#because i do like a dungeon crawler | Explore Tumblr Posts and Blogs

makapatag · 4 months

Text

Tactical Combat, Violence Dice and Missing Your Attacks in Gubat Banwa

In this post I talk about game feel and decision points when it comes to the "To-Hit Roll" and the "Damage Roll" in relation to Gubat Banwa's design, the Violence Die.

Let's lay down some groundwork: this post assumes that the reader is familiar and has played with the D&D style of wargame combat common nowadays in TTRPGs, brought about no doubt by the market dominance of a game like D&D. It situates its arguments within that context, because much of new-school design makes these things mostly non-problems. (See: the paradigmatic shift required to play a Powered by the Apocalypse game, that completely changes how combat mechanics are interpreted).

With that done, let's specify even more: D&D 5e and 4e are the forerunners of this kind of game--the tactical grid game that prefers a battlemat. 5e's absolute dominance means that there's a 90% chance that you have played the kind of combat I'll be referring to in this post. The one where you roll a d20, add the relevant modifiers, and try to roll equal to or higher than a Target Number to actually hit. Then when you do hit, you roll dice to deal damage. This has been the way of things since OD&D, and has been a staple of many TTRPG combat systems. It's easy to grasp, and has behemoth cultural momentum. Each 1 on a d20 is a 5% chance, so you can essentially do a d100 with smaller increments and thus easier math (smaller numbers are easier to math than larger numbers, generally).

This is how LANCER works, this is how ICON works, this is how SHADOW OF THE DEMON LORD works, this is how TRESPASSER works, this is how WYRDWOOD WAND works, this is how VALIANT QUEST works, etc. etc. It's a tried and true formula, every D&D player has a d20, it's emblematic of the hobby.

There's been a lot more critical discussion lately on D&D's conventions, especially due to the OGL. Many past D&D only people are branching out of the bubble and into the rest of the TTRPG hobby. It's not a new phenomenon--it's happened before. Back in the 2010s, when Apocalypse World came out while D&D was in its 4th Edition, grappling with Pathfinder. Grappling with its stringent GSL License (funny how circular this all is).

Anyway, all of that is just to put in the groundwork. My problem with D&D Violence (particularly, of the 3e, 4e, and 5e version) is that it's a violence that arises from "default fantasy". Default Fantasy is what comes to mind when you say fantasy: dragons, kings, medieval castles, knights, goblins, trolls. It's that fantasy cultivated by people who's played D&D and thus informs D&D. There is much to be said about the majority of this being an American Samsaric Cycle, and it being tied to the greater commodification agenda of Capitalism, but we won't go into that right now. Anyway, D&D Violence is boring. It thinks of fights in HITS and MISSES and DAMAGE PER SECOND.

A Difference Of Paradigm and Philosophies

I believe this is because it stems from D&D still having one foot in the "grungy dungeon crawler" genre it wants to be and the "combat encounter balance MMO" it also wants to be. What ends up happening is that players play it like an immersive sim, finding ways to "cheese" encounters with spells, instead of interacting with the game as the fiction intended. This is exemplified in something like Baldur's Gate 3 for example: a lot of the strats that people love about it includes cheesing, shooting things before they have the chance to react, instead of doing an in-fiction brawl or fight to the death. It's a pragmatist way of approaching the game, and the mechanics of the game kind of reinforce it. People enjoy that approach, so that's good. I don't. Wuxia and Asian Martial Dramas aren't like that, for the most part.

It must be said that this is my paradigm: that the rules and mechanics of the game is what makes the fiction (that shared collective imagination that binds us, penetrates us) arise. A fiction that arises from a set of mechanics is dependent on those mechanics. There is no fiction that arises independently. This is why I commonly say that the mechanics are the narrative. Even if you try to play a game that completely ignores the rules--as is the case in many OSR games where rules elide--your fiction is still arising from shared cultural tropes, shared ideas, shared interests and consumed media.

So for Gubat Banwa, the philosophy was this: when you spend a resource, something happens. This changes the entire battle state--thus changing the mechanics, thus changing the fiction. In a tactical game, very often, the mechanics are the fiction, barring the moments that you or your Umalagad (or both of you!) have honed creativity enough to take advantage of the fiction without mechanical crutches (ie., trying to justify that cold soup on the table can douse the flames on your Kadungganan if he runs across the table).

The other philosophy was this: we're designing fights that feel like kinetic high flying exchanges between fabled heroes and dirty fighters. In these genres, in these fictions, there was no "he attacked thrice, and one of these attacks missed". Every attack was a move forward.

So Gubat Banwa removed itself from the To-Hit/Damage roll dichotomy. It sought to put itself outside of that paradigm, use game conventions and cultural rituals that exist outside of the current West-dominated space. For combat, I looked to Japanese RPGs for mechanical inspiration: in FINAL FANTASY TACTICS and TACTICS OGRE, missing was rare, and when you did miss it was because you didn't take advantage of your battlefield positioning or was using a kind of weapon that didn't work well against the target's armor. It existed as a fail state to encourage positioning and movement. In wuxia and silat films, fighters are constantly running across the environment and battlefield, trying to find good positioning so that they're not overwhelmed or so that they could have a hand up against the target.

The Violence Die: the Visceral Attacking Roll

Gubat Banwa has THE VIOLENCE DIE: this is the initial die or dice that you roll as part of a specific offensive technique.

In the above example, the Inflict Violence that belongs to the HEAVENSPEAR Discipline, the d8 is the Violence Die. When you roll this die, it can be modified by effects that affect the Violence Die specifically. This becomes an accuracy effect: the more accurate your attack, the more damage you deal against your target's Posture. Mas asintado, mas mapinsala.

You compare your Violence Die roll to your target's EVADE [EVD]. If you rolled equal to or lower than the target's EVD, they avoid that attack completely. There: we keep the tacticality of having to make sure your attack doesn't miss, but also EVD values are very low: often they're just 1, or 2. 4 is very often the highest it can go, and that's with significant investment.

If you rolled higher than that? Then you ignore EVD completely. If you rolled a 3 and the target's EVD was 2, then you deal 3 DMG + relevant modifiers to the DMG. When I wrote this, I had no conception of "removing the To-Hit Roll" or "Just rolling Damage Dice". To me this was the ATTACK, and all attacks wore down your target's capacity to defend themselves until they're completely open to a significant wound. In most fights, a single wound is more than enough to spell certain doom and put you out of the fight, which is the most important distinction here.

