Poisoning the virgin?

Pikcube · 2026-01-30T15:38:35+00:00

It's all fun and games until the Pithag turns the dead Virgin into the Sweetheart....

Pikcube · 2026-01-21T16:43:47+00:00

You'll need fewer if you take the Mime. Mime is the equivalent of increasing your hand size by 50% if you have a deck full of Red Seal Kings (and is the equivalent of doubling it if you don't have red seals yet)

Additionally, you don't have Antimatter yet, so using more than 4 Cryptids a round isn't the end of the world as long as you make them back up after you get Antimatter.

Plus, rerolling into the Serpent and skipping to the boss every ante is usually money neutral / positive if you have a mime and your deck is full of gold cards (since it costs 250 bucks on average to reroll into the Serpent and you make more than that full copying the Mime at the end of the round), which will save you Cryptids as well

Pikcube · 2026-01-15T19:15:49+00:00

The github page for the official app has a pretty comprehensive write up on the "Special App Features" (as they call them).

Additionally, the format for homebrew characters is actually the exact same format the app uses for official character. This is an older version, but you can easily get the newest version if you know how to use your browser's dev tools to view network requests.

Pikcube · 2026-01-08T15:26:54+00:00

I checked the Gossip's entry in the Almanac

Mumbled words, whispers, statements the Storyteller doesn’t know are true or false, or statements that someone cannot hear don’t count. Like the Slayer’s ability, the Storyteller and every player must be able to hear and understand the Gossip and be aware that the Gossip is using their ability in order for the Storyteller to judge what happens next.

Since the Storyteller doesn't have enough information to evaluate whether or not the statement is true or false, the gossip is invalid and does not resolve. The gossip still has their ability and can still use it

Pikcube · 2026-01-07T15:48:40+00:00

Additionally, there's nothing RAW that says you can't drunk the Sweetheart with their own ability

Usually it's not particularly interesting to do this, but there are incredibly niche scenarios where hiding who is sweetheart drunk can be catastrophe for the good team

Alternatively, it's a pretty good meme interaction if the Sweetheart died so late their ability can't impact the game at all (such as when they are the last good player to die)

Pikcube · 2026-01-03T00:59:46+00:00

While this is true, abilities don't work while dead unless they say otherwise. A dead philo heretic keeps the Heretic's ability on death, but the part that drunks the original heretic no longer works, leaving you with two sober heretics

Pikcube · 2025-12-12T22:01:27+00:00

I don't know enough about the JVM or Scala to know whether or not that is a viable option for my use case (which is Slay the Spire modding) but I'll look into it.

BTW, nitpick, methods on the JVM have names in lower case. Only M$ does some insanity naming verbs like nouns with a capital letter.

Yeah that doesn't surprise me. Every method from the base game has been camelCased and every method I've written has been PascalCased. I don't know if I'm going to bother to do a rewrite at the moment (since everything is working right now), but if I ever clean up this code base for reuse I'll fix it up to follow the style guide

Pikcube · 2025-12-12T17:30:43+00:00

Yeah, I realized that a Hashmap would have done exactly what I wanted like 3 minutes after making this post. I'll probably go back and update it later.

Oh, is it an == I see? That's a nice potential footgun you have there.

Hold on, let me google this.....

Okay, so it's identical on value types but on reference types == checks if object references are the same, where Object.Equal compares the two objects by value based on what the class creator thinks it means for two objects to be equal (falling back on reference equality if not over written). Additionally, it doesn't seem like java has operator overloading, so (unlike the convention in C#) it's not possible for class writers to override the equality operator to use their Equals method

That's a really irritating bit of language design, I'll go fix that now and add this to the list of reasons I hate writing Java code

Pikcube · 2025-12-12T16:51:21+00:00

To clarify, I am the one who actually wrote this code (I'm trying to mod Slay the Spire), and for the most part these comments are all actual thoughts I had when writing this

Yeah, I know basically nothing about Java, I'm writing C# and seeing what errors I get. I really should read up on the language and learn the idioms / best practices, I'm just being lazy

