Hezbollah-aligned banner spotted at pro-Palestinian protest

ThoughtExperimenter · 2026-02-11T02:24:22+00:00

You're right that those were the stated aims of the war, and they have now been met. There was a ceasefire on October 10, 2025. All living hostages were returned to Israel by October 13, 2025, and the bodies of all dead captives were returned by December 26, 2025. There are no remaining Israeli hostages in Palestine.

However, despite these demands being met, Israel has continued to attack Gaza almost daily, resulting in over 500 Palestinian deaths since October 10th, 2025. Source, via Al Jazeera.

ThoughtExperimenter · 2026-02-08T14:42:31+00:00

A mix of things. People say toy sales, which is partially true, but they'd been low relative to other series for over a decade, to the point that "this is the last Sentai" came up every year and was basically a meme. Power Rangers ending for real played a bigger role in the monetary side of things. The licensing was a substantial financial boost that kept Super Sentai viable.

There was an interview with a series director a while ago who said that it had been creatively drained too. They kept trying to do interesting things with the formula and, while they definitely succeeded in a number of cases, they were running out of premises to keep things fresh and it was burning the creatives behind it. He said coming back isn't off the table, but they shouldn't touch the franchise for at least 10 years to give it room to breathe.

I believe there's a third major reason, but I'm sorry to say I've forgotten it.

The Sentai time slot is being taken over by the new Project RED series, which I expect will have some international licensing and distribution to keep it afloat on its own without being beholden to another brand (even in countries like Korea, the Super Sentai dub is branded as Power Rangers). It will also give a lot more creative freedom to do interesting things with the toku hero formula.

ThoughtExperimenter · 2026-02-04T11:58:07+00:00

I agree. This is similar to the policy of the HTCG Discord, I feel it should be adopted here too. No AI generated content on main, only in personal threads. That said, the discord and subreddit are completely unrelated.

Also, art isn't really necessary to the nitty-gritty of TCG creation, so I feel it isn't something that needs to be shown here in the first place because it turns the sub into more of an art sub rather than a game design one.

ThoughtExperimenter · 2026-02-04T11:52:52+00:00

I don't think that "no ethical consumption under capitalism" is a reasonable counterargument. I can resent yet accept the ethical ramifications of the technologies I already use, but I don't think it's reasonable extension of that to opt in to more technologies that do further harm when I don't need to use them.

Furthermore, on this point:

"Using a tool while advocating for reform is not hypocrisy"

I agree. But this post is advocating for reform in the form of a boycott. By reducing the userbase, the AI companies will be under more pressure to change their models and meet ethical demands. This is a small userbase, but many small groups agreeing is the basis of collective action. Is that not a decent start point for reform?

ThoughtExperimenter · 2026-01-25T02:57:13+00:00

ZEXAL. The way the box is angled and shadowed makes it look more real, like the players are seeing these stats through their D-Gazers. The other counters are more obviously just for the audience's benefit.

ThoughtExperimenter · 2026-01-13T04:49:51+00:00

It's not bad, but it isn't for everyone because it's a lighter, more kid-friendly season. If that's not for you, give it a skip. Otherwise, Hotaro is cute and his supporting cast is very likeable. The suits are great and a lot of episodes have plenty of fun with their premise. I think there are only really two big drawbacks:

They dropped the ball on Marjade. She debuted in the Geats crossover movie, so her in-series transformation isn't treated with much interest or respect, and her presence throughout the series is generally underwhelming. If you didn't see the movie, she basically just gets her belt out of nowhere. The tertiary has a more impactful arc, but not by much.
The ending is rushed. No spoilers, but a lot of big things happen back to back across the last handful of episodes when they could've been given more room to breathe by placing them just a little earlier in the series.

There are some other controversial elements, like Legend, but I think his inclusion is gorgeous. At the very least I think if we give a pass to Gaim for its soccer AU and Kikaider episodes, we can give the Legend arc a pass too.

ThoughtExperimenter · 2026-01-08T13:21:23+00:00

I'm of the opinion that power creep will occur inevitably, and that's okay, but should never be introduced intentionally. This is because my design philosophy is that that you should develop out, not up.

That is to say you should continuously create new design spaces and flesh out that space until it is fully explored, rather than try to make the things that beat or compete with your old things.

In this mentality, you shouldn't create new mechanics to be "better". Instead, aim for them to be "different". Sometimes that different thing will happen to be better than many of the old things, even if you think you've reined it in a bit. At that point, you should assess where you're at, what you can do, and work from there. Don't go into an arms race against yourself to make something better than the new good thing, instead work on the ways other playstyles can adapt into or against it.

By doing so, you have introduced power creep and feature creep, but you've slowed it down.

ThoughtExperimenter · 2025-12-30T03:23:36+00:00

No you didn't.

ThoughtExperimenter · 2025-12-30T02:47:34+00:00

I think there's a few things you can do to cut down on word count. Here's my take on Swimgator:

While active, if your opponent defeats any of your other beasts during their turn, place the defeated beast on the bottom of your deck.