In the Thundering Spear example, that targets PARRY [PAR], representing it being blocked by physical means of acuity and quickness. Any damage brought about by the attack is directly reduced by the target's PAR. A means for the target to stay in the fight, actively defending.

But if the attack isn't outright EVADED, then they still suffer its effects. So the target of a Thundering Spear might have reduced the damage of an attack to just 1 (1 is minimum damage), they would still be thrown up to 3 tiles away. It matches that sort of, anime combat thing: they strike Goku, but Goku is still flung back. The game keeps going, the fight keeps going.

On Mechanical Weight

When you miss, the mechanical complexity immediately stops--if you miss, you don't do anything else. Move on. To the next Beat, the next Riff, the next Resound, think about where you could go to better your chances next time.

Otherwise, the attack's other parts are a lot more mechanically involved. If you don't miss: roll add your Attacking Prowess, add extra dice from buffs, roll an extra amount of dice representing battlefield positioning or perhaps other attacks you make, apply the effects of your attack, the statuses connected to your attack. It keeps going, and missing is rare, especially once you've learned the systematic intricacies of Gubat Banwa's THUNDERING TACTICS BATTLE SYSTEM.

So there was a lot of setup in the beginning of this post just to sort of contextualize what I was trying to say here. Gubat Banwa inherently arises from those traditions--as a 4e fan, I would be remiss to ignore that. However, the conclusion I wanted to come up to here is the fact that Gubat Banwa tries to step outside of the many conventions of that design due to that design inherently servicing the deliverance of a specific kind of combat fiction, one that isn't 100% conducive to the constantly exchanging attacks that Gubat Banwa tries to make arise in the imagination.

#gubat banwa #ttrpg #filipino #fantasy #gamedev #writing #rpg #dnd #southeast asia #d&d #d&d 5e #d&d 4e #i will say #that part of the decision away from a d20 (because gb alpha used one)#is sheer hater energy on my part #like i just didn't want to #because its used by all these other games by white people and especially because its used by dnd #there is like #4 instances where you use d20s in this game

218 notes · View notes

theminecraftbee · 7 months

Text

me, mumbling to myself: i recognize the desire to call decked out a roguelike or a roguelite but it's not really either of those things; the dungeon is a fixed map, which on its own kind of disqualifies it from being either, since a key element of the roguelike is randomized dungeons. additionally, though, it can't be a roguelike, because you can keep progress between runs and don't lose it all whenever you lose; calling it 'roguelite' because you lose everything when you lose but get to keep some permanent progress (the cards) would be more accurate, except, of course, for the fact the dungeon has a completely fixed layout that you can learn (and also that you keep your deck; even in a roguelite normally the progression you keep is more ephemeral). really, it's more of an old-school dungeon crawler that uses modern deck-building game sensibilities as its progression system as opposed to an rpg system. this isn't a knock against it--i LOVE grindy dungeon-crawlers ask me at some point how many hours i've put into etrian odyssey--but it's also fundamentally like, not a roguelike. comparisons to slay the spire (actually a rougelike) are fine, it has a similar deckbuilding concept and that's the deckbuilding game a lot of gamers are familiar with, but why do people keep calling it a roguelike, guys please you'll give people the wrong idea it's not a roguelike,

#not tagging this because to be clear. this is a terminology/genre thing that matters to no one.#genre is like super fake after all #but it's been BOTHERING ME WHERE AR EPEOPLE GETTING THIS IDEA FROM #RANDOMIZED ELEMENTS DOES NOT A ROGUELIKE MAKE...#once again: this doesn't matter and if describing it as a roguelike gets across the gameplay better to your friends DO SO #i am just. me.#for the record if you want something like decked out that IS a roguelite may i point to this modpack iskall has been working on--

214 notes · View notes

self-loving-vampire · 9 months

Text

While on the topic of corruption...

Mary Skelter is not a lewd dungeon crawler RPG series just because you can put the characters in revealing outfits or because there's a minigame about washing them.

To me, the horniest thing about it is actually the fact that one of the central mechanics has to do with managing how much blood your party is covered with, with characters having the ability to either lick the blood off each other or cover their allies with special, purifying blood.

And you need to do this because if one of the girls gets too bloodied while also having a high level of mental stress (such as if they just took a ton of damage or if an ally got knocked out) then they lose to their inner bloodlust and transform like this.

The thing that made me play it initially was actually this focus on blood. It's a given just from looking at my url that I'm a big fan of blood in general. It also helps that I like things like DRPGs and fucked up ultra-dependent romance too.

#mary skelter #perverse insight #100

395 notes · View notes

the-unrelated-theorist · 8 months

Text

Some Undertale gamer headcanons:

Someone said that Toriel would be the world Tetris champion, and I'm not sure why, but I agree with that. And not just Tetris, but bubble-poppers, match 3, marble-shooters, all of those kinds of games. She's the new Candy Crush mascot.

I've also seen people say sans would be into rhythm games, and... no. Why would you think he would be into something that takes that much effort? Seriously, come on. What sans is into is farming sim games. He's written dozens of online strategy guides for Stardew Valley, all of them under different pseudonyms.

Papyrus is into online multiplayers. All of them, any genre- Fortnite, Apex Legends, Fall Guys, Elder Scrolls Online, Runescape, you name it. He sucks at all of them, but none of his online friends is willing to tell him how bad he is because he's so darned innocent and nice. Nobody really wants him on their team because he'll always make them fail the mission, but he's so upbeat and uplifting that no one has the heart to tell him they don't want him.

Undyne loves Souls-like and dungeon crawlers, but she struggles with anything that requires stealth, she just doesn't. do. stealth. She says it's stupid to have to sneak up on enemies, she should just be able to barge in with guns or swords or spears blazing in any and all circumstances. Don't ever even suggest Metal Gear to her. Or Breath of the Wild- she rage-quit after the Yiga Clan Hideout quest (although it did leave her with the impression that bananas give you strength in battle, so she now always keeps a bunch of bananas on hand).

Blooky plays solitaire and Mah Jongg, and even those stress them out.

Maddie plays casino and slots games. On an unrelated note, she's always broke.

Mettaton is the rhythm games master. You will not change my mind on this.

Alphys is HEAVY into JRPG's. The more anime it looks, the more she loves it.

Asgore has no idea what a video game is. Well, ok, he has some idea, his kids both played games, but he never could figure them out. He thinks Sonic and Crash are both Mario characters and that Link is a girl- you get the idea. But he did used to play card and board games with Toriel. Especially chess (she totally owned his ass in every match). Ever since Toriel left, he can't bring himself to play chess. He plays checkers a lot, tho. He usually loses (he plays against himself).