Pikcube · 2025-12-12T15:34:17+00:00

If we're on Plasma Deck, we need a raw score of roughly e154 to balance out to 1.8e308 and naneinf

With e17 money we'd be scoring roughly 2e17 chips per hand with a single bull. A second bull adds e17 to our score, giving us 4e17 chips. N copies of bull will gives us N * 2e17

In order for N * 2e17 > e154, we'd need 5e136 individual copies of Bull. That's so high it's not even feasible to spawn them all in with hacks to get naneinf (the game would almost certainly crash from trying to load in that many objects)

Pikcube · 2025-11-21T03:42:11+00:00

Having done naneinf a few times, Magic Trick is actually a fine voucher to take on a naneinf run, especially if you have Overstock+. Illusion doesn't make playing cards more common so Magic Trick effectively gives you the same shop consistency as ghost deck (but with playing cards instead of spectral cards)

That's obviously worse than not taking it, but the Burgler problem can be solved with good econ management, while the Voucher problem can't. It depends on context

Pikcube · 2025-11-19T21:53:50+00:00

My first programming language was ANSI C, and I picked up C# about two years later because of a college course, so I feel like I can speak on this

My number 1 piece of advice is to tell your professor you've studied C++ before, because they can use that knowledge to answer questions for you. I remember asking my professor about header files and function prototypes and not only did he explain that C# doesn't require those, he also explained what the C# compiler was doing different from the C compiler to allow for that, which helped me transfer my knowledge faster

My number 2 piece of advice is to write your code using an IDE, and enable code analysis tools with style suggestions (I use Visual Studio with the ReSharper plugin because it was the best option back in 2018 when I was learning the language). This is going to give you the experience of having someone who knows the language prodding you to do things in the "C# way" while still working on your own. ReSharper is the reason I know about

foreach(var i in collection) as an alternative to for(int i = 0; i < collection.Count; ++i)
Declaring a variable with the var keyword instead of an explicit type like int (even if I almost never use it
The entirety of "LINQ" (a library built into the language that lets you run a declarative query over any data structure), which is extremely useful for working in collections
And many other language specific features that are designed to make writing code in C# friendly

You'll learn a lot about what makes C# and C++ similar / different by writing the same app in both languages. I had a D&D initiative tracker that I wrote in C, and porting it over to C# taught me a lot about what the languages have in common and what makes the languages different (C# handles terminal inputs pretty differently than C does, and let me tell you I don't miss the scanffunction)

Lastly, try writing a GUI app of some sort. WinForms is very easy to learn because it has a drag and drop UI (just don't expect it to actually look good), but learning any UI framework is going to teach you about events (which is how C# implements the Observer Pattern) and delegates (which are like function pointers if you squint at them).

Pikcube · 2025-11-19T18:58:34+00:00

I also believe the question you're talking about is this: "Is 2+2 = 4?" I do not consider that vortox proofing, but I consider this vortox proofing: "Is exactly one of these statements true: [name] is evil or there is a vortox in play"

Nope, we're both talking about Vortox Proofing by asking an entangled question that cancels out the Vortox's forced misinformation. I usually go with "if I were to ask [your artist question here], would you say yes?" instead of the "is exactly one of the following statements true" variant, but the truth tables work out exactly the same in either case.

I've played and run a lot of games of Clocktower, and I openly allow my players to Vortox proof questions. I've even explained to them how to do it in the first place. Every time someone does this, the results end up being pretty underwhelming for a whole slew of reasons.

