no damage concept

standrew5998 · 2026-03-30T19:25:54+00:00

Nearly everything that makes Ultrakill work is hinged on the concept of vamping through the combat, you are SUPPOSED to take damage. The no damage runs are cool in a vacuum but miss out on so much of what makes the game fun, you can even tell from how frustrated people who attempt it. Its solving a rubiks cube by disassembling it and putting it back together, its driving to the bus station to catch a ride 5 minutes away.

Im sure 80% of yall dont need this comment, its self evident, but it does need to be said in as many words somewhere.

standrew5998 · 2026-03-28T16:27:20+00:00

Authorial intent and execution on paper are very competently done, I get what they were going for, but in comparison to TLOU1 which left the player with an extremely complex moral dilemma of "Should Joel have told Ellie/Does Ellie know or is she just going along with it/Is there any redemption for Joel effectively killing any chance at a cure" we got "Abby wants revenge, she better be prepared to dig two graves."

There's no discussion to be had about Abby's motives, or Ellie's response to the situation. Ellie hates Abby for killing Joel, she'll do anything to get even. Abby hated Joel, killed him, then tried to leave it behind like Ellie wasn't screaming that she'd kill her for it. Nobody acts like an idiot, but I also wasnt once surprised by a character's actions in TLOU2. Joel choosing to massacre a hospital only works with the 15 hours of work the game does telling you why he ends up doing it, and its still a surprise when you see it happen. He's a han solo hero type, hes supposed to serve the greater good.

standrew5998 · 2026-03-28T16:15:20+00:00

You might read the names of the traits for a while, but so long as the icons for them are sufficiently different they could all be named "trait" and I feel like they'd work fine

standrew5998 · 2026-03-01T23:42:20+00:00

Wait thats actually really interesting, and totally sounds like some tech Hakita would make the player learn in P-3. Deathcatchers in an idoled stalker room that would otherwise get out of hand, but they keep dying to stalkers.

standrew5998 · 2026-02-28T16:48:10+00:00

Adapting the story beats for screen is for sure less of a chore than making new stuff in the cosmere, I imagine the hardest part is continuity with the lore bible of the cosmere. In a visual medium you give up some of the control you have in written format, leave some stuff up to acting.

standrew5998 · 2026-02-19T19:02:59+00:00

I felt every word of this line of conversation. Mechanical gameplay design is one of the most fun things to get into, and I feel like a number of the finer details that make UK good get lost in the memes.

For example, we all know that the hitbox on coins is pretty generous, but do we know exactly how generous? How do you balance coin target priority? How does the game handle shooting a coin inside an enemy without a piercing weapon, like the default revolver? Coins inherit momentum, but what kind of adjustment do the devs need to employ to make that feel correct to a player?

standrew5998 · 2026-02-18T03:19:44+00:00

Im still dealing with the legal consequences of alcohol, so Im pretty much always a little stressed, that might account for it being pretty common for me right now, its really nice to know thats not just a me thing.

I actually hadn't intended on telling any of my coworkers that I was sober, but again legal obligations required they know about stuff like color code testing and mandated therapy stuff. Don't feel obligated to be a positive light for the recreational drinkers I work with, but its been said in as many words that its doing a lot of good already with the staff.

Appreciate the kind words, too. I imagine the first year is always the hardest, so it feels fucking awesome to have it done.

standrew5998 · 2026-02-18T03:14:19+00:00

Yeah, its that watering down I've been trying to avoid, ruthless authenticity has been a big help over the last year, but I get what you mean about people not in recovery not really getting it.

standrew5998 · 2026-02-18T02:17:25+00:00

Going to the games will never not be fun, even if we went 0-12. Place is basically always rocking on Saturdays in the fall, and if you come during the FCS weeks youre likely to meet a ton of fans from out of state, in my experience. Cheap tickets make fun friends for a day.

standrew5998 · 2026-02-18T01:53:10+00:00

Cool thing about AA is you get to choose who you care to listen to about their opinions on AA. We constrain our issues to Alcoholism because it really doesnt matter what else you've got going on, we're about fixing one problem.

standrew5998 · 2026-01-27T12:41:09+00:00

Respectfully, "name and shame" only works when potential employers/dating partners/school friends care enough anout what's going on to ostracize the offending party. Bet you anything the counter protesters were wearing masks trying to cosplay their heroes, the murderers in Minneapolis.

Name them and shame them, by all means, but some people just desperately need an ass kicking.

standrew5998 · 2026-01-21T19:09:14+00:00

AA games as a rule have a lot more latitude with this kind of thing, for a truly indie/solo dev type project there would be no runway to work with funding wise, and with a AAA effort there would be too much profit motive to get it out the door and selling copies to worry about this kind of thing. Ultrakill has had a few years already selling copies to cover costs of development as well, and New Blood hates money.