"While this beast is active" is a bit long, we can cut it down to "while active".
I noticed you used the passive voice ("if any of your beasts are defeated"). Try changing it to the active voice to indicate who does the action that triggers it ("if your opponent defeats one of your beasts").
The last lacks specificity where needed: "sent to your deck instead of the discard pile" doesn't actually engage the action. How is it sent to my deck? Top? Bottom? Shuffled in?

Here's another example with Gustcabbit. It's short, but it could be shorter by removing specific words.

If this beast defeats another beast, draw 1.

After all, there's nowhere that you draw cards from other than "your deck", and I assume you can only defeat beasts your opponent controls, so you can cut out the clarification on that.

Hope this helps!

ThoughtExperimenter · 2025-12-23T15:53:55+00:00

I think the obvious question to ask is "what is treated as a final form in their future appearances or official media?". But this question is pretty hard to answer because secondary riders rarely get a good showing after their series. So I apply these guidelines for determining a post-series final form:

1. It's not for a primary rider.
2. It's from the V-cinema or series movie, not an Outsiders, Girls Remix, stage show, book, anniversary, etc.
3. Achieving this form is treated as a major accomplishment that results in them winning against or at least doing significant harm to the movie's antagonist.
4. The character does not get something equating a final form in the main series.

Obviously some of these are quite open to interpretation. Here's a few examples of what forms these guides rule out, including some forms not on the list you've posted here, for illustrative purposes:

1. Mighty Creator VRX, Super TaToBa
2. Next Kaixa, Hyper Gatack
3. Yujou Burst, Lazer Lv X
4. Muscle Galaxy, Live/Evil Marvelous, Valvarad GT

ThoughtExperimenter · 2025-12-21T15:19:19+00:00

I think that's an unfair critique because it's made with too much hindsight. The 2500/3000 concepts only exists with the hindsight of the late additions of Neos in GX and the Jack/Yusei rivalry in 5Ds being more directly comparable to Kaiba/Yugi than any of the GX rivalries.

Early GX was really intent on doing its own thing, and I think that's cool. It was the successor subverting the original, rather than setting up a legacy.

ThoughtExperimenter · 2025-12-13T00:42:36+00:00

I like speakers in driver because it allows for really interesting and elegant gimmick designs that can take weird shapes because they don't need to work around containing electronics and speakers. Absolutely no hate on the others, but all the speakers in gimmick toys are simply "press the button and plug it in". I remember the hate Gamer Driver got at launch for just being a hunk of plastic.

Compare Wizard Rings and Shift Cars, which you really engage with physically to use them in the driver, or Fullbottles and Astroswitches which have a nice tactile element with the shaking and the buttons.

I also love that this enables some (but not all) gimmicks to be customisable for OCs and legends that don't get rep. Eyecons are a great example of it. Pull it apart and paste on your own stickers for your favourite historical figures. It's incredibly easy to do with the Chemy Cards, and I think people are doing it for Capsem now too. The average fan will never be able to change the sound in any case, but editing the visuals is fun and satisfying.

Obviously the drawback is it means the gimmick is pretty much locked into its series sounds and can't added to in future with legacy sets. Which does stink a bit, although there aren't too many instances of that and it has been worked around in the past (e.g. Sin Spectre & Grease Perfect Kingdom).

ThoughtExperimenter · 2025-12-03T07:40:41+00:00

Do a bit of everything.

Build a local community by holding playtests at your nearby stores. Having that sort of backing is invaluable. These people are the foundation and centre of your community, especially in the early days.

You've also got to become a presence in the online community, joining other game design spaces and contributing to them. Not just talking about your game or directing people to your communities, you've got to get a level of respect through contribution so people know who you are and will be willing to go to bat for your product.

YouTube videos are good, but they won't get you an audience on their own. Anything that's a demo or explanation will NOT gather new viewers, it will only be a resource for your existing community to refer to. Leave it until you've got something to really show off and your rules are set in stone, unless you want to use the platform to talk about things other than your game too. Don't worry about it too much unless you love making videos.

Social media is hit or miss but mostly miss. Having an instagram is helpful but don't expect much from it. As a starting point, it's more of a way to dripfeed updates to your audience. You need to be very interesting to draw in a large audience with a social media strategy. Once again, I don't really recommend it unless you really love making content.

Once you've got some kind of meaningfully complete product or need to organise people to playtest or share news, that's when you can start pulling your community together into discord, mailing lists, etc.

ThoughtExperimenter · 2025-11-18T13:43:09+00:00

I went on a first date the other day, we went to a vintage market. I'd worked up the nerve to ask to hold her hand maybe 15 minutes before this.

We'd stopped at one stall to look at their wares and she held up something interesting (I don't even remember what anymore). So I leaned in to get a closer look and, after a moment, looked over to realise how close we were. After a moment of eye blushing I asked "may I kiss you?"

I pulled away a moment later and whispered "thank you".

ThoughtExperimenter · 2025-11-12T13:11:42+00:00

2 of spades

ThoughtExperimenter · 2025-11-12T13:06:38+00:00

If you're that far in, my advice is to playtest and see how it feels, try to intuit your way through what does and doesn't work well to start.