Asriel and Chara were into action/adventure games. Asriel's favorite characters were Yoshi and Link, while Chara's favorites were Samus and Shadow the Hedgehog. What? No, I'm not projecting my favorite games onto the Dreemurr kids. What are you talking about?

Frisk has only ever played the hit indie game Undertale. About 500 times. Always Pacifist, they've never even tried a Geno run. They've been thinking about playing that Deltarune game, too, but they kinda wanna wait until the whole thing is released.

#undertale #my headcanon #toriel #sans #papyrus #undyne #napstablook #mad mew mew #mettaton #alphys #asgore #asriel #chara #frisk

226 notes · View notes

thydungeongal · 4 months

Note

What adventure would you suggest to see what Really Good and narratively satisfying dungeon crawler looks like?

There's a few I'm particularly fond of personally:

Sunless Citadel for D&D 3e (also reprinted in some place or another for 5e): The first official module for D&D 3e is by no means perfect, but it still contains all the necessary elements of a dungeon crawl with just one tiny hook needed to draw the characters in and no necessary order in which to complete it. The first level is characterized by a conflict between goblins and kobolds that player characters can get involved in, which emphasizes the fact that even the inhabitants of dungeons aren't there just for the sake of serving as XP piñatas. The first level even has multiple possible routes for characters to take, including one that is ultimately a dead end that leads into an entirely optional super-difficult fight which I don't remember if it's very well telegraphed, but even its placement there suggests that there can be reason for characters to revisit dungeons later. The second level isn't great, because it's basically a linear gauntlet of encounter on the way to the goal, but it also provides an easy avenue for expanding the dungeon into further adventures with a route to the Underdark.

Incandescent Grottoes and Hole in the Oak for Old-School Essentials. These two modules are both written for Old-School Essentials, a retroclone of the old Basic/Expert edition of D&D from the eighties. As such, they have very different assumptions, including no reason for the characters to go there than just the desire to explore and get treasure. But they're really good non-linear dungeons focused on open exploration as well as a degree of puzzle solving. Incandescent Grottoes especially has very open architecture allowing for multiple avenues of movement between the two dungeon levels (at least four if not more) and both modules have sufficiently detailed NPC factions with webs of relationships, meaning there's room for getting involved in so many tiny narrative hooks while exploring the dungeons. Also, the two dungeons can explicitly be connected together to make for a massive starter level dungeon with enough to explore for at least half a dozen sessions, and there are even story hooks that connect the two dungeons (I won't spoil it in any more detail, but the NPC faction in one dungeon is looking for NPCs holed up in the other).

Isle of the Plangent Mage, also for Old-School Essentials. This module is more than just a dungeon crawl, since it's also a small, self-contained wilderness exploration module, but a lot of the praise I gave the aforementioned module applies here. Most of the module is however taken over by a multi-level dungeon which is a Wizard's underwater lab where they were conducting experimence. What sets Isle apart from those two is that it's one of those dungeons where through exploring it player characters uncover the place's history and if they so choose they can actually take it upon themselves to finish the wizard's job, which will then open more avenues for exploration.

Do not that the latter three adventures don't have narrative content in the sense of "a prewritten story for player characters to get involved in," but in the sense that they all allow players lots of freedom in terms of where to take their characters and multiple situations they can poke their heads in. Even if they just want to loot they will still see weird sights and experience cool events while doing so.

#thydungeongal answers

77 notes · View notes

transparencyboo · 2 months

Text

For the last two weeks or so I've been playing the Mega Drive dungeon crawler Shining in the Darkness. I've recently been going through all the various action-RPGs the system had to offer and kinda found myself lusting for more, so I expanded the scope.

Shining in the Darkness had one of those cover arts I vividly remember seeing in game stores during the 90s, I understood already back then that whatever this was would be too complicated for my feeble preschool brain, but it had a shiny glossy allure that still beckoned to me with promises of daring adventures and grand battles. Questions lingered in my head: Who is that evil bastard zapping sparks at Cavin from the Gummi Bears? Why has the king entrusted the safety of his kingdom to a meagre boy and his two misfit friends?

Well, it turns out that big bad guy is called Dark Sol, the bane of all game difficulty discourse, and the reason the king has enlisted three poor kids is because there is no one else to rely on after your daddy went missing. Everyone else just sorta gives up along the way.

My initial conclusion of this game was to commend my young self for the striking assessment, my five year old self would never get anywhere in this game between the English text, abstracted navigation and number crunching battle mechanics. Shining in the Darkness is a bona fide classic dungeon gauntlet endurance simulator, where you traverse vanishing point block tunnels and encounter enemies. I've played one or two games like this before, like the original Phantasy Star, but this time a new desire struck me. I wanted to draw maps. Maybe I'm just getting older and more patient, leading me to wilfully ignore easily available resources online.

By my recollection, this is the first time I've dedicated myself to playing a game like this. Usually I just resort to my sense of direction, which I've gathered seems to at least be above average, since anytime I go anywhere with anyone I always end up playing shepherd so they don't get lost. Worst case scenario I'll just fall back to mapping efforts by online heroes from years past. For Shining in the Darkness I persisted blindly about halfway through until I admitted to myself charting a map of the labyrinthine caves would be a lot easier. Luckily, the game allows you to spend 1 MP to see a chunk of where you've walked, meaning I could get neatly organized segments to copy by hand.

Perhaps my biggest takeaway from this endeavour was how much of the game experience was expressed through this map project. I spent just as much time slaying beasts as I did counting tiles and filling them out with my pencil. It became a natural counterbalance that provided vital pacing to the game mechanics. Walking, fighting, charting. In turn, through the principle of learning by doing, I gained a more intimate familiarity with the environments by just replicating them out on a sheet of paper. I found that while the map helped, I actually didn't need it much for backtracking because my drawings had helped me remember the layouts of the corridors anyway.

I guess the lesson learned is that while old design sensibilities may appear to be arcane and cumbersome when easier solutions exists, the obfuscation is part of the fun. The game hands me an intentionally hard to navigate world, shows me that it's fully capable of displaying maps of it, but still asks me to provide that dimension myself. Through doing this, I discover that drawing maps is both surprisingly enjoyable and cognitively stimulating. I realize that had I downloaded some pre-packaged maps online and used as my bible, Shining in the Darkness would've been a vastly different experience, one of monotonous meandering through endless fights while confidently striding along the known path.

