Looking back on the first tales of the constant: Swine & Dine and Falling.

[WenericMember]

Remember if you will, back to December. Winona and Wigfrid were getting their skill spotlights, and a number of people were waiting eagerly for what at the time seemed to be an inevitable survival guide featuring the pair. The update releases, but instead of a survival guide, we're given the first "Tales of the Constant" short, primarily featuring Walter. A bit later, it was announced the reason for the decision for this choice of short would be explained in the roadmap.

The roadmap arrives and the explanation is given. Shorts would no longer necessarily be tied to updates, and released to fill in the now larger gaps between updates. About 2 weeks after, Falling was released for valentines day, starring a Merm and Pig.

Ultimately, both of these shorts, while quality, were controversial- and its not hard to see why. Since the new format was introduced, only Walter (possibly the least popular survivor) had been focused on, otherwise focusing on nameless Pigs and Merms. "Projector" and "Hide and Seek" have since been received incredibly positively, due to focusing more on the survivors, and also, at least to me, establishing the new format of releasing shorts a substantial upgrade to the old one, providing opportunities for character interactions and lore that would otherwise be difficult to justify.

That said, I want to go back and look back at these two shorts outside of the turbulent context they were initially released in to form more solid opinions on them.

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Swine & Dine

First of all, I have no idea why this short was released when it was. It's very obviously a Halloween short, but was released like 4 days from Christmas. Maybe it was originally supposed to be released at hallowed knights, but wasn't ready and had to be pushed back? Who knows.

Wurt & Wormwood appearence! The DLC survivors are usually dealt the short end of the stick, but while Wanda and Wortox only appear on special occasions (Anniversary and Crossovers), Wurt and Wormwood seem to be more readily integrated with the survivors. Also, does this indicate that Wes is a minor?  The only survivors here are the kids, so does that imply he's one too? Maybe some of his dialogue can help.

Webber's great here. Unfortunately they don't get anywhere near as much time as the pig, but they're used really well. They've pretty much always been contrasted with Wendy's dour attitude (Release trailer, Monster Marsh, Moon Quay, Reap what you sow), and while she is still next to him, Webber doesn't feel like he's contrasting her. I didn't realize until now that they bit clean through the kebab.

After the opening, the short's pretty slow. The shadow watcher is ominous, but ultimately doesn't attempt anything, but I just love how dumbfounded the Pig looks here. It's so goofy. Also, I love Woby, and I think that future shorts should try to incorporate the other pets, like the Ewelet as a background thing if it ever makes sense to. It's just nice to see more of the creatures of the constant animated.

That said... It takes up too much time, and the story cuts off as soon as something interesting happens - the transformation into a werepig. I get that that's the point of Walter stories, and there's humour to be found in that, but there's so many more interesting possibilities for shorts. The character interactions at this point are incredibly shallow, with the pig inviting Walter to eat the monster stew, and that's about it. And it takes up about 2/3d's of the short! In the same timeframe pretty much all of Hide and Seek happens except for Charlie's final flashback.

Good thing the rest of the short is more eventful...

I love how diverse the survivors reactions are here - Wes is supportive as always, Wormwood's enthuesed, Wurt has complicated feelings about the potrayal of Pigmen, Webber wants cookies and Wendy would rather be anywhere but here.

That said, even here Tales of the constant still does a better job than previous shorts giving characters depth. Walter is shown irritated by the other's overall lack of interest in his stories, showing him as not completely oblivious to the world around him. 

In typical Walter fashion, his first instinct is to walk towards the unknown potential danger, and once again Webber shines by dragging him into the tent. I love the irony of the two entities cohabitating a body being the most empathetic and well adjusted of the kids.

I also appreciate the subtelties of the Way the survivors hide - Wurt doesn't live there, so she just runs home, Wendy and Webber hide together along with Walter. And while Wormwood hides by his lonesome, Wes is forced to ineffectually mime a box and cower in it.

The payoffs to the short are nice too. The pig enjoying the abandoned meal is fun, and the shadow watcher petting Woby has interesting lore implications. It's part of a growing pattern of Shadows displaying independent thought, along with Charlie rescuing Abigail and the Resting horror.

Overall, swine and dine is both better and worse than I remembered. The camp sections with the survivors were fun and fast paced, but Walter's story DRAGGED. The short is a whole 30 seconds longer than hide and seek, but it doesn't justify doing so IMO. Additionally, I don't think it did enough to justify the presence of the Pigman. It would've been so much more interesting if they adapted one of Walter's in game stories, specifically the Bog Monster. Finally, Walter doesn't develop from his in game depiction at all, unlike when we saw Wagstaff being sketchy in his past, or Wendy beginning to find Joy in life again. As a result, It's probably my least favorite of the four tales of the Constant, but ultimately the camp portions are still as enjoyable as most other shorts so ¯\_(ツ)_/¯.

