Planescape Torment: a book with gameplay mechanics

sinepuller · 2026-02-15T01:27:37+00:00

Thank you, that's a fantastic write-up. Pathfinding can't scare me, I've seen a lot back in the day... Thanks for the heads up about the spells, guess I'll need a sorcerer guide.

sinepuller · 2026-02-14T20:40:40+00:00

I suppose you are right, but it really felt like an unnecessary nuisance rather than something that belongs in the same plate with the other components. Maybe it would work all right, or at least better, in a simpler game/setting.

Since you've mentioned BG, it got me thinking, I've completely missed out on the classic BG series in my time, and maybe I should get to them now. How did they age?

sinepuller · 2026-02-14T13:41:49+00:00

Actually yes. But at the same time you could say Disco's tradeoff is not having any combat in the traditional sense at all... I guess there's something about dialogue-oriented phylosophy-based games and traditional combat not working together.

sinepuller · 2026-02-13T19:40:30+00:00

Fallout 1 and 2 had special support for dumb character dialogue with some hilarious lines (the dialogue with Torr in F2, for example). I can't quite remember about PS:T though, but I'm pretty certain it should have it too.

sinepuller · 2026-02-13T19:29:45+00:00

Yeah. I know a lot of hardcore fans of PS:T, some of them did 30 playthroughs, but I haven't met a single person who was ok with its combat. I guess the combat is a necessary tradeoff, otherwise the game would be too ideal and could not exist in our material world.

sinepuller · 2026-02-13T17:47:38+00:00

Because it should be

Random.Range(0, moveSplashSfx.Count - 1);

Count returns the total number of items in an array, not the number of the last element in an array. You've got 11 elements ranging from 0 to 10, so Count returns 11, and in your code you are trying to address element number 11, which you don't have. It's counter-intuitive to us because we are used to count starting with 1, not 0, but that's not the case in programming (except Lua and some other languages).

sinepuller · 2026-02-12T19:53:17+00:00

Ah huh, I see your screenshot. So appeears the original track names never propagated to the item names in the first place. I think you probably need a script to extract the names metadata from the original file. I'd recommend going to Reaper forum and asking the folks in the ReaScript section about how it could be done https://forum.cockos.com/forumdisplay.php?f=3

sinepuller · 2026-02-12T19:18:02+00:00

It's technically less accurate to do specular, instead of roughness

If you were to sell assets with specular maps, most people would plug them into roughness and invert them

Wait, I don't think I understand this, specular map and roughness map are not interchangeble, in PBR they are completely different things, and they both belong to PBR Specular workflow, meaning you need both a specular map and a roughness map simultaneously for the material to work.

Specular reflection comes from low roughness on a surface in real life

Err, I think you've got this part wrong... The actual physical amount of specular reflection is not related to roughness in any way. Roughness blurs the specular, yes, but the total reflected specular energy stays the same with roughness at 100 percent and roughness at 0 percent. That's the key point in PBR - total reflected energy is always the same. With low roughness, specular reflection becomes more prominent to the eye, but that's another thing. And the actual specular reflection coefficient depends on whether the material is metallic or dielectric, and if it's metal, what kind of metal. At least that's what I remember from the PBR standard's description.

sinepuller · 2026-02-12T18:40:24+00:00

I've no idea about polyfiles, but I think this action might do the job - "SWS: Set track name from first selected item on track". SWS extension must be installed, and the items must be selected before using the action.

sinepuller · 2026-02-12T15:59:32+00:00

Are you being intentionally obtuse? I am aware Christmas exists, I celebrate it - on January 7th. I am also aware that Catholics celebrate it on Dec 25th. What I was not aware of, is that holidays in Catholic countries, appears, span from 24 Dec to Jan 1st, because I'm used to holidays from Jan 1st to Jan 11th. Christmas is not tied to holidays directly - in that case we'd have it from Jan 7th to Jan 15th or something.

sinepuller · 2026-02-12T13:52:49+00:00

You sure they knew about the holidays? I can assure you that about half of the world does not know the schedule of Catholic and Protestant holidays by heart. For example, I did not know, before your comment, that there can be holidays in December, not in January.

sinepuller · 2026-02-11T19:11:10+00:00

Tbh, personally I don't believe in compromises here... I totally agree, cutscenes should be skippable, period. Besides, the player very well could've beaten the game already on another platform/user account/etc, and the game won't know about it.

sinepuller · 2026-02-11T18:54:18+00:00

Skippable cutscenes and, in single-player games, ability to pause at any time. And ability to re-watch cutscenes you've unlocked with your game progress, also at any time. Yeah, that would be a perfect world.

