1986 under the pretense of some manufactured disaster in Paragon City. He ambushed the valiant Lord Recluse while he was busy working in his Watchtower on the betterment of mankind and attempted to assassinate him. The Master of Spiders was not so easily slain, however, and quickly turned the tables on his would-be murderer. Statesman, beaten and bloody, limped off into the night to lick his wounds and plot further mayhem on our benevolent Lord Recluse.


[/ QUOTE ]

I gave it 4 stars; like i said, if i hadn't known you did this arc and that it was intended to be humorous, the first two missions would have been complete wall-bangers.

Well, it does say it's a satire in the browser entry. I'm not sure I can make it clearer than that....

Ok I played through this today, funny all around, the dialogue in mission 3 was in fact offensive until I got to the punchline...then it all made sense. I can see why some people might not appreciate it though. And I think the point would still come across fine if you changed the last boss's name to something a bit less trademark-infringy. (At least, I think that was his real name. All my knowledge of the source material comes from parodies of it)

The problem was the gameplay got a bit tedious. Big maps with few objectives and a ton of enemies you have to slog through to get to the joke. Even in mission two, the multiple objectives just repeat the same joke. IMO, the best humor arcs have funny stuff scattered throughout, to reinforce the main joke and keep the player engaged. Tedium kills funny. Mission 3 was well-designed in that regard, the rest tended to drag.

Big maps with few objectives and a ton of enemies you have to slog through to get to the joke.

Actually, except for the outdoor map in Act I, those are all small maps.

Yes, the designers have very strange ideas on what constitutes "small". Even in the cases where "tiny" maps exist they don't have enough detail points.

[ QUOTE ]
Big maps with few objectives and a ton of enemies you have to slog through to get to the joke.

Actually, except for the outdoor map in Act I, those are all small maps.



[/ QUOTE ]

The size of the map is less important than what's on it. Mission 3 was a fair-sized map, but it didn't feel "too big," because there was always something new going on. Whereas mission 2 had a bunch of enemies standing around, with some dialogue that I'd already read. Outdoor maps are going to feel big no matter what, but this is alleviated somewhat by being able to just hop around and grab the blinkies.

I guess I just expect faster pacing from a humor arc than I do from a serious one.

[ QUOTE ]
Thanks for the feedback!

Thing is, I get that it's a parody of propoganda... but I've never ever seen Recluse pretend to be anything other than an evil archvillain (even if he does paint the Freedom Phalanx an their ilk as oppressive).

There are examples of Recluse using "spin" in the canon, such as plaques 3 and 4 in the Arachnos Rising series:

[ QUOTE ]

Warburg is a symbol of Arachnos' strength. The city is dedicated to the many faceless soldiers who have given their lives to the cause of our benevolent dictator during the Arachnos Revolution of 1964. Warburg was once protected by a ring of nuclear-tipped rockets capable of striking both North America and Europe, but those were removed under an extortive 'treaty' with Paragon City in 1982.


[/ QUOTE ]

[ QUOTE ]

The vigilante known as Statesman crept into the Rogue Isles one cold night in 1986 under the pretense of some manufactured disaster in Paragon City. He ambushed the valiant Lord Recluse while he was busy working in his Watchtower on the betterment of mankind and attempted to assassinate him. The Master of Spiders was not so easily slain, however, and quickly turned the tables on his would-be murderer. Statesman, beaten and bloody, limped off into the night to lick his wounds and plot further mayhem on our benevolent Lord Recluse.


[/ QUOTE ]



[/ QUOTE ]

Aaah, okay, i guess that complaint is out, then. Wow, that's just... really? Are the devs parodying propaganda, too? Yikes!

[ QUOTE ]
Are the devs parodying propaganda, too? Yikes!

[/ QUOTE ]
Parodying? Have you seen the stuff put out by state-run media in dictatorships?

The one genuinely interesting thing about Arachnos is that, unlike literally every other canonical villain group, they actually have a country to run. That gives them opportunities that other villain groups don't have, which is why (for example) the Council are doing what they're doing in Striga. But it also imposes certain problems that conspiracies don't have but countries do. Some of them, like the need to deal with a potentially restive populace, Paragon Studios dealt with reasonably well in the canonical fiction. Some of the other problems, though, like the fact that what would be just a crime for a criminal conspiracy becomes casus belli when they're done by a country, not quite so well dealt with.

In my reading of the Rogue Isles' political situation, Lord Recluse has been forced by circumstances to become that rara avis, a mad social scientist.

The only recent changes to this were a few small text edits.