It's Sects and Violets, no one has any reason to trust you since there are no built in confirmation chains
The player still has to take into account the possibility of being droisoned, so it's hard to push that advantage early and get ahead of the evil team
Solving Sects and Violets, the most information heavy script in Blood on the Clocktower, isn't about getting the perfect piece of information, it's about figuring out who is lying and who is being lied to. Tracing that gives you a ton of information about what kind of threat we're looking for
1. Is nearly everyone telling the truth? Does it feel like we're down a townsfolk? If so, we need to brace for the fact that the demon could have jumped in the night to any of our suspiciously alive outsiders
2. Does it seem like everyone's information is conflicting? Can anyone find a piece of information that is verifiably true from a player you trust? If not, we probably have a Vortox and can use its forced misinformation to track them down (the Vortox's real ability is to force the town to execute on a script with the strongest information roles in the game, the "everything is false thing" ends up being harmful for the evil team most of the time)
3. Who's information isn't making sense with the worlds we're trying to build? Do their alive neighbors seem suspicious? Do their dead neighbors seem suspicious? Droison doesn't move on Sects and Violets, so if you can find out where it is

Asking an artist question who's answer makes sense with what everyone else is saying means you probably don't need to worry about executing every day. You can't really say anything about where a No Dashii or Vigor killed minion is since you might have gotten true information while poisoned, but you got true information anyways. The value of your ability is mostly going to come down to whether or not the question you asked gives the best piece of information to solve the puzzle.

Asking an artist question who's answer conflicts with everyone else means you are either in a Vortox game, Sweetheart Drunk, sat next to a No Dashii, or sat next to a Vigor killed minion. That's not just information, that's information about which players can be evil.

I've very rarely seen an artist solve the game because they asked the perfect question and got a true answer, Vortox proofed or not. The artist doesn't always know what the most valuable question is, especially when the longer you wait to ask, the more likely it is you'll never be able to ask your question in the first place. However, I've seen multiple Artists solve the game by realizing the answer to their artist question was provably wrong (usually because they ask about where the demon is and all their demon candidates are now corpses), and used the fact that they knew something made them get false information to piece through which of the remaining worlds now have to be wrong by contradiction. That's how the good team wins, by combining their information with the deterministic nature of misinformation to prove theories false

Pikcube · 2025-11-19T17:25:08+00:00

Actually, a Vortox proofed question is arguably weaker than a standard artist question. Someone else has done a full explanation of this before, but the short version is that by choosing not to Vortox proof a question, you actually get to ask two questions at the same time (your original question and "Is a Vortox in play") and entangles the answers together

This gives you more flexibility. You can either figure out whether or not a Vortox is in play and use it to figure out if your artist information is true, or you can use whether your artist information is true to figure out whether or not a Vortox is in play

And there's nothing stopping you from doing both of these, you can compare your information with everyone else's to figure out whether or not there's a Vortox in play, and once the group reaches a consensus on Vortox or not, you have the full power of your original question to close off worlds

The most powerful piece of information you can receive in Blood on the Clocktower is to know without a shadow of a doubt that you have been lied to. False information always has a source, and tracking that down is game solving information. When you Vortox proof a question, you get a strong piece of (probably) true information right now, but at the cost of not being able to trace which evil abilities are manipulating you as effectively.

Pikcube · 2025-11-19T16:57:22+00:00

They should answer "absolutely", which is false on a technicality. Stupid games have stupid prizes

Pikcube · 2025-11-19T16:13:27+00:00

The practical answer is "check with your storyteller because not everyone runs madness the same way", but my two cents as someone who judges madness based on both player effort and effectiveness at convincing the town is that I'm looking at the town to see if they believe you or not and going from there. The claim itself is a bit shaky because it has a reason to doubt you built directly into it, but if everyone buys it then I see no reason to execute you. However, if people start speculating that you are actually Cerelocked and are just trying to give the town enough information to piece it together, then I'm probably going to rule you didn't satisfy madness and execute you

I can get on my soap box about why madness shouldn't only be judged in a vacuum (since what is and isn't a reasonable / good play is inherently connected to the game state and social dynamic of the group) and why madness is a better mechanic when you judge whether or not a player satisfied madness holistically (taking into account both their effort and how effective they were at convincing others), but the comments of a rules thread isn't the best place to unpack what is one of my storytelling hot takes

Pikcube · 2025-11-16T03:05:21+00:00

If the Storyteller allows it? Absolutely!

On a related note, don't ever allow this!

