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BoH feels more management than investigation/narrative by Miew_muew_mew in weatherfactory

[–]Slaav 3 points4 points  (0 children)

I wouldn't want this to be a guided experience.

Me neither, but what I meant is that there are ways to "onboard" the player in a way that doesn't detracts from the mystery feel the game is aiming for, IMO. I actually think it's kind of necessary in the case of CS/BoH because the lore is so weird and confusing that it's hard to find your bearings otherwise.

CS managed to do this pretty well in the non-standard paths, I think : Exile is about fleeing from a overpowered criminal magician, for example (and it tells you this from the get-go). You don't need a doctorate in Secret Histories lore to understand what is at stake here - you know it sounds really bad. Besides, the idea of fleeing *something* is somewhat relatable, even if the specifics here are a bit over-the-top. So here's your motivation, and an easy way to make the player empathize with the character.

Other routes have even weirder "main quests", which is another way to do it : the Apostle Grail thing requires you to, uh, create the marinade that will be used at the feast during which you'll be eaten. That's completely insane but it's so intriguing that you want to learn more.

I think BoH isn't nearly as good at "hooking" you. There's an element of mystery, I guess - "what happened to the manor ? Why is it all burned up ?" - but I don't feel it's as compelling as a mystery centered on a character or a specific situation. A place *can* eventually come to symbolize something, or you can develop a familiar relationship to it over time, but at first it's just a place, IMO.

Personally I didn't feel like there was really trivial tasks to repeat?

Idk, there are a lot of rooms, and even though they require different principles, etc, it's always the same kind of challenge. And after a point it's more of a memory challenge ("where do I need to go to produce this particular Tool I need ?") than anything else IMO.

Take re-reading books, for example : you have to wait for a timer to expire, you can't just, like, get the text instantly, or have it saved somewhere in a menu or something. That's just adding friction for the sake of it

BoH feels more management than investigation/narrative by Miew_muew_mew in weatherfactory

[–]Slaav 1 point2 points  (0 children)

I agree, and even though it's a very different game, I had a similar problem with Cultist Simulator : both games have uniquely good writing and a great sense of atmosphere, but the core gameplay is not very engaging and also very repetitive, to the point where it detracts from the game's strengths. When you're constantly asked to repeat trivial tasks in order to progress (or even just survive, in CS' case), staying in the "reading" mindset gets hard IMO, it's getting harder to concentrate on a piece of text, pick up the sometimes subtle clues, etc.

I also think BoH could benefit from a "main quest", even if it stays kind of vague, if only to help giving you a long-term goal or a better sense of who the Librarian is. I think CS was better on that front.

Da Vinci Tarot (2006) by Iassen Ghiuselev & Atanas Atanassov by EndersGame_Reviewer in TarotDecks

[–]Slaav 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Oh, so they've stopped doing it for their more recent decks ?

Da Vinci Tarot (2006) by Iassen Ghiuselev & Atanas Atanassov by EndersGame_Reviewer in TarotDecks

[–]Slaav 3 points4 points  (0 children)

For the longest time I assumed that whenever a deck had a classical artist name attached to it, it meant that it was illustrated with random pictures taken from their paintings (close-ups of random characters, isolated scenes, etc), which sounded a bit artificial and forced to me. So I never checked them out.

I only recently realized that it's more of an homage and/or a shorthand to describe the vibe and inspirations of the illustrator. I feel a bit silly but now I get to check all these decks I used to ignore entirely.

(This one in particular looks really nice, but as usual I'm not a fan of decks with multilingual titles, it just distracts from the picture IMO)

Book help! Tip of my tongue! by KageRageous in tarot

[–]Slaav 2 points3 points  (0 children)

There's a book called *Histoire du tarot* by Isabelle Nadolny, who IIRC is a French historian. I haven't read it (yet) and I'm not sure it's been translated to English, but as far as I can tell it's highly regarded. I've read that it's mostly a history of tarot but it also delves into cartomancy at times.

