The tabletop system is intended to be modular, with subsystems that can easily be added, removed, or tuned for different genres. The initial playtest I did was in a zombie survival setting, currently we’re doing a campaign that’s got a bit more of a Shadowrunny type feel, mixing technological dystopia and magic. The idea is to put out a core book in those settings as well as a fantasy setting and a space opera setting, so people can mix and match subsystems and do whatever they like with it.
I applied programming concepts to the design of the mechanics themselves in a way that I hope makes them more intuitive and tries to maintain a steady flow of tension and release without a bunch of pausing to check stuff once you know the system.
I don’t want to give too much of the details away, but I do plan to release a system resource document along with the actual books. And it’ll be released under an anti-corporate license, so other small creators can make modules for it, but big companies will have to shell out if they want to play ball.
Once that’s ready to go I have a couple of video games planned using the same system. One of them ties heavily into themes of abuse and autonomy, the other is about time travel. I have some of the early stages of the art and some shaders and stuff done for these, and have set up a few mechanics, but they’re still kind of on the back burner. I’ve been teaching myself music theory and composition so the soundtrack doesn’t become an afterthought, and I feel like there’s still something conceptual I’m missing at the core of the visual design. I’ll get there, though.
That sounds cool. Are you using any particular tools to organize your ideas/systems? That was one of the reasons I was curious--turning ideas into something real seems daunting.
I use Trello a bit, but not consistently. I’ll use it at the beginning of a project to kind of map things out, then come back a few times to kind of check in with where I’m at and see if there’s anything I’m not thinking of. I also have a ton of note files just laying all over my computer, my discord, and my notesnook account. I used to use Google Docs, but I don’t really want them scraping my stuff for their AI before I even get to finish it.
Honestly I just kind of operate like a blob. I expand in a bunch of different directions on a project a little bit at a time until it starts to come together. Stuff percolates and another piece will fall into place and I’ll get a burst of momentum. Eventually I’ll notice I’m banging my head against something that doesn’t work and I’ll realize I’m looking in the wrong place or I don’t have the right thing yet and I’ll work on some other component.
A lot of stuff just kind of comes to me at random times and I try to get it out before I forget it. But it also involves a lot of like sort of flow state thinking keeping track of how different pieces of a thing connect with one another.
But also like, I feel like you kind of have to be comfortable just having a bunch of files full of concepts that don’t necessarily go anywhere immediately? Like, you need to be ready to just throw some shit out there, see how it works, chop massive pieces off of it or throw it away entirely. The moment you let yourself be self-conscious about your work or worry if you’re “really going in the right direction” you’re fucked. I mean, you can have that moment I guess as long as you don’t stay in it, but it’s the drive and the confidence that gets the actual thing finished whether anybody sees it or not.
You have to do something. You can always do something else later.
Once it’s done I feel like that’s its own other game entirely. Like, I have some guerilla marketing ideas and some former contacts I can try to get on the radar of, but that’s another phase of things. I can’t worry too much about that while I’m over here in playtesting, tweaking, and adding play-informed mechanics land.
Like right now we’re just basically playing a game and I’ll stop suddenly in the middle of it and be like oh I need to add something, and I take some notes and then we keep going. A lot of the time at the end of the session I know pretty much what I need to do; whether a mechanic is too complicated or fiddly or not robust enough or needs something else to compensate for it or whatever, it becomes evident when you watch it play out.
I’m not really sure how I’d ever get anything done if I was too focused on the organization of it, to be honest. I give myself enough hats without trying to also be a hat rack.
My gaming groups (both tabletop and video) are leaning into experimental phase of trying new stuff. Count me in if I ever come across your release in the wild.
On the music and visual side. If at all possible I highly recommend finding or hiring someone to at least review what you have and advise, if not doing all the work. There's so much to both that it takes ages to get right but they can have such a huge impact as you seem to know.
