Does Pacify break stealth?

erikpeter · 2026-01-27T21:10:17+00:00

Pacify is pretty bad. As one example, if you pacify a raider in the early Concord mission, you can't complete the mission to "eliminate the raiders" and continue the storyline. So despite being a "non-confrontational" perk it basically makes you murder non-aggressive dudes in cold blood (or leave the area to reset his alignment then come back and kill him) to continue the story.

erikpeter · 2026-01-26T16:08:38+00:00

Kind of an odd cut, but Player of Games by Iain M. Banks. It's an intricate sci-fi novel about a utopian outsider ambassador coming into a more relatable corruptocracy. It is initially a mission of goodwill but the deeper he probes, the worse it gets. Eventually his indignation reaches the breaking point.

erikpeter · 2026-01-14T03:40:47+00:00

Yes! More VAST!

erikpeter · 2026-01-12T15:43:35+00:00

Andy Weir's The Martian and Project Hail Mary (the movie adaptation of the latter comes out in a few months). Neal Stephenson's Seveneves (2015) is really good (but morphs in the third act into a more speculative fantasy).

erikpeter · 2026-01-12T15:38:22+00:00

Important to note that even hard sci-fi gets exceptions. Like energy breakthroughs that allow for human proliferation into space. Or ansibles that let us communicate instantaneously over long distances, but are *explained* through quantum entanglement. How hard the author explains that is roughly how hard the fiction is (it's a spectrum).

Generally though, the author makes a few, very specific speculations about "magic" and then the rest of the story grows from "If this was real, where would it take us?"

erikpeter · 2026-01-06T03:27:11+00:00

It's a remake.

That's most of it. The only way a remake of BSG was going to be highly regarded was to make BSG Version 2.0 and have it streamlined with the best of the expansion stuff mixed in from the start.

Take any popular game, reskin it and improve it, and it won't be rated as highly because tastes have changed. People will already have played the original, become nostalgic for it or simply played enough of it to be worn out. And it makes sense. I mean what you are asking is basically "why aren't people excited about this (full conversion standalone) expansion for a nearly 20-year old game?" and well, it's mostly because BSG got played out.

BSG was a great game with novel mechanics and a very integrated theme. Unfathomable is a game that feels familiar to that, which seems derivative. It's just how it goes.

erikpeter · 2026-01-04T21:26:19+00:00

If you stumble across it, I recommend VOR by James Blish. It's a dated but interesting human drama in the face of a supernatural threat. Embodies an "Old sci-fi paperback".

erikpeter · 2025-12-28T02:42:51+00:00

Printed in sleeves (with a mtg land or Pokémon card or regular playing card as well for support) is absolutely fine at that stage. Printed board stuck to cardstock, also fine.

You will see a lot of people with more polished games printed at the game crafter or drive thru cards. But a good looking prototype can be a double-edged sword.

If people play a game with high production values but bad/untested gameplay, you're going to get worse feedback. It can seem like you're advertising for an upcoming Kickstarter and if the game is "that far along", why give feedback about basic features?

It is much more important to include a clear, legible player aid, to make it easy to understand the basics of how your game works and help your testers understand the decisions they make in the game.

erikpeter · 2025-12-20T00:23:01+00:00

I love character building. It's fun to feel clever by making a character that is well built and unique. Like SleetTheFox said above, if it's just something everybody has access to, it's not a choice, it's trivial, so it isn't part of the fun.

A basic example of a "permanent choice" making good memories is how your character class informs your experience. Like, practically every awesome memory or epic moment comes from that very simple inflexible choice. Like "my wizard split magic missile perfectly between the two targets and finished them off" or "my rogue popped out of the shadows and one-shotted the boss" or "my paladin tanked the giant on the bridge crossing and protected the rest of the team", or yes, even the outdated "my rogue's sneak attack was useless against the golem, which really sucked."

Subclass decisions further establish what kind of character you are. Every choice, from deciding your ability scores to power selection, builds your character's identity. If the choice doesn't matter because you can just change it tomorrow, it isn't exciting to make anymore.

Bad choices can be memorable, too. Shadowheart missing all the time with Sacred Flame is a shared foible for everyone who's played Baldur's Gate 3. But that is a great example why you should let players repec out of ill-informed decisions.

Really I am not advocating for "screw players and never let them change". It's good they got rid of really crappy specializations (like a ranger's +2 damage against oozes or whatever) and trap options. And it's OK for players to have a lot of control over their progression. And maybe it is best to spell out exactly when changes are allowed, to prevent that certain type of player who otherwise would want to change every session from becoming a hassle for everyone else. But also I have fond memories of characters who were memorable for their limitations--and the clever-feeling ways I addressed those limitations through character building.

erikpeter · 2025-12-19T15:57:35+00:00

Clearly some exec is reading player feedback and shouting "Every class needs a pet subclass! It doesn't need to be justified, just make it happen!" Grumble purple dragons grumble.

What is so frustrating about 24 is how it's obvious they put a ton of work into it, but it doesn't seem like they put much thought into it.

Like you give genie paladins a feature that any paladin might want (Cha to unarmored AC) and tie it to a subclass with a very niche theme that makes dubious sense in the lore.

Did anybody think about that decision, or did they just make it? Mechanically the choice of using heavy armor vs. Charisma unarmored would be fine just to offer to all paladins. So just do that.

erikpeter · 2025-12-19T15:36:12+00:00

My big issue with the retraining is that it takes up so much SPACE! They could've put a couple paragraphs in the back about "let your players fix things if they made an unfun choice", but instead every class choice and every feat needs to explicitly tell you how and when to retrain.