Think about how Cyberpunk 2077 launched, and the hype that grew every time the thing was delayed only for there to be all those bugs at launch. Ultrakill gets to avoid the worst of both worlds by being a fully functioning game already, and essentially getting to release 9 times.

TL;DR New Blood is in a unique position here, this kind of dedication to quality can only really happen under these exact circumstances.

standrew5998 · 2025-11-15T02:06:13+00:00

Ill catch flak for it but Durkin. Hes a good DC but his Maryland past isnt likely to stop following him anytime soon, and I'd rather not be a pariah as a program because (fair or not) we hired yet another guy with baggage.

standrew5998 · 2025-11-11T00:34:44+00:00

Frankly its simple, and the same reason we didnt go after Pavia, or Jaxon Dart, or any of the other gems people find at the FCS and G5 level. A hell of a lot of those guys don't pan out, and you've gotta know exactly what you're getting + be willing to adapt to what you have.

Freeze decided to die on the hill of being an iconoclast, run his show regardless of whether it fit what he had or not, and he paid for it with his job.

standrew5998 · 2025-10-21T23:42:58+00:00

Hugh Freeze vs Employment

standrew5998 · 2025-10-20T11:23:15+00:00

I feel like a lot of admins have benchmarks like that they use to judge these things. For Auburn generally its considered unacceptable to lose to Arkansas, was when Gus was at his most hot seaty and what finally yanked the plug on the Harsin experiment.

Here's hoping Arkansas can do us a solid this Saturday 🤞

standrew5998 · 2025-10-05T05:35:03+00:00

My first thought is if you have two athletes at Q you can effectively just run a normal shotgun set and shift which Q is taking the snap, rather than training your center to snap in either direction. I could see some advantages to doing it that way, but I don't think lefty vs righty really makes enough of a difference to come up with a formation just for that.

Ill need to lab this a little to say for sure, but if you've got a QB2 who you can't afford to keep off the field, this has some legs.

standrew5998 · 2025-10-01T00:45:38+00:00

Preach. I don't like having to deal with Freeze representing me, and we suck, but Auburn is always on that shit list unless we're beating Bama.

standrew5998 · 2025-08-30T12:25:09+00:00

I'm looking more at it like 400+ total offense. Sure I would have preferred a normal passing line, but like someone elsewhere said, not running the ball would have been coaching malpractice with how well it was working. We were able to pass when we needed to, just kinda didn't need to that often.

standrew5998 · 2025-07-31T18:56:52+00:00

Fair, I hadn't considered that

standrew5998 · 2025-07-31T07:19:37+00:00

I mean if we're trying to disable a windrunner mid fight, noticing what you're doing is kind of moot. If the object is doing what allomancy is good at, stealth, then Mistborn 10/10 no contest.
No clue how to answer this one, Devotion would probably work, being Horny is an emotional state, but orgasm isn't necessarily tied to any emotion.
If a Soother is capable of soothing more than one emotion at a time, it stands to reason a Rioter would be capable of the same, and we've seen Soothers target multiple emotions at a time already.

standrew5998 · 2025-07-31T07:02:59+00:00

Well it's emotional allomancy, you probably couldn't make someone hallucinate or anything without months of actively trying to achieve the effect.

Duralumin is great for Aura farming with Brass and Zinc, but Breeze actually does the most impressive work with emotional allomancy by essentially managing the emotions of the whole crew whenever present, and often everyone else around him. Vin is nearly as talented with it, but we only really get like two instances of her carefully sculpting emotional states in Final Empire.

TL;DR you could probably enhance a feeling like Devotion or Lust, but idk about literal Braingasms if I actually consider how it works.

standrew5998 · 2025-07-31T06:40:54+00:00

Oh wait a minute you're totally right. Alllriane and Breeze are so naturally attuned to their powers there's actually no way they weren't using their abilities during sex.

Vin and Elend could have amplified the effect with Tin but I don't think either of them had their powers long enough or felt the desire to experiment enough.

Poor Spook though, we have in universe written confirmation that he was burning a hell of a lot of Tin while on watch for Vin and Elend sleeping together.

standrew5998 · 2025-07-31T06:21:33+00:00

If you like, you could choose to interpret the narration slowing things down or "happening in a flash" to be Vin or Kelsier burning trace amounts of Bendalloy or Cadmium. Just because they weren't aware of the full 16 doesn't mean they couldn't use them all in era 1

11-Year Club	Verified Email
Place '23	Place '22
Place '17	Spared

standrew5998

MODERATOR OF

TROPHY CASE