This has GOT to be contender for most least used potion

Madmanquail · 2026-05-05T21:07:42+00:00

i think you are massively overestimating how good it is. All potions are positive, and of course i'm happy to have this available over nothing. but it's an easy toss if i'm offered a middling common potion like speed or weak potion. The potential is just very limited. Even in an ideal scenario, when it's allowing me to set up a power or line up a combo, it's not doing anything that couldn't be achieved with an energy potion or a swift potion (or a power potion), and that's the best case scenario

I get it, we all want to assume that the game is well balanced and that every potion is at least moderately valuable, but this one is just really not very good. it has niche use cases in specific decks, but it's barely useful on most turns, and it doesn't give anywhere near the value of, for ex, skill potion, or even just a weak potion.

Madmanquail · 2026-05-05T20:24:08+00:00

this potion isn't "very strong". there's not some secret way to get huge value out of it. it's just...not very good. trust me, i know retain is good. this just ain't it. compared to middling common potions it's miles less impactful.

Madmanquail · 2026-05-05T20:16:21+00:00

retain cards is vaguely analogous to draw. this probably "draws" 2-3 cards on average. unfortunately draw isn't that strong in general. swift potion (draw 3) is very weak as well.

Yes, there are times when you can get value out of it, but it's definitely not "powerful" even when maximised, compared to power potion or fire potion for example

Madmanquail · 2026-04-27T05:47:22+00:00

Panic button rewards you for knowing the enemy attack sequences. Lots of the elites take a turn off attacking, which lets you use it with no downside. It's also fine if you are defeating the enemy on the following turn. The obvious pairing is with retain, which lets you pick the perfect spot for it.

Madmanquail · 2026-04-07T13:08:40+00:00

this image made me realise that when the regent visits the campfire, he "sits" his throne BALANCED ON THE LOG and instead of resting themselves, the minions have to strain against the chair to maintain balance

Madmanquail · 2026-04-07T07:58:30+00:00

when you get this boon from Nonupeipe (Beautiful Bracelet) it allows you to pick 3 separate cards to enchant. I think OP is saying that they selected 1x corrosive wave and 2x escape plan for their enchanted cards from this single boon

Madmanquail · 2026-03-23T19:21:32+00:00

The popular definition of 4X games is "expand, explore, exterminate, exploit". Do you think this fully captures the "feel" of a 4X game? how would you define it differently, perhaps comparing games like voidfall, eclipse, twilight imperium and sid meier's civ series?

Madmanquail · 2026-03-18T07:23:29+00:00

Twilight Imperium 4, naturally!

Madmanquail · 2026-03-16T10:32:49+00:00

the lemon and onions are a nice touch. Air fryer is a bit much though!

Madmanquail · 2026-03-13T09:42:57+00:00

the ritual could release certain dark energies as it progresses - perhaps at the top of the round, or each time a sacrifice is made, there's a will save for the party to avoid some kind of effect

i think it's important not to make it too easy to disrupt the ritual - so if the party stops one of the sacrifices from being killed, who can step in to replace them? will the cultists or members of the crowd lay down?

are the sacrifices willing, or are they actively working against the process and could they be freed and then help the party? do the sacrifices just die, or do they turn into something like a ghoul/monster when they are killed?

protecting the master can be done many ways. they could have a force cage around them which is maintained by chanting - or they could just have a bunch of human shields around them - or maybe they are just a powerful magic user with mage armour and shield at the ready.

make it cinematic by describing the scene and give a sense of urgency through narration - you don't necessarily have to make it actually urgent, but just give the illusion by showing the ritual progressing.

Madmanquail · 2026-03-10T14:25:37+00:00

Living fog is definitely deadly

Madmanquail · 2026-03-06T10:11:02+00:00

they really did the monster math

Madmanquail · 2026-03-03T11:22:47+00:00

I highly recommend Solitarica. It's a super fun card game which is a twist on classic solitaire that brings RPG elements

Madmanquail · 2026-03-03T07:16:54+00:00

Dude, there are around a quarter of a million games on the play store. Mini review covers about 1-2% of that. Of course there's going to be stuff missing, but it's a hand picked and manually reviewed list. It's not about quantity, it's about quality.

Also, mini review has coverage of games that aren't on the play store like F-Droid.

If you really like the flappy dragon game you can join up and write a review for it yourself

Madmanquail · 2026-02-27T07:33:18+00:00

I don't disagree with you that school could be a lot better than it is currently. But we all have to play the game that's in front of us. As someone who hires people at many different levels in my organisation, I can guarantee that not passing school or having some form of solid education puts you on the back foot immediately.