Recent comments, names redacted:

<ul type="square">[*]"Very nice arc. Clever idea, 5 stars to you sir."[*]"Nice, much better than some of the Dev Choice out there. If you have the time, mine is 64855, no review needed, just looking for feedback. Well done."[*]"Lots of fun, 5 stars "[*]"Bravissimo!" (To be fair, this one came from an SGmate. )[*]"I love the concept, and over all it worked out nicely. I thought the LOLCats in mission 4 fell a bit flat; even for a parody of Nemesis plots, they just seemed out of the blue. But the rest (including the guy who was definitely Nemesis) was quite funny. The non-cat custom groups and costumes were very well done, too. 4 Stars!"[*]"I enjoyed it on test and passing on the rating here on live where it counts."[/list]

In light of recent discussions on level ranges, I played around with a second version of this arc. By removing the Minion and LT VINOs in Act III I was able to create Minion and LT mutants for Act I, which let me set the entire arc to a 40+ level range. This does make Act I somewhat bland.

Personally I think the disjointed level range is justifiable in this case. The arc is a comedy, and it is a collection of vignettes as opposed to a single story. I think these warrant a little slack and the extra variety in act I is worth the concession. Still, if anyone who's played the live version would like to comment one way or the other I'd like to hear it.

Recent comments:

• "Hey I'm not going to rate this, but I spent 20 minutes just flying around the map looking for that last checkpoint. Couldn't do it; maybe you should make them more obvious somehow! " (I can't tell if this person is serious or not -- I used the Rikti Computer model, it's got a huge pillar of light and is extremely visible.)
• "From a purely technical standpoint this would be a strong four, maybe a five. The missions are well paced and the custom enemies are clearly put together by someone who understands the game. It's the attempts at humour that let it down. The Arbiter's overblown voice is perfect and the alterate reality ideas are good, but the trite lolcats at the end and the randomly sexist jokes in the Lady Bella mission put me off." (Oh well, either it works for you or it doesn't. I will point out that the jokes in Act III are aimed at the people telling them.)
• "It's a pleasure to see a comedy arc that's something more than a series of in-jokes. Well, I suppose this WAS a series of in-jokes, but it was presented in such a well-written manner that it didn't seem like one to me. Notes/criticisms: 1) There's a minor typo in the mutant boss's information (the only typo I saw in the arc). 2) Why is m4 in an Arachnos warehouse? &nbsp;Not that I don't like that map and consider it underused, but the connect wasn't clear." (Typo fixed. I used the Arachnos warehouse because I hate the Arachnos base maps with the heat of a thousand suns.)

@GlaziusF

Playing on a high-40s Brute, diff 2 for boss fights.

---

Hmm. I guess I shouldn't tell the arbiter about this little remote for a LEO nuke in my pocket then, shouldn't I? God bless you, Marshall Blitz, and all your casual safeguards.

Anyway, pretty standard post-apocalypse here, though I denote a marked lack of bare-chested guys with spiky shoulderpads. (Also aren't some of the Freak and Lost lieutenants or even bosses suitable for this group? It'd make for more variety.)

All the glowies were packed in the couple blocks by the entrance. Deliberate, or RNG random atmosphere destruction? Interesting choice for the "waypoint" mechanic, too.

Found a nice vocal boss at the back, but was expecting like Positron glorying in how he didn't need armor anymore or something suitably over the top.

Also, Nemesis is a freakin' cockroach, man -- and I get some riffback from the contact in the closing moments, too. Hilarious.

---

So did Dr. Aeon fill out this here factory from memory, or...?

Ah well, time to kill the children.

Aw, it's just Longbow? Maybe Sister Psyche has some with her. It's a pity the level range doesn't make it possible, but it'd be hilarious to put in a Succubus and call it her true form or something.

Hmm. Is that a custom version of her? Workable job, but she didn't stay up long enough for me to check if the belt had ampoules on it or not. Nice to have a signature character who's makable in the costume creator, innit?

...so the mission designer had Nemesis on the brain, is that the conclusion I'm supposed to draw here? Plan 48D is apparently "explode violently". Unless they were carrying some sort of viral code or something.

---

Aaaand now the mission designer is pissed that GW turned him down for a date, because she didn't like pock-faced socially-awkward mouth-breathers in life, and the dead do not change.

So the custom boss drops, and then I see the nav bar.

So at first I think, "wait, what about Paolo?"

And then I see the minions.

And then I think "wait, he needs sparkles" aaaaand then the camera swings in closer.

This thing was programmed by the lowest bidder, wasn't it? I'm just surprised there aren't any Twilight Widows hanging out anywhere.