Perhaps that's why the game was called Shining and the Darkness in Japan, it doesn't flow as well as the western title, but at the same time it poetically reflects this act of discovery. I am Shining, the game provides the Darkness, we work together, we must unify to become whole.

As for Dark Sol, he turned into a big monster boy and was vanquished by a spunky cartographer child and her two cohorts. The unknown has been made known and the kingdom is once more saved.

/Kiki

#shining in the darkness #shining force #sega #mega drive

56 notes · View notes

weirdmageddon · 8 months

Note

Would you recommend I play explorers of sky, any tips on how best to enjoy it?

i recommend everyone plays it lol

gameplay tips, some known and some more obscure

avoid spoilers lol

store any extra reviver seeds and petrify orbs you find. you will probably need it

if you find yourself in a bind, USE ITEMS. even a sleep seed can go a long way when you toss it at an enemy

the move dig is insane against the main campaign boss

stack missions if you can! if you have more than one mission from the bulletin that takes place in the same dungeon you should do all of them at once

base stats in pokemon mainline series means nothing here. you can have a butterfree with max stats in everything (255). you can boost pokemon stats permanently with medicinal items (protein, iron, etc) and drinks from spinda’s cafe. this lack of base stat disparity is why people can clear zero isle with smoochum. also there is no base speed stat unique to each pokemon, because it’s a dungeon crawler all pokemon have equal speed unless it’s modified with movement boosting. some pokemon may have a +1 boosted movement speed by default, such as deoxys-s, shaymin-s, and dialga with time tripper IQ skill unlocked. and kecleon when you steal from a shop for some ungodly reason. some abilities may increase movement speed in different conditions like chlorophyll in sunny weather

odd floors will generate male pokemon and even floors will generate female pokemon. this might not seem significant but it can be helpful for some gender-based evolutions like getting a female snorunt or male kirlia. at 0 stage stat changes, male and genderless pokemon have a 1.5x bonus applied to a move’s base critical hit rate while at the same time decreasing their evasion rate from foe hits by about 1.03 (268/256). female pokemon have higher move accuracy by about 1.03 (268/256) and neutral evasion (256/256), but this evasion is better in comparison to male or genderless pokemon. i believe genderless pokemon can appear on either floor dont quote me on that but it will follow the male bonus regardless of it was found on an odd or even floor

turns are everything in this game. smokescreen isn’t really a good move in mainline games but it’s fuckin nuts here because it basically renders opponents unable to hit you for a few turns

i really need to link moves more but thats why theyre awesome. there are so many big brained combinations. usually a status move and then an attack but it only takes up one turn

if you eat gummis normally you get an IQ increase and Maybe stat increase, but you will always get stat increases when you make gummis into drinks at spindas cafe so you get more out of them. you can save scum at the save well for “good feeling drink” bonuses if you want. like maybe every 3rd gummi if you dont get a feel good bonus you reset, and every time you do get one you save

gummi effectiveness chart

why eat gummis? IQ skills are important and helpful in different ways. my favorites are map surveyor, stair sensor, acute sniffer, all-terrain hiker, natural gifter, deep breather, and multitalent

different pokemon families fall into different IQ groups (A-J). a group is essentially a different “kit” of IQ skills. IQ groups basically tell what kind of role they have on your team

heres the list of IQ skills in EoS. off to the side under the “group” column you can click on each IQ group for their kit and the pokemon in that group. list of pokemon in each IQ group (ctrl + F searchable)

x-ray specs are broken when you combine them with map surveyor and stair sensor IQ skills. you can also tell how many items on the floor are hidden with acute sniffer by subtracting the number visible on the map with x-ray specs from the number given by acute sniffer. they need to be worn by the team leader though.

you can collect items in walls with a one-room orb, mobile scarf (watch out for belly drain), palkia’s absolute mover, or being ghost type

speaking of the team leader there are many things that are only effective when done by the team leader, such as recruitment, so watch out for that. also you need to be on an adjacent tile to a pokemon to recruit it. if you defeat them ranged it wont work

natural gifter is busted with natural items like seeds and berries (especially with items like golden seed or sitrus berry) because the team leader also gets the boost. but if you want to spread the effect of artificial items like vitamins and gummis to your whole team, you want a team leader with the IQ skill pierce hurler equipped with lockon specs. pierce hurler is essentially a built-in pierce band which allows thrown items to penetrate through whatever is in tile line of sight before going out of bounds. lockon specs boosts the accuracy of the item coming into contact with the pokemon, so it’s better than just the pierce band because you can ensure that none of the beneficial items “miss” your teammates. go into a dungeon hallway with your team in a single file line, make sure the IQ skill pierce hurler is turned on, have your lockon specs equipped to the leader, face your team and throw vitamins or gummis. this is excellent for vitamins but i prefer doing spinda’s cafe for gummis in the long run one at a time since you get a guaranteed increase in at least one stat every time and sometimes rich bonuses like HP increase as well if youre lucky

monster houses are fuckin scary at first but easier as time goes on. when you first start seeing them you should use petrify orbs. eventually you will start seeing some room clearing moves such as blizzard, discharge, earth power. if you can get that on your side you’ll have an advantage. you should also account for movement speed. you’ll be able to attack multiple times in a row if your movement speed is boosted, whether its from a quick seed or agility. probably the best room clearing move is silver wind because it hits multiple enemies and each hit has a chance of boosting all your stats including speed. it has a low hit-rate though to balance it, but unless youre extremely unlucky youre probably going to get multiple hits across the monster house

USE TEAM TACTICS. it gives you a bit of control over how your partner pokemon move. a cleared monster house is a great example because they are usually filled with traps. maybe your team leader has trap seer IQ skill (Able to step on traps without setting off) but not your teammates. change the team’s tactics to “wait there” in the hallway outside of the monster house, go in and collect the loot, go back to the hallway and turn it back to “let’s go together”. no harm done to teammates or even yourself if youre careful. (or your items: there are sticky traps which make your items unuseable, explosion traps which damage you, your teammates, and destroy all floor items and walls around, pokemon traps which turn floor items into pokemon, sludge traps which turn edible inventory items into grimy food. so it’s always good to avoid these scenarios when you can.) another example is if your teammate gets tile warped to a different part of the floor. dont let them move unless you know they can handle themself. change their tactic to “wait there” and go find them while making sure they dont die with oran berries.

