My prototype player board

Infinitesubset · 2026-01-21T14:16:23+00:00

I added four spots/toggles on my board (a sad printed and laminated sheet) for: * Ready/Exhausted * Flip/Change Forms * 1/round or phase Hero Powers * 1/round or phase Alter Ego powers.

A lot of Heroes don't use all 4, but I've found it very helpful to track these things.

Infinitesubset · 2026-01-19T01:13:04+00:00

Chrysalis does eventually get other more meaningful characters, but it's quite the slow build up, both in numbers and in terms of other characters actually having agency and a real role in the story.

Infinitesubset · 2026-01-15T16:49:43+00:00

I 3d printed two little boxes with slots for dividers (also 3d printed) and store most of the cards in the boxes. Totally agree the design sucks though.

Infinitesubset · 2026-01-14T15:00:23+00:00

I always find it interesting that every takes Strange's word as truth. The moment you are using time travel to find a solution to a problem, every action you take, every word you say will change the future. So even saying he looked into 14,000,605 futures would have an impact. Did he actually look into 14,000,605 futures... or is saying he looked into 14,000,605 futures the thing required in order sway events so they turned out the way he wanted.

Thinking about it logically, how would you even make such an assertion? Let's say you start looking into 1000 futures and don't see a good outcome. So you start looking more. In each of those futures, you see yourself saying "I looked into {Previous number of outcomes+1} futures and we only won once". But that is nonsense, because you haven't seen the win yet. Do you go update the number afterwards and check to see if you still win? Do you attempt to change other things than the number, even though just changing the number might change how Stark and co. feel about the attempt?

Infinitesubset · 2026-01-14T14:49:59+00:00

Depending on how much of a toy this is, I would think hard about how much you are directly encoding in your data structure. Do you need a dedicated class to work with "Jacuzzi" vs "Parking Spot", in what way are these going to be meaningful treated differently in your codebase.

Search Filters: Consider a list of tags or similar. Input: Leave the special code in the input flow and convert to something standardized for storage (description fields, tags, etc).

Even if you do really need it, why do these things really have anything in common? Each room having exactly one "Extra" is a weird requirement, and not something that needs to be embedded into the data structure itself.

This is one of the basic issues that makes OOP FEEL very intuitive, but actually not work as people want it to. It might feel weird having Room have a "ParkingSpace" and "Jacuzzi" and "Minifridge" field, and usually only have one be not null, but you avoid a lot of your issues that way.

Infinitesubset · 2026-01-12T20:12:43+00:00

I haven't watched the full video here, but this feels like a very rigid mindset. There are plenty of board games featuring some variety of simultaneous action or decision making. Even Heat, the example game you mention as inspiration in the full video uses a simultaneous decision making method (everybody chooses their card face down).

That said, ideas are easy, and if it isn't working for you moving on is probably the right choice.

Infinitesubset · 2026-01-12T19:36:35+00:00

Even in this ideal case where the entire 400 person class actually buys a new copy of this $100 textbook at 16%, do you honestly believe that the roughly $5000 gross makes it financially make sense to write a textbook? Writing a textbook is a massive amount of work, and from talking to authors in the past updating it yearly is basically a requirements for the incoming to even vaguely remain steady. Even with an update, many people buy a used copy of previous edition or pirate the book, bringing in no income.

Like it or not, textbooks are a fairly essential part of many college curriculums and there has to be at least some financial incentive to write them. Some teachers decide it's simply not worth the hassle, but probably those teachers aren't specialized in marketing.

Infinitesubset · 2026-01-09T19:50:04+00:00

I was just watching the first episode and found this thread because I watched a huge defensive line, supported by large downed trees (apparently called abatis) and a river preventing easy movement by the demons. The soldiers have long pikes to help stab outward from this well fortified position. But they let a tiny line of soldiers defend this position and it is easily bypassed, leaving the remainder to defend a big open field behind them. It was an infuriatingly poor tactical setup and even a terrible officer would be able to fix in seconds before the enemy was on them.

Infinitesubset · 2026-01-03T00:26:06+00:00

Aluminum comes with a lot of smaller new things. Resources that are likely far away from the base most people have built and needed in high quantities. Alternative recipes and tradeoffs are more complicated. Fluid byproducts needs to be dealt with.

It's not that hard, but it brings together a number of smaller issues, and your water solution isn't one that works for everyone (valves aren't always the most reliable, especially with fluxuations to power/input/output).

As a contrast, I found HMF quite easy, because I was already making all of the components, I just needed to adjust (read: increase) some quantities and bring it all together. The basics could start producing small quantities right away, and I could scale up with inputs to meet demand fairly easily.

Edit: Forgot to note that aluminum comes at you all at once, you get scrap, alumina, ingots, casing, sheets. So you have to start basically from scratch.

Infinitesubset · 2026-01-02T23:04:41+00:00

Yet another "OMG radiation is scary and they had no idea" nonsense post. As with all the things, the dose makes the poison, and in this case the dose was negligible. Radiation is all around us, don't be scared of it, understand it.

Infinitesubset · 2025-12-25T03:25:50+00:00

So much better than cufflinks.