---

I... I don't know what to say.

No, really, I don't know what to say.

Other than "this simulation bears all the hallmarks of a fantastically expensive project that was scrapped at the last second and replaced with a superficially functioning tech demo".

I'm surprised I didn't find a debug console somewhere.

---

Storyline - *. I gotta level with you, man, I have no idea what the hell you were trying to pull here. It starts off with some reasonably self-aggrandizing propaganda and then descends into what I can only describe as madness, falling through some terrible 80's era cartoon villain schlock and a giant pop culture reference before landing awkwardly in the middle of 4chan. How am I supposed to interpret this? A commentary on the radicalizing of political rhetoric to the point where it just becomes a bunch of nonsensical code phrases to anyone outside the party? Can't be that, pop culture and 4chan are well outside the bubble. A bunch of techies having a laugh and Dr. Aeon browbeating the Arbiter into taking it seriously? Or, well, him taking his own "initiative" with some ludicrous beta version of a reality forecaster and selling something he has no idea is a joke? I'd buy that a little more if there were some components he overlooked, like the aforementioned debug console(s) which spat out ((TODO: replace personality core, currently routed to Gloaming novel)) or ((TODO: route forecaster spider to trace arachnews.com, currently 4chan.org)) or something along those lines. Maybe the sim can spit out process IDs or something as entry and exit popups?

Design - ****. The mutants need a little more variety at Lt. level, I only ever saw the customs waltzing around. There's some passable fakery with the Wolf Spiders and probably Sister Psyche too.

Gameplay - *****. And aside from getting jumped by perceptive catgirls, the combat was alright and I didn't have to poke around very much to find everything.

Detail - ***. Webster is selling the party line pretty hard here, which is a shame. There isn't anything lying around for me to get in the mission creator's heads, so as an alternative I'd like to get into his a bit. "Several citizens have responded only with hysterical laughter, their minds no doubt SHATTERED by the horrors they have witnessed." That sort of thing. I mean, what's his angle? Has he actually run this himself beyond peeking into the first mission? Does he only have other peoples' reactions to go on and they're getting all Milgram-style "yes sir that was a terrifying simulator of the dreadful path a living Ghost Widow would walk" on him?

Overall - ***. I think I get the shape of things here: authority figure presenting patent nonsense as teachable truth. Four legs good, two legs better, that kind of thing. But when I flipped through Animal Farm it wasn't too hard to figure out where the patent nonsense came from, even though the viewpoint wasn't privy to its generation. This patent nonsense is too pop-culture to be insular and too... well, not buggy to be a bug. It's a weird thing to say, but it doesn't make enough sense for me to buy it.

Thanks for the review.

Humor is always hit or miss, so far it's hitting more than it's missing. Sorry it didn't work for you. It does use "pop culture" references because it's written for the people actually playing the game. I very much doubt that Twilight books exist in the City universe, at least in any form we would recognize, seeing as how they have real vampires (and fake Council ones) running around.

The waypoints in act I clustering up was the RNG at work -- there's no control over spawn points on outdoor maps. Despite what the editor may tell you, everything is "front". All the Freak LTs are chromed up so I didn't really consider them suitable, and I didn't want to drag in the psy powers and Rikti weapons on the Abberants. In any case the arc is at 99.X% space used now so I don't think I have room anyway.

Yes, the "Sister Psyche" in act II is a custom job. It should be almost exactly a match to the regular one -- yes, I used the Ampules belt. I was tempted to go for the "Ilsa, She-Wolf of the SS" look but thought better of it. I know it's a bit jarring to suddenly see "Defeat Sister Psyche" in the nav bar with no bring-friends warning but there are no EB/AV warnings in the browser so people should know in advance it's not really her.

I would very much doubt anyone in the City universe is writing much about vampires in the romantic sense when they've actually got vampires (or Council soldiers pretending to be vampires) running around killing people.

Really, "vampire porn" barely makes sense in the real world....

Got a play on this out of the blue yesterday; comment (name redacted):

• M1 had cool mutants but otherwise didn't do much for me; good clues, but hunting for them on outdoor map was a little dull. M2: Cyberzombie machines over-the-top but amusing. Liked Psyche's dialog. Shouldn't this have children to rescue? M3: So politically incorrect; should not find this funny, yet I do. Bella & Edward gag got me also. Nice sparkles. M4: Made no sense? Would've liked more explanation of lolcatgirl plot. Dialog very good though. Overall: 4 vignettes, minimal connecting plot? Had fun though.

Some comments on this I somehow missed: