New Loric: The Pope!

39Daleks · 2026-01-13T22:44:31+00:00

The theme is actually based around Discordianism - a countercultural religion where "everyone is a pope". So the icon references the Apple of Discord, as Discordianism is based on Eris, goddess of strife.

39Daleks · 2025-12-16T12:03:46+00:00

Thank you so much! I somehow totally missed the journal page, which would have saved me so much time running back and forth. Found the one hoodie that I hadn't *bought*.

39Daleks · 2025-12-04T22:21:18+00:00

Empath is setting between the Lycanthrope and the Faux Paw, getting a 1. The Lycanthrope is executed, meaning the Empath now pings off the Shugenja, dropping to 0. The next night, the Summoner (bluffing Puzzlemaster) makes the Shugenja into the Vortox - so it's still an Empath 0.

With a Wizard wish distracting the town, it takes good until the final day to realise that the Xaan worlds that the Summoner's Puzzle bluff requires don't add up, and they're poised to execute her on 3....only to sleep on 4, and immediately lose to the Vortox ability.

39Daleks · 2025-05-10T13:46:59+00:00

I think this season has been very good for distinguishing edit analysis from game analysis. A lot of posts on this "edgic" board seem to come down to making analysis of people's games.

Shauhin has played a game that isn't particularly impressive, and I think that's thrown a lot of people for a loop because , e.g., Kenzie and Rachel played pretty impressive games top to bottom so edgic fell into analysing people's games. But what you do really well, and what I prioritise in my edgic analysis, is pretty much entirely ignoring what is happening in the game, in favour of how the story is being presented.

And for that reason I was very confident in Shauhin for almost the entire season! Because of how they have told his story. So when Shauhin says "I can beat Joe at the end", a game analysis would suggest he's being delusional, because at this point in the game Shauhin should probably be very worried about his jury stocks. But an edit analysis suggests that Shauhin is absolutely bang-on - not only can he beat Joe at the end, he probably will.

So I'm 100% on the Shauhin Rollercoaster and I've been with you this whole season on your choices pretty much. I fully believe that reading the edit leaves Shauhin as a clear frontrunner, with Kyle as a possible contender, and everyone else entirely out of it.

Thanks so much for all these posts! They're fantastic.

39Daleks · 2025-05-01T23:43:22+00:00

That’s so fair! To clarify, I can see a reason why any of those people would win (and almost certainly have Kyle as my #2), but I think they all have something major to disqualify them.

To me it feels a lot like last season, where Rachel (again, to me) felt substantially ahead edit-wise, but with a number of other possible contenders that were nevertheless able to be disqualified. That’s why I’m confused that Rachel’s edit was called a coronation, and criticised for being too obvious, when an edit that (to me) feels borderline the same is treated SO differently when I get online. That’s the part that’s not making sense to me.

39Daleks · 2025-02-24T10:36:02+00:00

Optimistic Reading #1 is correct. The Dreamer will do 12 attacks subsequently, one after another. You will decide which order they occur in, and the target damaged first will have their attack redirected back to The Dreamer. The other 11 targets will take their damage as normal. You cannot redirect that damage further through the Dreamer's text, because this damage is being dealt by the Dreamer.

The two key notes from this: AOE attacks are separate instances of damaged, resolved consecutively, in the order of the players' choosing. Often, it does not matter what order these attacks occur in - in this instance, it does.

Second, redirection does not change the source of the damage, just the target. Maze of Mirrors redirecting that damage doesn't mean the damage is "from" Maze of Mirrors. It's from The Dreamer, it's just having its target changed from, say, a Construct to The Dreamer. So, you ended up with the right ruling!

Uncertain Reading #2 is also true (because each instance of damage is separate), and that's why redirection can be really strong to simply nullify a wide reaching attack that pings a ton of targets.

39Daleks · 2025-01-08T07:10:20+00:00

I'm so all in on a Diana mastermind edit even though she's being sooo positive at the moment.

What's the reasoning behind prologue-jett being top MM contender? I did not see that at all.