you can also control your teammate’s moves by switching them off in the menu. this comes in handy when they start using status moves for no reason. the check mark next to the name of the move means it’s switched on and the teammate will pull from whatever moves you have checked. it doesnt mean anything on the leader pokemon though

i find it more convenient to use less strong moves such as confusion instead of psychic because they tend to have higher hit rates and more PP. the reason why is that the item ginseng can permanently boost their power, but ginseng is hard to come across so i just generate wonder mail s codes for them like a chump (shoutout to the og apointlessplace.net…i remember thinking “well its not very pointless is it” and that same thought still echoes in my head). but this is optional you dont have to cheat.

i go with celebi as my leader most of the time, with ginseng’d weaker moves. i originally shaped celebi in an attempt to recruit kecleon (which i still havent had success with) since you need the fast friend IQ skill in addition to the golden mask and be at lv 100 to even get kecleon’s chances ABOVE 0% recruitment. but even without all the kecleon recruitment stuff having deep breather IQ skill + chrono veil item in bag i virtually never have to use max elixrs for myself. by making celebi prepared for kecleon i incidentally made celebi prepared for anything lol

uhh thats all i can think of also gamefaqs has great in-depth guides

#pmd #pmd2 #pmd explorers of sky

78 notes · View notes

croxot · 5 months

Text

Here I'll ramble about my favorite games this year.

This sure was a good year, and I have better opinions than the game awards do so I'm just gonna talk into the ether for a bit here.

Once upon a time I liked D&D 5e quite a bit, just like everyone else on this god forsaken internet. In recent years I've been more interested in Pathfinder 2e and Lancer. After so many years rolling with 5e, it became a bit more refreshing to try systems with more specific and rigid rules for certain things. However, a videogame requires specific adherence to rules to function, and in this respect, Baldur's Gate 3 is an incredible adaptation of the system. There's just so much stupid bullshit you're allowed to get away with in game that most devs would not even consider. I may have played thru act 1 like 7 times now and it's still entertaining. Also I went from hating Lae'zel to loving her. Congrats Larian, you made me like perhaps the most annoying person I've ever met in a videogame.

As my bones start to deteriorate I find myself seeking smaller, more intimate games that give a sort of feeling. Lunacid is "like" Kingsfield in the way that it's a first-person dungeon crawler. That's where the buck stops for that comparison gameplay wise. However, Lunacid offers an extremely specific feeling I find is rare in games. It's the same sort of "you're lost and alone but also it's also groovy" feel as Metroid Prime 1 & 2. And if you can capture the same sort of feeling that some of my favorite games ever gave me as a teenager, you're just automatically on my games of the year list.

I saw a gameplay video in passing on twitter, got slightly horny because caked-up goat lady, went to the steam page and saw OVERWHEMINGLY POSITIVE. I don't think my experience with Pseudoregalia is unique. It just feels great to jump around and the music slaps.

Cross the feeling of the open-sea adventure of Wind Waker, with the chase and collection of fishing minigames of countless other titles, and the dread of exploring the uncaring unknown. It scratches a seldom-scratched itch of exploratory joy within an indifferent universe. Dredge's systems can be distilled to the simple loop of growing beyond your own fears to discover more and more. None of these fears is particularly intense, but it's enough. Dredge isn't going to find itself on game of the year lists because it's doing any one thing particularly well. It's also not doing anything specifically or wholly NEW. It is however, more than the sum of it's parts, and it is beautiful.

Remnant 2 is the best co-op souls-style game that exists, tied with Nioh 2. That's it, that's what I had to say. It just real good and it deserves to be on game of the year lists.

So like, late this year, 2 Souls successors came out. Lies of P and Lords of the Fallen. And goddamn did Lords inspire division.

I think these releases really showed that people who are "Souls Fans" really cover a LOT of different specific interests, and not all of these interests are well-represented in every souls-like. Lords, perhaps amazingly, seems to cater to what I particularly want out of a Souls game, whereas Lies of P did not. I like these games for their challenge, sure, but more importantly, I like the character building. The ability to create a unique playstyle that I can take on the game with. This slowly grated on me in Lies of P because the game really only wants you to play it (and succeed at it) a certain way. Because the perfect parry was the truest answer to everything a boss could throw at you, and the dodge sucks ass, I felt more exhausted by the end of the game than anything. I also wanted to try a strength build, but the heaviest weapons cannot manage to fully wind up and land a hit on any bosses past the halfway point. Without any hyper-armor or poise, the "big weapon" playstyle felt completely trash, even outside of bosses. Lords lets me dodge, block, perfect parry, and hey they ALL feel useful. I can actually wind up big weapon hits too! Yeah it feels a bit floaty, and yeah enemy density can be rather crazy at times, but I'm the weirdo who's favorite Dark Souls is DS2. Lords also does ranged combat better than any of it's contemporaries. I think a lot of people also never played the original Lords of the Fallen. Now that game SUCKED. I played the whole thing, my god.

GAME OF THE YEAR BAYBEE

I've already talked about AC6, but again, you can't just get me to complete a game. I see an achievement list and I say "fuck that, I hate that!" I saw AC6's Achievement list and I was rubbing my hands together like a cartoon villain. Like Pseudoregalia, AC6 just feels good to play. It feels so tight, and after a few hours you can feel the minute changes in the way your mech handles even after small part swaps. Anyways it needs DLC with more Rusty content. 12/10.

#goty 2023 #games of the year #baldur's gate 3 #armored core #armored core vi #fires of rubicon #pseudoregalia #Dredge #Lunacid #Remnant 2 #lords of the fallen #croxotwords

46 notes · View notes

secretsnowclub · 9 months

Text

Finding My Ideal TTRPG

Of the many things I can say of Disco Elysium, the thing that strikes my gamer brain right now is the system. At its simplest, it's 2d6 + Skill. The gear you wear gives skill bonuses. You can have "Thoughts" that also give bonuses.

In my mind, it's perfect. It's all I need. A skill list and some dice. It's how I ran 5e for so long. But a lot of the 5e skills are boring. And it's not possible to just steal the Disco Elysium skill list and use it, because a lot of it is specifically about being a cop and specifically about being the kind of cop that Harry is.

But I think a good place to start would be to ask similar questions. For instance, if I wanted to make a dungeon crawler that was "my perfect ideal of a dungeon crawler," I could ask "what skills would a dungeon crawler possibly need?"

A question like that might get you a few of the same skills in 5e. But I think the question suffers from being not only too broad, but too boring. The question is flawed because as we've seen over the last 30-40 years is that there are a lot of different ways to do a dungeon crawler.

Troika! isn't The Nightmares Underneath isn't Cyberpunk Red isn't blah blah blah.