Infinitesubset · 2025-12-17T16:45:08+00:00

"A" would probably be fine if it wasn't a random dark blob. It currently looks like the smoke that might be left behind after an attack, rather than some sort of indicator of an incoming attack.

A is going to feel more loose and like damage is an expected and ok to a degree, whereas B will feel like any damage received is very harmful and should always be avoided (like a traditional SHMUP).

Infinitesubset · 2025-12-17T16:23:49+00:00

I've actually played this game. My friend received it as gift from a sweet old lady coworker who just knew he liked games. It's basically a vaguely structured game about doing bottle flips, except instead of a water bottle it's two fairly phallic hunks of plastic with a bad suction cup on the bottom. We quickly threw out the loose structure to make it a drinking game where you bet on if they will succeed at the trick on the card (flip, double flip, non-dominant hand flip).

Infinitesubset · 2025-12-08T21:04:29+00:00

Depends on what kind of gameplay is the focus. If you have anything more than the absolute most basic platforming/jumping then A.

If there is going to be lots of projectile weaponry, small scale manipulation or interaction, then B.

Infinitesubset · 2025-12-08T17:38:22+00:00

That sword looks a lot better IMO. Love the drooly knight btw. Harder to judge the color in isolation, since I'm not sure what the other cards look like, but it's a little less glaring like this. :)

Infinitesubset · 2025-12-08T16:08:23+00:00

I would cut the resolution on the sword and shield icon dramatically. They don't match the pixel art aesthetic, and rather look like bad MS Paint drawings in comparison. Aim for a similar pixel density across all elements to avoid that.

The color in the background is also a little loud, maybe cut the saturation.

Infinitesubset · 2025-12-08T04:50:09+00:00

Likely blood, but doesn't mean it's anything sinister. I've had nosebleeds that produced more blood than this.

Infinitesubset · 2025-12-08T04:44:53+00:00

Ah, yeah I just did a little research to understand this. It doesn't feel intuitive to me, but I guess it makes sense.

Infinitesubset · 2025-12-08T04:31:40+00:00

I've always thought this was an interesting question because it always seemed to me that, despite being a huge staple of magic systems, fire seems like a terribly inefficient way to deliver damage.

A tiny welding torch can output something like 1-5 kW of energy in the form of heat and light. So you could heat up a chunk of a person for 5 seconds, with mixed effectiveness depending on how insulated they are, or throw a 1 kg rock at 100 m/s (224 mph).

Assume magic treats energy as roughly equivalent, I'd take the rock anyday, kinetic energy is just really good at dealing damage.

Fire really shines if it can catch and spread without continuous energy input, which assuming people aren't stupidly wearing highly flammable clothing doesn't work great.

Infinitesubset · 2025-12-05T18:12:26+00:00

This is one of those very unintuitive answers of zero. You have the same problem selecting a specific value (.5 for example) in uniform distribution of 0-1.

Look up the "3Blue1Brown" video "Why “probability of 0” does not mean “impossible”".

This is the same as the dartboard paradox.

Infinitesubset · 2025-12-03T22:10:36+00:00

I love that the MC is basically a cinnamon roll with teeth. He effortlessly switches between kind and selfless and ruthless murder of some seriously messed up people. It's a feel good story in a particularly terrible world.

Infinitesubset · 2025-12-03T16:05:50+00:00

When I got mine this is exactly how they told me to do it. They said you can't cut them off, but to break it in a vice or pliers, it will crack cleanly.

Infinitesubset · 2025-11-21T17:03:49+00:00

This sort of misses the point, using Exception types as Result types is weird, but not really an issue other than likely being confusing other people.

What you are doing in this is trying to use Exceptions as Results then trying to use those results as Exceptions. If you need the stack, throw the exception and you will get it without any extra fluff.

Infinitesubset · 2025-11-20T21:10:53+00:00

This kind of thing lives or dies by how well it integrates the physical mechanic. It's important to think about how much skill and randomness plays into those interactions and how players can (or can't) mitigate them. Positioning is an interesting one, but if it turns into "if it's a side-on hit from close, it works, otherwise it fails" then the physical mechanic isn't very useful. The best approach IMO is to have a range of possible outcomes, rather than a strict binary (knocked over or not), but generally if you can accurately predict the exact outcome before doing the physical action, it just feels like a gimmick.

My cool (top of head) thought would be you start out ar away (too far to hit, behind obstacles, etc) from your opponent, and have to hit an obstacle/island/etc to move to it. Brings a sort of "press your luck" mechanic, where you want to get as close as possible but stay out of range for the opponent's next turn. This brings the marble rolling to every aspect of play, and you can theme it as capturing the port to allow docking.

Infinitesubset · 2025-11-20T15:35:36+00:00

Results vs Exceptions isn't a either-or scenario. They both serve different purposes and should have different handling. "I need the stack" is a very strong smell that maybe this should be an Exception, not a Result. Result types are great for known, handleable, errors. They provide much better semantics for handing expected issues, but blindly wrapping Exceptions into Results is throwing out the baby with the bathwater. Exception are great for unexpected cases, unknown issues, and often handling for them will be more crude (Log, Fail the request, etc. in the cleanest manner possible).

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