I’m going for very specific look of stylized visuals that’ll play well into my animation experience with Flash. I’ve got the shader for it pretty much nailed, I’m just working on my actual like body concept stuff and I’m not fully sold on the actual perspective angle I’ve been playing with. I definitely have a lot of artist and animator friends who have seen it and I’ve gotten good feedback.
But yeah, on the music side of things, I honestly think I want to try to find some folks to play with some time soon. I’m still shoring up my performance end of things, but playing some bass and/or keyboard and/or guitar with a band would probably help my ear a lot and also give me some folks that I could have a musical understanding with who could help me with the soundtrack.
I’d honestly love to release a sort of grungy album. Most of what I’ve been composing seems to lean into experimental guitar stuff, but it’s all still pretty raw.
When Google fired all of those staffers last year there was a report that there was a huge bump in startups being formed. That’s where actual innovation happens, not at large companies but the small startups. I see that happening now too. They’ll eventually get bought up, but the cycle will repeat.
First time I played it I hated it. That was just after finishing the previous one. I came back to it like 6mos later and it was fantastic. Just needed a break I guess. The controls do suck a bit at first and it takes some getting used to.
Origins is better, in my opinion. It’s the black sheep but it’s my favourite in the series.
Arkham Knight is my least favourite but I still like it. If you really hate the tank sections, though, you might not like it no matter how long you play. That’s a pretty big part of the game, and it’s not great.
The story is also dumb.
major story spoilersIt would have been way better if Barbara was the arkham knight, having faked her death and the suit could have had mechanical legs to help her walk and her voice digitally altered to sound like a man. Instead we got another Jason Todd as the Red Hood with a different name.
ETA: I’m curious whether the downvotes are because I think Origins is better or because you don’t like my idea for how the story could have been improved.
Definitely try solo stuff with plugy. I installed D2 for a nice bnet session of baalruns but bnet was a bit riddled fuckhole. I tried plugy before uninstalling and it got me hooked on solo play for 3 more years.
The ps2 had THE BEST library of any console, even to this day. I am still learning about random hiddem gems ive never heard of on it, and I’ve been gaming for 25 years
Many retro games are better. AA games were made with heart back then & that made it possible to make games that are incredible both in terms of artistry, grandeur and gameplay. Games like Baldur’s Gate 1-2, Chrono Cross etc are not possible in today’s climate.
On the other hand we have been handed indie games like Celeste and Hollow Knight, so I don’t know. Amazing games still exists, it’s just not really comparable.
I love the PS2. Many great games, played a lot of Lego Star Wars II on it. I still play on mine every few days, it’s a great system. Games today aren’t like this anymore.
Play what you enjoy. The old games can look better because you skip through to the best ones over the last 50+ years. Many were buggy, had terrible controls or were just boring. You’re probably not wasting your time on those.
There was some random video on YouTube about the original fable and I had the urge to play it again. At some point had received the anniversary edition on steam so I loaded it up. 30 minutes and a bit of motion sickness later I uninstalled it and went hunting for my actual original disk. Found it, installed it, and the options and controls are so much better… It’s amazing that they ported the Xbox version for the anniversary edition and didn’t bother to include things like mouse sensitivity, smoothing, acceleration, or really any pc specific options.
The main issue is that the camera seems to be connected to more than just character location, it seems to also be connected to orientation of some part of the character, like the hip. Combat is jittery as all hell, movement isn’t pleasant, and everything else hardly matters… I will be playing the original.
Ohh that’s interesting. I found the anniversary edition to be quite a poor adaptation as well. I’m curious how the lost chapters plays on PC. I never got to play that additional content
After spending a bit of time back on the original, I can say that the camera controls are just naturally janky, though it is significantly worse on the anniversary edition and it might be due to something as simple as the increased aspect ratio.
And then hilariously I happen across this article today about a free unreal 5 version of fable some fan has made. From the looks it seems like a prettying up of the original, but might not have changed much if anything about the gameplay.
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