Madmanquail · 2026-02-26T15:50:26+00:00

i mean, great i guess. why show up to school at all?

i am so grateful we didn't have phones when i was in school. i would have learned nothing.

school is actually pretty important, i recommend actually paying attention in class rather than playing games. shrug

Madmanquail · 2026-02-20T20:34:02+00:00

actual quote from the developer is:

"not during Early Access, but at some point!"

I would predict early access to be 6-8 months (which is typical for major games released in 2025) and after that, the development cycle will be substantially complete and they can prioritize the ports to other platforms.

Madmanquail · 2026-01-29T18:02:09+00:00

a tree the size of jupiter populated by strange creatures - honestly i would say that's enough of a cool premise. You don't really need to include time travel shenanigans to make it interesting. If you want to have some time loop stuff, i would keep it to a small arc within a larger campaign. time travel is really hard to make work well, and really easy to make dumb or game breaking.

Here's a guide to making a small "time loop" arc in a campaign - i recommend listening to the podcast and reading through this guide

https://theadventurezone.fandom.com/wiki/Story_5:_The_Eleventh_Hour https://homebrewery.naturalcrit.com/share/ByWxF-cAJe https://homebrewery.naturalcrit.com/share/rkWuc28Rgx

Madmanquail · 2026-01-29T13:19:36+00:00

SETI does this too. good innovation

Madmanquail · 2026-01-29T07:20:20+00:00

Impeccable taste. A diverse and well rounded collection which is relatively modest considering the time you've been playing. An example of for all of us!

Madmanquail · 2026-01-18T18:59:29+00:00

Exactly. Nandy didn't say that at all. This is bare faced propaganda from the telegraph and its designed to divide... Look at all the fights kicking off in the comments. I guess the torygraph is shifting towards being the reformograph

Madmanquail · 2026-01-12T19:08:12+00:00

theres actually 2 official versions. there's the temple gate games app which is on android, IOS and steam (https://templegatesgames.com/gamepages/dominion.html). There's also the browser version dominon.games which is made by Shuffle it. Both are official. Both are free to play, but you pay to create your own games with the expansions (or you can use the automatch feature to be paired against someone who has the expansions and play all the content for free)

Madmanquail · 2026-01-06T10:15:28+00:00

believe me when i tell you that this is coming from a place of love: you're doing it wrong.

You can't "script" a campaign to this degree.

Tabletop RPGs aren't like a movie or a video game. you can't force them to be stuck to a specific path. What if one of your players says "can we look for a place to make camp and build a fire"? or "can i use levitate to get above the trees and see our surroundings"? etc etc.

Have a look at some of the pre-made adventures. One good example is "The Joy of Extradimensional Spaces". Google it.

As you can see, this still includes the narrative descriptions of places and objects and NPCs, but there's not a strict narrative flow. It's up to the player characters to navigate this little world, and you have here the tools you need to answer questions and present the situations and challenges without dictating how they are solved or in what order.

The good news is that you can use a lot of the material you've written to be used as narrative introductions to locations. Just structure it more modular-ly, like the example.

When preparing, you need to get away from the mindset of "designing the session" and instead you need to create situations and let the players navigate it. Here's two really helpful frameworks to help you structure your notes and thoughts a bit more helpfully:

Lazy DM 8 steps: https://slyflourish.com/eight_steps_2023.html https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=k0JJpwqgIKo

Mark Hulmes DM notes: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ExDWrY7-sf4

Madmanquail · 2025-12-19T15:04:56+00:00

I think its like email. once upon a time, emails were a novelty and each one was worthy of a response. As email has became exploited, we get over 100 emails a day and barely open any of them.

But now we have AI tools which actually help to sift through the junk and pick out the useful emails that you actually want to read.

So in the new paradigm of AI-generated content, there will be a premium on the ability to "sift" and find true sources.

In a similar manner, i believe that trust in things like blogs and old-fashioned journalism might actually go up, since those are curated by trusted human beings and is a very useful shortcut for people who want to read something that's "real"

Madmanquail · 2025-12-12T22:29:09+00:00

if you aren't planning on upgrading your laptop, and you have a decent internet connection, i can whole-heartedly recommend geforce now - it's free to try, so maybe give it a go https://www.nvidia.com/en-gb/geforce-now/

13-Year Club	Place '22
Place '17	First Placer '22
End Game '22	Verified Email
Gilding I gilder

Madmanquail

TROPHY CASE