I think about Venture from Riley Rethal a lot. One of the Paladin's "Strong Moves" is simply "Kill someone." I imagine a skill list with "murder" on it. Such a strong word to use, but it's a choice. And choices are more important to me than trying to hit a common denominator.

A skill like "Pray" would be open enough but also says something about the world. I think in a game like this, your chosen skills would be the answer to choosing a class. There wouldn't be combat rules beyond roll dice + skill to do a thing. What you do with your skills is the important choice. It's roleplaying.

I'm not sure where I'm going with this. Kinda losing my train of thought. I'm thinking about how "Thoughts" would work as ways to expand your character. Clocks from BitD would work well to emulate the progression of time, and they're a tool I've used in my dungeon crawler games for a while now.

Essentially, whenever a player wants to learn something. Anything. I have them figure out *how* they're going to learn it, and then I make a clock. And whenever they get the time to sit and work on that thing, we fill in a slice of the clock.

It's a very organic way of growing a character beyond a set level progression or needing to gain EXP at all. Clocks can be filled with time or money. "Pay the thief 50g and she'll train you for the day," or whatever.

You'd never run out of Things to make for the game, because you could just work out more Thoughts, deepening your worldbuilding with them, and giving them in-game benefits.

Gear is another thing that I think would be improved. Y'know, a sword could give you +1 Fighting or Murder, but it might also give you +1 Cool, or a bonus to your negotiating skill. What you wear is more important than Armor Class bonuses or whatever. What you wear would increase or decrease skills. It would *say* something about your character.

A few other things I think about in regards to conceptualizing my "perfect rpg":

The way Pokémon games handle a Pokémon's stats. Attack, Defense, Special Attack, and Special Defense. It's nice and simple and if they were included (reworded of course) in a bigger list of skills, it would help to put choices on an equal footing. If choosing between diplomacy and combat were as easy as putting skill points into particular skills, the choice is on you to decide how you interact with the world.

The skill list determines the various ways "Dungeon Crawler Persons" interact with the world, just as the Disco Elysium skill list shows the various ways a cop like Harry might interact with the world. The skills you choose then are you deciding how to interact with that world. They open and close different doors. Put barricades in your way. Remove others.

Anyways, these are just my rambles right now. I've been thinking about this shit for a while. I've probably tweeted about it before too. It's something I've tried to incorporate into .dungeon//remastered and it's what I plan on incorporating into whatever is next.

Thanks for reading.

#disco elysium #ttrpg #dnd #ttrpg community

79 notes · View notes

taupewolfy · 3 months

Note

can you describe how void stranger is a perfect game? (w/o spoilers of course) i think i get the idea for ghost trick because that game is clean and symmetrical with its ideas and mechanics... and seeing you post void stranger has me curious if i want to invest the time into it

(question is in reference to this post I made)

I'll try my best to do so:

Short answer - I like the game. A lot. I'm picking up what it's putting down. It's the type of design I really quite enjoy - no, not quite the puzzle aspect (how to become a sokoban sicko with one easy game!) although that is really, very good, but rather...the aspect of it almost hearkening to older adventure design. I've grown a steady fondness and appetite for these types of games over the years and I usually like what they do. Throw in some inquisitiveness as to what might be hidden amongst its depths and you've got a healthy dose of perfection (for me).

While this one won't and doesn't appeal to a broad audience both due to it's fairly sizable time commitment and what can become pretty damn difficult puzzles, I think what it does it does so, very, confidently.

It's also something that floats around in my mind frequently...much like most of the titles in that list.

Longer answer down below -

I think Void Stranger is a 'perfect' video game because it is so very...video gamey. It does a multitude of things, both with how it presents itself, reveals its layers to you, and conveys its story through repetition, repetitive play, mechanics and the rules of those mechanics (and how you learn to understand those).

It's a piece of art that knows what the fuck it is, and is fairly unflinching towards that, unwilling to bend to the recipient and asking, inviting them, to understand it. It looks at standardised game design and goes 'fuck that' while still being a fairly approachable (and importantly, well designed) game.

Its a 'tile puzzler' puzzle game with no undo, forcing you to get better at playing it by really thinking your moves through.

Its 'sokoban'* but not really, a dungeon crawler with the guise of a sokoban. And while being both of those, its repetition hearkens to shmups and the repeat play within those...you're score chasing but there is no score...maybe some collectables to acquire but more often then not it is uncovering the secrets of the void. Finding tools that will help you progress and progress - faster and faster. And as you do that, you get better at playing the game. Much like the song that welcomes you into the game as you explore Void Stranger's depths it builds and builds and builds YOUR knowledge of it.

There is a story to it, one that drives your character, who is very much their own character but I took that more as a pleasant surprise. There's no secrets there, if anything the story is pretty straightforward. Without diving into the details much. Again the crux, the core of this game is the gameplay.

And that gameplay is going to ask a lot of you. Most importantly you need patience. Take your time - it is turned based after all. Nothing can act until you move. The store page even says to take breaks.

As for if you're willing to invest the time in it...well that's going to depend. I think there is a great deal of resistance from folks coming into it expecting one thing but getting something else (or just straight up not enjoying it - which is fine! but not so fine if you're forcing yourself to 'enjoy' something you don't.)

Otherwise, Sylvie of sylvie lime fame has made a wonderful and concise guide to finding some secrets - ultimately the guide is there to help you progress. Not individual puzzle solutions, there's plenty of those (and if you are really, really stuck I do recommend making use of them - I sure as hell did) but just the progress through each playthrough. The hints are just right.

*Sokoban, named after the eponymous game, is a type of logic puzzle game that tends to be grid-locked movement, where your choice of moves is part of the puzzle. More well known as 'block pushing puzzles' e.g. Stephan's Sausage Roll and Baba is You.

#ask #neozoid #void stranger #like the most important aspect of the puzzles is movement and directions - hence 'tile puzzler' you're focusing more on those aspects #rather than: 'push block to this point'#i will admit there is 3 specific instances in the game where it deeply frustrated me because of a switch in [redacted] but with breaks #i got it eventually

26 notes · View notes

reachartwork · 5 days

Text

devlog #8 let's talk about potions and systems

there's been a lot of good brainstorming being done in the brainstorming discord (anyone is free to join, you'll get credit in the final game and i might buy you a pizza every now and then assuming i have the money for it). so let me go over some of the systems in GO INTO THE FUCKING DUNGEON that i feel confident talking about because i know i will implement them, in one way or the other.