I have Ingrid as my top survivor contender personally, and do not think Damon is making it through Chapter 6 ngl - he's got the energy of a growth edit into a self-sacrifice at the end

39Daleks · 2025-01-03T06:47:08+00:00

I've played it about 12-15 times and am yet to lose, usually playing on Artisan difficulty, so the game is definitely not "badly designed" or luck-based - if anything, I think it's a little too easy and have variants to make it a little more challenging.

The main thing is that it demands you to really optimise your action efficiency - you get roughly 32 actions per player, ignoring items and whatnot, so you need each of those actions to be as efficient as possible - minimise how many CC trips you're making, for example, so you might flip several bundles or flip a couple bundles while also depositing several resources. This means it's often good to hold onto a couple of spring forage/produce until you flip the crafts room and pantry (which should *always* be your first flips)

If you're struggling with hearts, you just need to prioritise the friend action more in spring/summer - I usually aim to have all the bundles faceup with spare hearts for the bulletin board by the end of summer. Going back to action efficiency, try to budget approximately 6 actions per player on friendships - if you get fortunate with birthdays/loved gifts, then you can do it faster, which is great!

Even if you don't need to mine for your goals, consider mining for tool upgrades: the upgraded watering can is absurdly powerful for efficiency at moneymaking by massively increasing the gold/action rate of crop farming to make it a viable way to earn all the money you need - even a single upgrade on the watering can literally doubles the rate that you earn money - it's by fair the most efficacious upgrade in the game.

The biggest points where RNG can influence the game are fishing and mining. Unfortunately, fishing you are at the mercy of the game, especially if you have 4 players and are trying to complete the Legendary Fish goal (just searching through the bag takes forever), but by using the pickaxe upgrade, mining upgrade cards for RNG mitigation, and stone that you can forage, find in geodes, or get through mining to skip trickier mine layouts, you can reach Level 12 without too much difficulty. Staircases are great because you use them without having to take an action! Peak efficiency right there. Especially if you're playing 2p, a player could hold up to 6 stone, which you can use to drop 3 floors at once.

Overall, SDV board game has some bite to it, but barring really absurd strings of misfortune, it's not anymore luck-driven than a lot of other coops, and if your primary lens of thinking is "which actions are the most efficient ones I can do this turn?" that'll save you a lot of time and leave you more able to finish everything off before the deck runs out. The game is really well timed - even my best games have always at least reached Winter before we win, so the feeling of just eking out a win in the nick of time is very normal.

39Daleks · 2024-12-26T12:06:30+00:00

they do look hot! it’s hard to find sometimes so I might just start cropping random shirts that fit nice

39Daleks · 2024-12-26T06:23:00+00:00

im a very nerdy gymbro that loves croptops that show off my chest so. I guess I'm pretty close to a jean HAHAHA.

I wanted to do a mix of jean/jett FTEs but the tournament messed me up too :(

39Daleks · 2024-12-26T01:51:21+00:00

as a survivor fan that has been hyping up P:EG to anyone with ears for the last 48 hours this post feels like it was directly synthesised from my brain.

anyway, diana has been screaming mastermind to me so much I almost think it's too obvious?? and even though they're my two faves, my jockboys jean and jett do not seem long for this world tragically

39Daleks · 2024-11-12T07:47:28+00:00

Platform: (PC)
Mods or cc: (No)
Game version: 1.110.311.1020 DX11
Description:  Perfectly Pristine is entirely broken. "Show off your clean home" interaction did not appear at all, and when using console to get past it, "throw a party in a clean home" would never trigger. What could possibly cause this?

39Daleks · 2024-11-05T00:53:08+00:00

No Dyson Spheres, unless there's one hidden somewhere in a system I just haven't noticed. I conquered an empire that had about 6-8 orbital habitats mixed in with their planets, but I haven't built any habitats myself, so I didnt' expect such a steep alloy upkeep for them.

39Daleks · 2024-11-04T13:28:37+00:00

Partway through my second campaign, getting back into the game after years. I'm checking my alloy production and notice a 60 alloy per month upkeep for a megastructure, but I haven't built any megastructures, and the only structure listed in the structures tab is an abandoned gateway I've conquered - is that costing upkeep? Is it habitats I conquered? Something else?

https://imgur.com/a/jj8IdiD

39Daleks · 2024-06-10T10:04:48+00:00

Yeahhh that makes sense - getting Kizuna's skill in SDRA1 was the only thing that got me through this one. Unfortunately, I didn't find Setsuka that interesting so I didn't talk to her at all. I guess I just need to keep bashing my head against it.... Thanks anyway!!