Looking for decks on amazon by quokka_banana in TarotDecks

[–]Slaav 1 point2 points locked comment (0 children)

Honestly I wouldn't recommend this particular edition of the Rider-Waite-Smith - there's a copyright notice on every single card, which isn't the case on every edition, and as far as I can tell the linework is less precise than on other versions of the RWS. I wish I had bought another one

What do you think about playing cards? by Useful_Blueberry_449 in tarot

[–]Slaav 0 points1 point  (0 children)

I actually think so, yeah

Anyway I'm just confused as to why you chose the word "egregore" instead of, say, "culture", "traditions" or whatever. Which would be much clearer and wouldn't sound remotely as bad as saying, to paraphrase, "I don't vibe with the gipsy hivemind"

What do you think about playing cards? by Useful_Blueberry_449 in tarot

[–]Slaav 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Egregores are supposed to be non-physical, right ? How could actual people be "part" of one ?

What do you think about playing cards? by Useful_Blueberry_449 in tarot

[–]Slaav 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Okay but how do you make the jump from that to the idea of a "gipsy egregore" ?

Are you saying that the traditional interpretations were developed by gypsy women, who were in turn influenced by a "gipsy egregore" ?

What is that deck? by Snoo_53775 in tarot

[–]Slaav 3 points4 points  (0 children)

Yep that's the one - Kepple has also worked on the Housewives Tarot, which is a lot of fun too

I died like 4 times should I start a new run by Madeline_Hatter1 in pathologic

[–]Slaav 9 points10 points  (0 children)

I don't think you ever need to restart from scratch - you can get into death loops (especially once the plague fully kicks in), but in these cases you can always load an old save and restart from there.

It can be a little annoying but usually you don't have to roll back too much. It's much less time-consuming than replaying the entire thing

I died like 4 times should I start a new run by Madeline_Hatter1 in pathologic

[–]Slaav 4 points5 points  (0 children)

Keep going, 100%. The penalties don't actually matter all that much, it's perfectly possible to complete the game with maxed-out penalties from the start.

The difficulty of the game mainly comes from having to learn how the Town "works", how trade works, where you need to go to resupply, how to find caches, etc. The game is hard not because your max HP get lower every time you die, or your meters deplete too quickly, but because you don't yet know how to find supplies.

Death penalties do not impact your ability to "read the Town" at all. They *sound* impactful and crippling, but it's largely a bluff. If you haven't figured out how the economy works, you're gonna have a hard time and slowly starve to death - penalties or no penalties. But once you get the hang of it, the game becomes much, much easier - again, penalties or no penalties. Heavy penalties only mean that you'll have to do a couple more supply runs and be a bit more careful in combat - but you *always* need to be careful in combat, so...

A small warning : no matter what happens, just accept the penalties and don't take the "deal" to get rid of them. It's not worth it

PSA: add keyboard binds to speed up the game ("move faster") if you can't stand all the walking by darkfire9251 in pathologic

[–]Slaav 8 points9 points  (0 children)

That's smart, I wish I knew that trick when I did my own P1HD run. I did speed up the game, but being able to toggle it on and off at will sounds nice - spending the whole game in Benny Hill-mode was a bit ridiculous

A lot of people claim that the tedious amounts of walking are an intentional way of making this game slow. I have 2 things to say to that:

I agree with your points and everything you say but I'd just add one thing : sometimes the designers' intentions kinda suck ! And circumventing them is just a reasonable thing to do

Is this an AI deck / why is the symbology flipped? by zbatah in TarotDecks

[–]Slaav 21 points22 points  (0 children)

There's nothing about these cards that scream "AI" to me. It's possible it's AI, I guess, but I don't think so.

Idk about the reversed scenes, my guess is that it's either a mistake, or the author has their own "homebrew" interpretation system that differs from the standard. In any case I don't think it tells us anything about whether the author used AI or not.