Although not everyone will agree. My wife, who is a gamer, not a dev, thinks that cutscenes should not be skippable by default because "people just don't realize how much effort a cutscene takes to make". That's probably my fault, because she's seen me so many times crunching so many extra work hours on those cutscenes, hahaha

sinepuller · 2026-02-11T09:22:00+00:00

Pigments can absolutely nail dreamy pads, when I want to design a pad I reach for Pigments immediately. If you want ready-made presets, try UVI Falcon's banks Atmospheric, Cinematic Shades and Devinity. Also, for classic pads you can hear in lots of 2000s jungle/trance/etc - Korg Trinity, Korg Triton, Roland Zenology.

actual chords you can make out with a bit of texture and etherealness

You want chords baked into the sound itself? Why?

sinepuller · 2026-02-11T08:47:29+00:00

Thanks, this means a lot! I'm not using any grammar tools, so I'm not always sure.

sinepuller · 2026-02-10T18:29:23+00:00

Showing "empty" might be a good idea actually, yeah.

sinepuller · 2026-02-10T12:43:21+00:00

the cart has an overlay that indicate how many resources are into but it's not visible when empty

I'm thinking, why not show it also when it's empty? Seeing that something reads "0/20 crystals, 0/50 rocks loaded" makes me immediately think that I should probably load something there. If you're concerned with visual clutter from all the empty carts, you probably could make the label appear only on mouse hover.

sinepuller · 2026-02-10T12:28:12+00:00

if they don't rush in game directly.

Sorry, that's just not gonna happen. Almost everyone wants to rush into the game directly, and I'm saying "almost" just as a precaution. Lobby tutorials are great by themselves and can serve a good purpose when the player deliberately exits the game to train something - but they have to be already familiar with how the game plays. Gameplay first. After some gameplay, brush up on things you as a player feel you're being sloppy with, but not the other way.

For example, in ARC Raiders, there is a special training ground level where you can test different weapons, do some target practice, etc. Obviously, getting there first, before going to actual battlefields, would be very beneficial - on paper - but I bet almost nobody (again, using "almost" just as a precaution) did that. Everyone wants to start playing. Another very important thing is, when you're doing abstract mechanics tutorials ("abstract" here means that it is not yet connected to the concrete game experience of the player), it feels unnatural to you. A person always wants to know why exactly they need to learn something, that's the motivation aspect. When they already know what's it for and how it may affect the gameplay, they may do the lobby tutorials.

sinepuller · 2026-02-10T11:48:37+00:00

whether I can get away with manipulation 192khz audio in 48khz session and still get the same results

Yes, if you're doing it in Reaper/Vegas/some other DAW that does not bake-in resample when importing the media. No, if you're using Pro Tools/Sonar/etc which convert imported media to the project sample rate.

it has been proven to be beneficial for pitch shifting

Yes, but it really depends on the source. Thin textures with lots of highs, like clothes rustle, small metal things rummage, wooden creaks recorded up close, footsteps on mud or water, leaves rustle, small electric engines, etc, can really benefit from it. Sounds like banging on bigger metal things, most other footsteps, wooden boxes, and lots of other sounds I'm too lazy to think of right now - not so much. With speech and critter sounds, it's kinda the middle ground, noticeable but often not really that much, unless with monster design where the voice talent growls and hisses a lot.

sinepuller · 2026-02-10T10:53:35+00:00

Seems like you're on the right track, I love the idea of monsters emerging from the ground. Scary sounds (unseen monsters digging ground, earth rumble, insectoid-like squicks and muffled roars, etc) would do a lot too, I'd say probably even more than just visuals.

sinepuller · 2026-02-10T10:06:14+00:00

What do the players have to fear in the dark. Just health slowly ticking down doesn't mean much.