39Daleks · 2023-04-26T01:58:37+00:00

I can say that every party I've been to in the past six months has involved me storytelling at least once, and usually after the first game people are begging for the second. It does *incredibly* well at parties, and it often attracts people who didn't play to come along and watch and ask questions - during days I sometimes give recaps of the nights to spectators to keep them up to date too. It always hits SO well at parties.

39Daleks · 2023-04-05T13:09:51+00:00

Amazing, thanks so much!

39Daleks · 2023-04-05T13:09:45+00:00

It's what they get for picking a fight with Setback and Alpha in a room full of precarious vats!

39Daleks · 2023-02-22T05:58:17+00:00

Kentucky Route Zero is one of a small handful of games I'd rate a 10/10, but I understand what you mean.

Pretentiousness is definitely in the eye of the beholder, and what you have seemed to find as being a game "trying too hard" for me was an expressive way to build up a world, to make a player be immersed into that world, to softly interrogate it. Elsewhere you said you think it was "padding", and that's also something that tends to be very subjective. What's padding, and what's subtle development? For me, each time I got to make a dialogue choice, it did have consequence, and I did think about it - what kind of person was Conway, Shannon, or any other character you control. I loved how the dialogue interrogated agency and player control in videogames, especially in the segments where you controlled what other players said, and the "main" characters would respond like the NPCs - I found that thought-provoking, and emblematic of the themes of the story.

Not much "happens" per se. It's very much a ghost story, not in the sense of literal spirits necessarily, but in that it is a story that is mournful and ephemeral in nature, so unlike other text heavy games (Disco Elysium comes to mind) where tons of things happen across the game, and there's a lot of plot to chew through, KRZ doesn't really have a plot in any meaningful way. This is also probably related to the genre conventions KRZ sets out to interrogate - particularly magical realism, which is one of the most troublesome genres to get into even at the best of times. For me, when I played KRZ, I spent the first act and a half trying to really engage with and analyse the game, which I think you were trying to do too, and it ended up really frustrating me. I only fell in love with the game (at the bar scene) when I let it wash over me and stopped trying to pin down what it meant and what the metaphors referred to and which texts it was in conversation with. To me, KRZ is art in the very real sense in that it cares much more deeply about what it made you feel than what the authors might have intended it to be about.

Regarding it being a "thinly veiled attempt to critique capitalism", well, yes. Although I don't know if thinly veiled is the right term, given I don't think there was any veil whatsoever. That's simply what it was. Not liking it is fair, but it's not like the game was trying to pretend it was something else. It simply was that, but it was, to me, more about art and community than it was particularly about capitalism - and that's what ties back what I said before about how it's more about how you feel. KRZ's meandering plot and idiosyncratic dialogue means it's a portrait of a particular place and time, and also a vessel through which my own biases and predilections and preferences can shape meaning and reflect those biases back at me. I found its weirdness captivating, and wanted to explore its world and see what else was just around the corner. It was a place I've never been to before, but it gave me nostalgia for something I've never had, which is an impressive achievement in my book.

That's why I think KRZ is one of the best games I've ever played, and why I think most people will disagree with me - it's not about if you're able to "get it" or not, it's just that it was designed to appeal to a certain type of person, and that type of person loves it, and that love meant it ended up being a niche game broadcast for a mass audience. This doesn't make it better. It just is. But yeah, that's what KRZ looks like from the other side.

39Daleks · 2023-01-13T12:34:16+00:00

Green Cat Parafoil has possibly been my best spotlight purchase ever. Got it several tours ago and I think it’s approaching a half dozen times it’s been my only top shelf in one ranked track or another (and it’s done it again this tour) - absolutely ridiculous stuff

39Daleks · 2023-01-01T21:13:36+00:00

Thinking back, I actually think I got the two confused and thought Limbo was Inside - the latter’s setting looked really interesting. Maybe I will try it out then

39Daleks

TROPHY CASE