1) exhaustion & camping

GITFD is a game about resource management - as i have phrased it, it's an "immersive sim survival game with light jrpg elements" (it is a first person dungeon crawler jrpg). you will likely not be able to survive the game using only basic attacks, and there are many meters that can be attacked - not just your HP, but your lamplight, your hunger, and your EP (Exhaustion Points). Spells are cast from a static EP meter that does not go up in most cases - everyone starts the game and ends the game with 5 EP. anything beyond basic attacks, throwing stuff, and talking uses up some EP. if you reach 0 EP, you gain a level of exhaustion and your EP re-fills. exhaustion lowers your stats and makes you get hungrier faster. if you run out of hunger meter you starve to death. so don't do that.

if you get enough exhaustion that it would drop your max HP to 0, you just die and can't be resurrected. so managing that is important.

anyway, there are *very* limited ways to restore EP and remove exhaustion. the primary way is via camping. it's sort of like darkest dungeon and sort of like D&D. each character gets two timeslots to do stuff. you can rest (each resting period removes xyz amount of exhaustion stacks). you can craft items. you can cook and eat meals. you can keep watch (and someone better or you'll get ambushed lol).

this is not the kind of rpg that lets you just make a bunch of bread rolls standing around in a hallway and then eat them all in one turn. that stuff takes time and a fire and tools. you can't just do that.

2) corpses

enemies do not drop pre-butchered chunks of meat for you. in fact they don't drop anything unless it would make sense for them to do so. what they do drop is corpses. and if you do not loot the corpses and take them back to camp, the corpses will attract other monsters (mostly scavengers). you can also drop corpses to do that on purpose, or throw corpses at things for shenanigans.

but anyway, yeah, corpses weigh a ton usually and you need to bring them with you to camp to butcher them to actually get meat, hide, animal parts, etc. if your inventory is too heavy then you don't get *visually* slowed down (which is a miserable experience), but instead you take fewer steps to count as an encounter tick, which means your lamplight and hunger decrease faster, because you're traveling slower.

3) potions & alchemy

in the game's alchemy system, players can create potions by combining two monster parts that share a matching effect and one chemical which you mine from the walls, find in chests, etc.. the monster parts are obtained from defeating creatures throughout the game and each part is associated with a specific effect, such as invisibility, healing, or strength enhancement. The chemicals, which are based on the non-courtly minor arcana (Ace through Ten), modify the potion's effect in various ways. for example, the Ace chemical always produces the basic "potion of xyz" effect, while other chemicals can split the effect, make it a group potion, increase its duration, turn it into a poison, and so on.

so, for example;

ace + invisibility = potion of invisibility (which also makes you take a penalty to hitting because you can no longer see yourself or aim)

two + invisibility = potion of half invisibility (makes you translucent)

three + invisibility = potion of group invisibility

four + invisibility = potion of long invisibility (lasts until you next make camp)

five + invisibility = poison of invisibility (apply to weapon, apply weapon to enemy, enemy becomes invisible)

six + invisibility = potion of duo invisibility (invisibility for you and the target)

seven + invisibility = potion of visibility (makes you or something you throw it at extremely visible)

eight + invisibility = potion of total invisibility (works on truesight!)

nine + invisibility = potion of permanent invisibility (permanently makes you invisible)

ten + invisibility = potion of perfect invisibility (gives you invisibility but without any of the downsides)

because i'm an asshole and i hate people having fun, potions are not given a name until the first time you experience their effects, only described as, for example, "green fizzy potion", and the colors and adjectives are randomized every run. so. you can and probably will quaff a Potion of Permanent Petrification or a Potion of Permanent Burning at least once, and it'll be really funny.

#game dev #indie dev #indie game #indie games #rpg #jrpg #rpg maker #go into the fucking dungeon

14 notes · View notes

theresattrpgforthat · 4 months

Note

Hi, do you know any games that include traversal/spatial puzzles? Say, a character needs to figure out how to get from point A to point B in a room that has a certain sequence of puzzles: find this ball, take that ball to another room, jump over an abyss to get the ball into some slot, and a door opens. Something like in Darksiders 2 video game or other action-adventure games.

THEME: Spatial Puzzles

Hello friend! I have a feeling most of this recommendation list is going to be dungeon crawlers, because those games have so many pieces that emulate the levels of action-adventure games. The OSR has a lot of stuff that you’re probably going to like, but I think I can also include a few games that explore dungeons in different ways, in case you want some additional rules alongside your dungeon exploration. Also, keep in mind that there are a lot of system agnostic dungeons out there that can be used for a lot of different kinds of games, so even if there’s a game that doesn’t have a lot of adventures pre-written for you, they might still be a good fit for these pre-written dungeons!

Forgotten Ballad, by coolwayink.

Forgotten Ballad is a minimalist Adventure Game - TTRPG, if you prefer - heavily inspired by The Legend Of Zelda series and the OSR movement. Its simple system uses only d6 and is built around the character's items and inventory, encouraging creativity and exploration based on how the players describe their approach to problems.

This game is an excellent example of the core pillars of the OSR movement, and draws inspiration from one of the most iconic action-adventure games with especially memorable dungeons. It’s a beautiful game and while the base game has only one starting dungeon to work with, it also includes tables to help you generate your own dungeons, as well as links to supplements such as Sudden Swamps and Buried Power, which are (respectively), a goblin dungeon and a procedural adventure/dungeon-creator.

If you want a taste of the rules before picking up the full game, you can also check out the pamphlet version of the rules!

Derelict Delvers, by Cezar Capacle.

Derelict Delvers is a thrilling, action-packed sci-fi roleplaying game that immerses players in a struggle for survival and profit. The game takes place in a galaxy overrun by monstrous alien creatures, who have destroyed humanity's peaceful exploration and diplomatic efforts.

The players take on the roles of elite space troopers, scientists, and engineers who must explore derelict spaceships and space stations in order to scavenge for supplies, salvage for weapons and valuable resources, and ultimately, hunt down the monsters that threaten the very existence of mankind. They are a team of skilled specialists, who are on a mission to help humanity, but also themselves.

With a unique blend of fast-paced combat and challenging perils, players will have to work together (or alone!) to overcome the dangers of the derelict ships and outsmart the deadly aliens lurking within. They will also have to make difficult decisions that will affect the outcome of their missions, their potential profits, and their very survival.

This game can be played GM-less or even solo, but I can see it being useful for dungeon design due to the roll tables that help the GM put the rooms of the empty spaceships together. I can even see the tables being useful for other space horror games, such as Mothership. You roll for the room shape, as well as for the difficulties plaguing each room. The attached actual play on the game page showed the creation of a room with blocked vents, a jellyfish monster, and a radiation leak, which all probably need to be dealt with before the characters can move on to the next room.