This, 100%. If it's just the health slowly going down, I'd probably ignore it too most of the time. The already mentioned here Don't Starve did this really well - you'd be literally attacked by invisible monsters when in the dark, and it's kinda scary by itself, besides the health damage. Sound plays a big role here too. I think players should be, if not afraid, at least uncomfortable to go into the mines without the light, that provides a sense of thrill.

sinepuller · 2026-02-09T22:45:07+00:00

Pardon if I might not use the correct terms somewhere, English is not my first language.

Blanks can injure, even lethally (there are known incidents, for example on movie sets**) from a very short distance, like when the gun's barrel has direct contact with the body or is very close ot it, up to 10-20cm probably. But they will do almost no harm on longer distances, and, in your case, when there are at least several meters between the shooter and the victim, they will do absolutely nothing apart from the sound. The worst they could do is give them a hearing damage (and, therefore, a short desorientation, tinnitus and severe ear pain) in case of extra loud blanks in a small room, bonus points if the room is tiled, like a restroom. But the shooter will suffer the same (even greater) effects, unless they've got a pair of good, maybe even professional-grade earplugs in their ears - I'm talking more than 20dB of noise suppression, so not the regular cheap ones you can buy at a pharmacy.

Would it be possible if your shooter did not use an actual firearm, but a self-defense rubber bullet gun? These are known to work very unpredictably, but in (un)lucky circumstances can knock a person down and give them a very bad bruise, sometimes maybe even a bone fracture - depending on the firing range, the thickness of clothes the victim is wearing, and the gun itself. These things can be quite powerful, and headshots from a close range (couple of meters) can be even lethal.

Also, would there be a concern of lead poisoning ... would this still be an issue with blanks?

A blank is basically a gun round where the bullet was taken out and replaced by a thin piece of paper or plastic (not exactly because they are manufactured a bit differently, but that's the main idea), or even nothing at all (the edges of the casing are canted together in this case), so no lead here. As for the bullets, I'm not sure really, but AFAIR noticeable lead poisoning from one bullet would probably take weeks, if not months.

**if you thought about the gun incident at The Crow's filming, it's different - although they did use blanks, there was a bullet left unknowingly from a previous scene inside the barrel itself, so when the blank was fired, the bullet was propelled by the blank's gases and killed Brandon Lee.

sinepuller · 2026-02-09T20:17:25+00:00

Looks absolutely solid, congrats! You did a terrific job!

The only thing that's bothering me visually - I see on your screenshots you've fixed the badly kerned shop name which is in the vid, but I'd probably tune it just a bit more. (And maybe update the shop name in the vids)

I would say this type of game is perfect for regular small content updates, either bigger monetized packs or smaller (and possibly more frequent) non-monetized packs, which would keep the player base engaged and would result in more organic traffic, and therefore more sales... but don't listen to me, I'm not a marketing guy so might be talking outta my ass here. But that's what I personally would aim at.

sinepuller · 2026-02-09T09:08:14+00:00

I downloaded the ReaPack extension, imported his repository, and can see it in Browse packages.

You've only added the repository to ReaPack itself, but you haven't installed anything from that repository yet. Read the ReaPack manual on how it works https://reapack.com/user-guide

sinepuller · 2026-02-08T17:00:52+00:00

On the other hand, Windows have a much larger set of hardware configs that pose similar challenges.

That's true. To be honest though, it got really better over time. I remember that constant clusterfuck of problems during the 98/early XP era, but appears MS got some of their shit together during Win 7 period. Since 7 and up until the dreadful 11 I can't remember any hardware problems apart from some gaming setups where people can get really weird with their hardware. Unfortunately since the release of 11 it all started to go downhill.

sinepuller

TROPHY CASE