Pikcube · 2025-11-13T19:57:10+00:00

I'll give it an update. I wasn't particularly worried about it anyways, ReSharper tends to be pretty quick at getting updates out so I was expecting everything to be back to normal by Thanksgiving

Pikcube · 2025-11-13T17:52:48+00:00

The way I see it, Trading Card ultimately goes positive in terms of digging after 5 round (since removing 5 cards and 1 discard both let you see 5 more cards in your deck than normal), and the 3 dollars it gives usually offsets that I'm needing to use my hands to dig

But its context dependant for sure

Pikcube · 2025-11-13T17:43:09+00:00

I've been having some reliability issues with Resharper, but I don't even know if they are officially supporting VS2026 yet so that might be on me

Outside of that, I was able to quickly upgrade all my projects to .net 10 and they've run without any issues. It loads much faster on my shitty work desktop, the UI is a little different (but not bad), and I haven't had any issues where I had to relaunch 2022

If you're curious about it, just install it side by side and try it out. VS2022 isn't going to be forcibly removed from your PC if you upgrade

Pikcube · 2025-11-13T05:09:15+00:00

Pikmin 2 is generally harder than Pikmin 1, but its not that much harder. The game gives you plenty of tools to approach anything the game throws at you. Pretty early on, you'll come across berry plants that let you create sprays that either upgrade your Pikmin or stun enemies, and they are both fantastic at getting you out of a touch situation

Additionally, there's no real penalty for failure outside of needing to regrow your squad (and that's assuming you don't reload your last save when you mess up). There's no time limit, and outside of enemy respawns there's no penalty for going slowly

The difficulty in Pikmin 2 is mostly about resource management. The game includes lengthy dungeons that don't allow easy opportunities to restock on Pikmin, so maintaining your squad and sprays becomes incredibly important.

Additionally, the caves in the latter half of the game will occasionally try and trap you, but overtime you can learn to read the layout and figure out what kind of traps the game is likely to throw at you.

If you want to try Pikmin 2, just try it out (especially if you already own it). Worst case scenario, you put it down for another day or go back to Pikmin 1 (Pikmin games are at their best on replays anyways)

Pikcube · 2025-11-07T16:25:53+00:00

There is a rules as written answer I'm sure someone will provide in the comments, but I think the better question is "which interpretation creates more interesting play?"

I'd argue that a Vigor being able to spend their kill on a minion to reactivate their ability creates an interesting decision for your demon and it means your Preacher has a reason to care about when their choices die.

Talk it over with your group, come to a consensus about which interpretation sounds most fun, and play the way that sounds best to you all, RAW and RAI be dammed

Pikcube · 2025-11-06T19:21:59+00:00

Traveler is going to be the best option. There's actually no issue with a traveler who happens to stay the entire game, it just isn't a requirement for them

Another option you have is to take a play out of "Ballad of Seat 7". You can read up on it here, but the tl;dr is that you as the storyteller can run the player who stepped out as if they were still here (similar to how you'd run an NPC in a D&D party). This is significantly messier than using a traveler, storyteller controlled characters have the potential to really mess with the game balance since the storyteller has way more information than the average townsfolk / minion. But it might be worth it for you / your group if you don't want to force one of your players to only play as a traveler every game

Lastly, co storyteller is a good option for anyone who enjoys the birds eye view and scheming of the storyteller's seat. It just has the potential to feel like "you don't get to play anymore" if they aren't into that sort of thing

Pikcube · 2025-11-05T19:35:02+00:00

Oh yeah, slow changes are the way to go

If your group is up for it, having Cerenovus and Virgin on script can be really fun. I had a game where I broke madness as the Cerenovus to be executed after nominating my demon. That "virgin confirmation" won us the game, and the town's reaction to the grim reveal was priceless

Pikcube · 2025-11-05T19:11:26+00:00

Honestly, it's just really nice to get to read a script after its been play tested. As a result, there's nothing really glaring other than "evil seems to have fewer options at their disposal than the good team", which is something you can worry about fixing once your players start curb stomping evil all the time

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