Fight, Item Run, by Whimsy Machine.

Fight Item Run is a Powered by the Apocalypse tabletop roleplaying game that smashes action-packed combat and magic together with dynamic character and relationship exploration. The party begins in a chamber and there are monsters; once they’ve defeated the monsters, they proceed to the next chamber where there are more monsters. Chambers also have items, treasures, puzzles, and mysteries. When the party has collected the adequate gear to advance to the next level of the dungeon, they come to the chamber with the passage, staircase, portal, or alien warp pad to continue forward.

This game is dungeon-crawling as well as Powered-by-the-Apocalypse, which is a really interesting mix for me. It’s inspired by platforming and action-adventure games, and has a unique method of encouraging the group to collaborate in dungeon design, at least to some extent. When it comes to theme and atmosphere, the group is encouraged to collaborate - do they want to explore a crashed spaceship? A volcano temple? An icy cave system?

However, the chambers of the dungeon have special advice for the GM. There’s a whole section on creating puzzles, including 6 different puzzle types, and a series of steps to generate puzzles in the dungeon that you’re exploring. Players will have to use different moves to engage with these puzzles, such as Apply Force, Manipulate Components, or Navigate Danger. On top of this, you can populate your dungeon with monsters, sages, and key items.

The Tomb of Xul Lan Kwat, by Madeline.

10,000 years ago the god-queen Xul Lan Kwat was buried here, but now her leaking dreams threaten the world above. Animals and people awake to their skin paling, their hair falling out, their eye sockets closing over. You have been given a lead-lined chest in which you must seal the god- queen’s brain and heart to stop the flow of dreams.

This is a stat-less dungeon like I mentioned in the introduction to this rec post. It’s 7 pages long, with a grid map and details for each room. Some of the obstacles in this dungeon are combat related, such as mushroom women or pale monkeys. However, there are also interesting features such as mirrors that can give you a sneak peek into other rooms, sudden loss of vision, and crystals that could fall on curious, unsuspecting adventurers. I’d recommend using a game like Cairn or Durf for this. Cairn fits the gritty tone, and gives the GM a lot of freedom on how to adjudicate challenges, and Durf gives you a bunch of example NPCs that you can use as templates for the creatures you find in other system-agnostic settings.

Tomb of a Thousand Doors (Mausritter), by ManaDawn Tabletop Games.

Gather up picks and shovels and prepare packs as you delve deep into the forgotten stronghold of a mad mouse king - the Tomb of a Thousand Doors. A megadungeon for the rules-light fantasy adventure roleplaying game Mausritter.

It’s a deep and dark dungeon down there, and it will not be fair on a little mouse. But if you are cautious and maybe a bit daring and reckless, you may be able to retrieve unnumbered riches. And if you delve for long enough, you may just uncover the greatest treasure of all mousekind.

This dungeon is so big I think you could probably run an entire Mausritter campaign in here, and each mini-dungeon has its own unique pieces. I stopped at a random one, and landed on the Chamber of Flames: 8 octagonal connected chambers, walled with mirrors, with traps that shoot flames through each archway if you step too heavily on pressure tiles. I can see the players trying to figure out ways to avoid walking on the tiles, or making themselves super-light in order to get to the end of this tunnel.

As a system, Mausritter is fairly light in rules, so it’s easy to learn, and the emphasis on inventory means that your characters will have to learn how to use what’s in their toolbox to help them get from point A to point B. I think it’s got a lot of what you’re looking for because on top of this Megadungeon, there’s plenty of other Mausritter supplements to explore and enjoy.

#tabletop games #indie ttrpgs #game recommendations #dnd #asks #indie ttrpg #puzzles

50 notes · View notes

marabarl-and-marlbara · 7 months

Note

Hello Mara,

i wanted to ask what types of game you like, both in style (point n clicker, rpg, etc...) and genre (horror, romance, etc....). also, do you like getting game recomendations?

have a nice day. (⁠◠⁠‿⁠・⁠)⁠—⁠☆

hey aliliwawa,

honestly i don:t really "enjoy" games much any-more because everything sort-of bores me unless i:m randomly just super-passionate about something specific (a week back it was blob-type dungeon crawlers -- downloaded starcrawlers and beat it and had fun with it, first time i finished/enjoyed a game in awhile; then before that it was roguelikes, then before that it was shmups).

generally i like fighting games, visual novels, shmups, dungeon crawlers, roguelikes, and farming sims -- but (like mentioned) it:s mostly just if i feel passionate about something, otherwise playing games (or doing anything, really) is about as entertaining as vacuuming the house.

when i was younger i really loved dwarf fortress, elona; i played a lot of league, too; when i was even younger (a kid!) i spent most of my time roleplaying by myself in the warcraft 2 & starcraft map editors, & diablo (wc3 & diablo2 coming out were amazing moments for me -- vivid memory of going to office max w/ my mom to get diablo 2 when it released and playing it on the office computer).

think i used to roleplay as ciel on forums, from melty blood (only knew her from mugen though); ciel and richter from castlevania (richter was my brother that i made a sockpuppet account for so that people online wouldn:t think i was as lonely as i were).

then when i was in college i really wanted to be an eroge developer (cause i read the hiring-advertisement alicesoft put out and it inspired me a lot) & thought stuff like sengoku rance, violated heroine & ryonarpg were amazingly well designed; i wrote this massive setting for an eroge i wanted to make, and i still borrow a lot of the setting-pieces (+ research i had done for it) for this internal world i use for most stories (the gracecon setting).

i think pathologic is my favorite game overall, but now i mostly just read now (you:d think visual novels would fit-in well here but somehow reading visual novels is more 'slow' than just reading books).

genre isn:t something i really think much about, except for movies because i don:t like watching non-horror movies -- so the only real part this may-be plays for me is in my reading (visual novels or normal novels), but that:s mostly just "passion" stuff, too, ie: over summer i wanted to read hot-weather southerny writing (lotta flannery o'conner), but now i want to read autumnal stuff.

recommendations: i don:t really like getting them because i feel guilty if i look @ a recommendation & immediately write it off as boring (because i usually do, i:m a big contrarian when someone tries to get me to play/listen/look at something, "hey i think you:d like this" -> {automatic reflexive response} "this has to be awful"); but if you want to toss me burner recommendations with zero expectation of a response or follow-through: go for it >:-))

i think that:s everything! take care, chief

31 notes · View notes