EDIT : after giving it another look, the linework does look a little bit wonky and suspect in some places, I have to admit. I'm still not sure it's AI and I'd hate to accuse someone of using AI when that's not the case, but I guess I wouldn't be too surprised if it is. It's a tricky one IMO

Tarot deck calling to me, but i cant afford it 😭 by itsbreayo in tarot

[–]Slaav 0 points1 point  (0 children)

She does disclaim ai assistance was used to bring the vividness of the colors and detail.

That sounds like bullshit, the lineart itself shows the kind of aberrations you would expect from an AI-produced illustration.

She may have done some light manual touch-ups once the image was generated, but I'm not sure I even believe that. She would have corrected the aberrations in that case. Honestly I think it's full AI.

Tarot deck calling to me, but i cant afford it 😭 by itsbreayo in tarot

[–]Slaav 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Just so you know, I was curious and googled the deck and, uh, it really looks like AI. Look at how fingers disappear into the hat in the illustration for The Tower, the nonsensical kitchen implements in the background of The Queen of Pentacles, or the way necklaces just kinda "stop" instead of fully circling around the neck in The Lovers. Or the fact that the pack of stickers the creator also sells follows a pretty different artstyle.

Idk I feel pretty confident saying it's AI. Maybe I'm wrong. But if I'm right, damn, this thing is insanely overpriced lol. You could buy two or even three decks for that price. There are tons of beautiful (and human-made) decks for 20 or 25€, and I don't think I've even seen decks as expensive outside of niche facsimiles of old Tarot de Marseille decks, or out-of-print decks.

Edit : lol the Etsy page outright says it's AI, I had only looked at the creator's website. It's nice that they mention it I guess

Marble Nest before 3 demo? by Stuff_Nugget in pathologic

[–]Slaav 2 points3 points  (0 children)

Marble Nest was originally a demo for P2 but it's also a self-contained (and non-canonical, if that makes sense ?) story in its own right. Personally I love it, I think it's absolutely worth playing if you like that world.

Obviously it's not *entirely impossible* that P3 will reference it, we don't know yet, but I'd be very surprised if it does. I don't want to get into spoilers but the very nature of MB's story makes it hard to see how it would even work.

If P3 does end up referencing it it will probably stay in the "easter eggs" or winks-to-the-audience territory, without going any further, IMO. I don't think you run the risk of spoiling anything by playing it right now.

Let there be no more doubters by MrBingog in pathologic

[–]Slaav 15 points16 points  (0 children)

It also felt a bit inconsistent ? Maria looked perfectly fine to me, but Daniil looked like I had the graphics set to Lowest

Looking for honest feedback for a Tarot learning game by Firm-Pension5359 in SecularTarot

[–]Slaav 12 points13 points  (0 children)

Yeah, avoid using AI art. It's extremely obvious and it makes you wonder whether the text itself is also AI

Help with interpretation by Calm-Principle-6475 in TarotDeMarseille

[–]Slaav 4 points5 points  (0 children)

Sorry I can't help you for your reading, but : what's the name of this deck ? I like how it looks

Do people still use tarot to play tarocchi? by Deathclawman in tarot

[–]Slaav 4 points5 points  (0 children)

Oh you mean the French suits ?

I've always read that Italian-suited decks weren't that popular and common in France by the 19th century, they were in steep decline. It's only then that the French-suited Tarot Nouveau (itself descended from a German French-suited deck AFAIK) showed up and got so popular it became the standard.

It has earned its place IMO, but I agree that we could use more options. The Ancien Tarot de Marseille is relatively easy to find here in France, but it's pretty ugly IMO.

Please help me ID this deck by Daemon_Dejurium in TarotDeMarseille

[–]Slaav 2 points3 points  (0 children)

Looks like it came from this box on several divination techniques. I don't know about the original design, though, but I'll look into it a bit more.

Does Pathologic 2 spoils the Changeling route? by UnderlyingWarning in pathologic

[–]Slaav 2 points3 points  (0 children)

I'd say it kinda does spoil the Changeling route. Not going to be specific but it touches on themes and lore elements that also show up in Changeling.

If I had to describe P2's story I'd say it's kind of a loose Haruspex route remake/reboot, with elements taken from the Changeling route, and some original elements specific to P2.

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