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Falling

This short makes a lot more sense than  Swine & Dine timing wise, but is has an uphill battle featuring absolutely no previously established characters. I think it would've been cool to have Wurt cameo leading the Merm attack, but that's about it. I also hope more of the shorts are referenced in game - maybe give Walter a new campfire story and Wendy new interactions with Winona.

I LOVE  the narrator. I think he should be used more often, as he adds a massive amount of charm to the short. Possessions and Along came a spider are the best survivor shorts, and a majority of it is due to the extra depth the narrator adds. If there's ever a full animation series, I think a narrator would be the way to go.

The merms and the pigs are both so goofy here. Neither of them have any plan, they just hate each other. I misremembered that it was an earthquake and not a herd of beefalo, so it completely floored me that they fell in the hole because the Merm decided to attack a pig that had no idea what was going on instead of running away from the angry stampede of Beefalo.

While the transition from "I will kill you on sight" to "I would die for you" happens amusingly quickly, the entire short contextualizes the two species as incredibly impulsive, so it's not that egregious.

That said, the ending is amazing. The main issue DST has is that all characters are trapped in a certain stasis for a long time. Charlie will be tormented by vestiges of her humanity, Alter has been forced to watch from afar after the moonstorms, Wendy can never revive Abigail, Winona will never talk with her sister, the list goes on. We approach these lines, but they're never crossed.

One of those lines is character death. So I really cannot understate how refreshing it is, that the sweet valentines story, where a merm and a pig find love, the first story without a survivor as a protagonist...

Ends with both the leads dying a grizzly death.

It sells the danger of the constant in a way that not many shorts have before, and It says something about their love that they smile despite knowing this.

Overall, I think I prefer swine and dine to projector, the narration is a treat and it's nice change of pace from the "Wagstaff waves red flags" that has been a number of recent shorts. There's not as much to comment on this one, but other than some weirdly jagged animation on the beefalo there's a lot o fun in between frames and some good iconography, though it does make me more sad that the swamp is the only biome other than the forest ever used for shorts.

So of the four Tales so far I'd say:

Hide & Seek >>> Falling > Projector >> Swine & Dine

In hindsight, swine and dine was certainly a flawed short, but I think Falling was a lot better than I previously thought. Either way, I really hope that no matter what happens in the future, Tales of the Constant continue because they do have so much potential. Tying shorts to updates makes sense, the difference in depth between shorts like this and the ones for scrappy scavengers and staying afloat is night and day. It was probably a mistake to release two shorts back to back that starred Pigs, but  I think even swapping the release of Projector & Swine and Dine would've improved things significantly at the time.

It's great to see more in depth interactions between characters, as well as to see more classic Don't Starve content animated, such as Werepigs, Catcoons and Racism, and I hope they continue to do so for a long time.

[Waoling]

I think the Swine & Dine help us, with what the Survivors daily life in the Constant is like for the survivors, they seem to be thriving pretty well. And Falling tell us that the survivors are pretty powerful, they kill a bunch of spider on regular basis, battle dangerous beast, and giant, and can't die, sort of like a Demigod.

[NPCMaxwell]

Maybe Wes is like me and is just an adult who likes engage in / join childhood-associated activities a lot? Also he seems a lot like the children would like him for being a funny friendly mime, so I wouldn't be surprised if they actually want him to be around and just regard him some sort of "peer" no matter his age. (I have experienced a lot that children sometimes pick people who still love childhood activities to play with them, when those adults have shown to integrate into the childhood activities without trying to actively change something about the way the children intend it to be played.)

[Dr.Webber]

8 hours ago, WenericMember said:

Webber's great here. Unfortunately they don't get anywhere near as much time as the pig, but they're used really well. They've pretty much always been contrasted with Wendy's dour attitude (Release trailer, Monster Marsh, Moon Quay, Reap what you sow), and while she is still next to him, Webber doesn't feel like he's contrasting her. I didn't realize until now that they bit clean through the kebab.

I think the reason they usually contrast so much is usually when they’re seen together, you’re the only two children and even in monster marsh were war appears alongside them. She separate from the group reading the book while the rest of the group deals with the chaos

[WenericMember]

1 hour ago, Dr.Webber said:

I think the reason they usually contrast so much is usually when they’re seen together, you’re the only two children and even in monster marsh were war appears alongside them. She separate from the group reading the book while the rest of the group deals with the chaos

You aren't wrong, but it does limit the depth their given. Hide and Seek for example, shows how much more depth Wendy has when she's not permanently contrasted against Webber as "the sad one"

[gaymime]

well do remember wes is an artist AND loves to bring joy to others, why wouldn't he want to encourage and support a child who is interested in an artistic endeavour like story-telling? makes sense to me ^^ also there generally is always an adult present when there are shorts with the kids so he meets that requirement.

 

as for it being a hallows eve? it isnt really a seasonal thing to have a scary-story time though the summer and fall tends to have more of it show up in pop-culture stuff. it could just be a regular thing for the group and it being in the real world closer to winter isn't really a contradiction since the stories tend to be "timeless" after they leave the context of their debut