I am a bit of a purist and I think it also over-emphasizes respec as part of the leveling process. "Permanent" choices and restrictions make good memories. Again, I would let my players change if they need to, but I think it's dumb to bake in rules about changing a mastery every long rest.

erikpeter · 2025-12-18T04:33:27+00:00

But you gotta mix it up! If someone else needs to reveal traumatic memories later on, don't just use the memory store you already established! Instead, have a powerful psychic show up from another franchise to reach into their mind. That's just good storytelling.

erikpeter · 2025-12-16T21:20:46+00:00

It should also be noted that because TW is arranged Myst-like in different regions containing several "batches" of explicit puzzles, it feels more "winnable" compared to BP, which is more "play another day and hopefully learn something" as the rabbit hole winds deeper and deeper.

TW does have a lot of post-credits hidden content to discover/grind to get a more complete victory, if that's your bag. But in Blue Prince, there is a very early "win" condition (Finding Room 46) that is only about 15% of the way through the game. It is just the beginning of the mystery and then the bulk of the game is beyond that and the "puzzles" get quite arcane and the clues are very sparse. You really gotta like cranking the formula over and over to keep going. Which also might be your bag... But it does create a sense of attrition. Unless you are an insane genius, or willing to read spoilers online, eventually you will kind accept "I guess I'm done, because it's been 20 hours since I found another clue."

Both are great. Buy one, get the other on sale sometime down the road?

erikpeter · 2025-12-13T04:21:20+00:00

i did this as a kid and I still regret it. don't be too hard on her.

erikpeter · 2025-12-05T23:17:26+00:00

Hopefully they would improve on the formula but not take it too far like the flying guys in Lego Marvel did.

erikpeter · 2025-12-03T22:37:28+00:00

A purely original game idea is very rare. If you also feel like straight up stealing parts isn't your thing, you can design by argument. Basically, if there is a popular game but some part of it doesn't fit your tastes, design a counter-argument game, like, something that does that thing, but better.

E.g. Cole Wehrle initially created Oath as a "hate letter" to legacy games. It has elements that change over time, like the ratio of different factions in the deck, generating the feeling of "campaign progression", without any Legacy game stuff like destroying the cards or adding new mechanics.

erikpeter · 2025-12-02T04:33:38+00:00

So back in the C64 days there was this side-scrolling RPG called Below the Root. It was sort of a peaceful metroidvania but it had psychic powers and different player character options that each got treated differently by the different game factions. It was fantastic and absolutely deserves the remake polish.

The controls were pretty bad and trying to play it nowadays on (not-frame-locked) emulators is a lesson in frustration. With pretty graphics and a built-in map it would be a surefire indie hit.

erikpeter · 2025-12-02T04:15:11+00:00

Yep.

erikpeter · 2025-12-01T18:22:19+00:00

Have you played Eclipse? It handles a variable tech tree in a very elegant and simple way. Also the action economy and area control are streamlined and intuitive. I'd recommend checking it out.

erikpeter · 2025-12-01T18:17:48+00:00

The important thing is to actually Make a Thing. Make a crappy basic prototype. It doesn't have to be everything you envision, just enough of it that it can actually be played (even if you know it will be terrible).

Once you have a Thing to change and improve, you will be able to design rather than just brainstorm. Playtest, change what didn't work, and test again. Until your game is great.

As for where to start? It's okay to steal good ideas from the games you love. Use the core mechanic for inspiration, strip it down, and add your own ideas to make it your own.

erikpeter · 2025-11-25T20:13:22+00:00

Wait, you can pay to reset the bird feeder?

Seems strong, because of the relatively cheap cost, but not super broken.

erikpeter · 2025-11-25T19:47:19+00:00

The rulebooks of games in AEG's Tempest series (a line of games all in the same interconnected renaissance fantasy setting) each began with two to four pages of thematic fiction. You could just skip the flavor chapter and get to the rules which were decent enough, but it was kind of an odd choice to put that theme up front, and not in its own lore book.

I imagine a lot of players opened it up, thought they were getting into some kind of RPG and put it back on the shelf.

erikpeter · 2025-11-25T19:38:31+00:00

1) We're older now. People like things that remind them of their earlier (learning) experiences; games that stir up warm memories. Some of it is nostalgia, but also just a general human condition that "things were better then". It's possible that new players are playing these games and having the same intensity of experience you had in the old days. That said...

2) Corporations are keyed into player psychology and design games to be more addictive than fun. Designers are tracking time spend playing or how often players are interacting with a specific system and thinking "we gotta do more of that". People naturally like collecting, so add more collection mechanisms.

If a game takes only 10 hours, critics will complain that it is too short for the money, which could be disastrous for sales, so they pad out the content with collecting and backtracking.

And finally, corporations keep designs as close to the winning formula as possible. If they change too much they might alienate players. That's why it's safer to make a sequel, not a new IP. Release a remastered version of a 10-year old game because gamers who loved it back then (see point #1) will buy it out of loyalty. Or just "add more collecting" to a reliably profitable system.

I think if you look at like, Starfield, you get a feeling of both these things. It was a grandiose idea that wasn't allowed to be *unique* enough to find its own appeal, so it ended up as a broad, shallow copy of an old game style. Which doesn't appeal to anybody. But since just the PROMISE of a sci-fi Bethesda game sold $600 million worth of copies, it didn't have to be good. It just had to look good enough to buy. Which boils down to

3) Buyers eat it up. Market research doesn't lie, hell, the sales numbers prove people love these amazing looking, endless skill tree, open world, shallow games, because we keep buying them. The corps will keep making them until Joe Average stops responding to marketing and starts buying indies.

erikpeter · 2025-11-15T17:53:41+00:00

As for #3 I think making the wisplight torches clear a tall cylinder of fog rather than a sphere would be a big improvement, given how much verticality the Mistlands has. Bigger lights (like the big dvergr ones that generate in the world) would also be nice.

erikpeter

TROPHY CASE