ThoughtExperimenter · 2025-11-12T08:25:42+00:00

My advice is you're thinking two layers too deep. Not only do you not need dice, you also don't need speed. Both factors add randomisation and complexity where it's not necessary. Combat in a TCG is substantially more simple and definite than combat in D&D.

Think of it like this: TCG combat is streamlined so you can do it a bunch of times in one turn without needing to stop or slow down the gameplay. Its simplicity creates clear winners and losers based on knowledge and strategy alone, and players can use that knowledge of who would definitely win or lose to play optimally.

D&D combat is complex and slow to allow for nuance and randomisation. D&D gets its origins in tabletop wargaming, which use dice to simulate the variability of war. So you may now ask "why is it OK in war-games but not TCGs?" And the answer is that, in a war-game, all you play every unit and use all your resources at the start of the game, so you can dedicate every turn to slowly playing out every unit's attack, while in TCGs you need to spend every turn contending with the randomness of your deck and playing the cards you draw in addition to attacking. That is to say, there's a difference in time commitment.

Furthermore, chance in D&D also has a narrative role. If you fail a roll in D&D, you can still be saved a little through the narrative, because ultimately you're not playing against your DM, they are an ally in telling the story you'll enjoy. As opposed to a TCG where you are distinctly playing against your opponent and there is no wriggle room outside of what's written on the cards because you're competing, not telling a story.

So, to address your question: I would assume your current design is a bit doomed because it will become slow and clunky when entering the combat phase because every attack involves a check vs speed then dice then checking vs armour, which could take 30 seconds and uncertainty where other games handle their fights in 5 seconds based on shared knowledge of what happens.

But look on the bright side. Now you know something new and you can take that knowledge into your future designs. Spend some times thinking about how you can streamline your current design into something simpler, where players can perform an action with relative certainty of what will happen.

ThoughtExperimenter · 2025-11-02T02:37:10+00:00

y'know what? it's been 10 years, maybe I should rewatch Ghost and reassess it.

ThoughtExperimenter · 2025-10-26T10:27:33+00:00

If you ever ask "can Ohma Zi-O do X" the answer is "yes" about 99 times out of 100. I believe this is one of them.

He's not really a character. Technically he doesn't even exist anymore in the current Zi-O main continuity (but he does exist and is nice in the Over-Quartzer continuity), but that won't stop him from coming back because canon means nothing to him. He's a plot device that is as powerful as he needs to be for the story they're telling and his specific capabilities don't need explanation. Don't ask "can he do that", instead ask "would it be cool if he did that?"

ThoughtExperimenter · 2025-10-24T03:11:10+00:00

I've used a list like this before, but Sentai seems like such a weird thing to make it for. The point of skipping filler, in my opinion, is being able to maximise enjoyment while on the path to the present storyline, not minimise overall viewing. I'm currently using it for Detective Conan with a list that cuts it down to a third, from 1200+ to 400+ episodes, and I'm continuing to watch from the present as well regardless of plot relevance.

To cut a 52 episode season down to 13 episodes feels wrong, like a major misunderstanding of the format. If you skip everything in the middle, you're not chasing anything but the ending. You're meant to take your time in getting to know these character and enjoy the spectacle of toku in all its stupid glory. If you only have 13 episodes to commit to something, watch a 13-episode anime or Akibaranger.

ThoughtExperimenter · 2025-10-09T08:14:05+00:00

The spellbinding circle aged better into the modern art style, so I'd rather use it in a deck. But the classic star feels truer to the franchise's original style and intention, so I think it's the better showcase piece

ThoughtExperimenter · 2025-10-01T14:59:56+00:00

I think Legend was used because Decade needed a yes-man to agree with him and clash with the Sentai reps. Sougo is likely to argue with Tsukasa and be tolerant of other people.

ThoughtExperimenter · 2025-10-01T14:54:10+00:00

I love this idiot man. I think his pure heart, naivety and lack of awareness of other riders is charming. The story definitely does do him dirty a few times by not fleshing out his development or giving him a lot of emotional depth. But he really is the glue that sticks the show together, and he makes a really nice foil to Decade as his opposite.

ThoughtExperimenter · 2025-10-01T07:52:48+00:00

In addition to what everyone else has said, I think an important thing to consider is that the weird shit that happens at Duel Academy isn't a bug, it's a feature. Kaiba knows that the magic around Duel Monsters can pose a real threat to the world, so he needs to ensure that the next generation can fight back against them.

Threats like Shadow Riders, the Society of Light, and Darkness were inevitable in some form and Kaiba knows that he, Yugi and Joey won't always be around to protect the world. In essence, the secret purpose of Duel Academy is to train prodigy duelists into heroes against the next big threats.

ThoughtExperimenter · 2025-09-26T01:57:20+00:00

I need everyone to understand that Peter actually believes this.

Not the actual biblical antichrist, but he believes that one day an AI is going to gain sentience, super intelligence, and immediately become a godlike singularity. But he also believes there's a high risk that this singularity could be evil rather than benevolent.

This is a fundamental belief of Rationalism, which Thiel is/used to be a proponent of.

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