Mechalink

So yeah. I'd love to help when I'm there! I think I've done a really good job on comms for various runs, or hosting segments. But I can't mentally commit myself to travelling to be a casual volunteer alone. More power to those who can. They're critical for these events.

And being a person who runs a lot of games that are niche tastes, or has deep knowledge about the same, doesn't help that! A lot of my speedrun communities have single digit active (or lifetime!) player counts! I'm going to AGDQ to run a game I made the board for and I am the only run on!

Like... This is old trauma, but I just... don't have a good mental relationship with the concept of belonging. I don't have a 'crew' to roll with, I am often alone, and wearing a mask 24/7 doesn't help that.

Committing to that experience is extremely hard on my mental state, for volunteering alone.

I'm always sad wheen speedrun marathon volunteer opportunities are closed by the time you know if your run was accepted.

I know it's a me thing, not an everyone thing, but once I know I'm going, I would probably be happy to help out! And travelling only to volunteer would be really hard on me!

that is legitimately incredible

autocorrect reading about racist stereotypes about korean cooking meat: hold my beer

yeah. looking at how they've approached subtypes over time is super interesting, from heavy rules mechanics stuff like kindred and equipment to things like lesson (no attached rules) and battle (entire subgames that barely fit in the rules)

Also, this is a huge contrast with both splice/arcane and traps as a type: splice/arcane is parasitic, traps have it all on the card.

Ninja Gaiden – Developer Commentary (2023) - shmuplations.com Taken from a string of social media posts shared in 2023, these comments from director Hideo Yoshizawa recount the making of Tecmo's classic side-scrolling action game, Ninja Gaiden.

Holy shit. @shmuplations.bsky.social translated a massive thread of old tweets from Hideo Yoshizawa that goes deep into the NES Ninja Gaiden's development, including finally confirming the Castlevania influence shmuplations.com/ninjagaiden/

people say 'oh, dark souls games taught me to roll towards enemies sometimes and that was a fundamental game changing experience for me'

Friends, I learned to roll in Megaman Legends 1 and 2. That we never got a 3 is a tragedy.

yeah, that's an underlying concern for me is that I don't know what kind of Amiga will work, but that's a problem for later this evening

I know Dana from way back, yeah, good call.

Yeah, I really need to figure out how I'm actually gonna do this for reals now.

The Running Man got in!

Oh darn, I need to find amiga hardware now maybe...

My guess is that since WotC is the thing keeping Hasbro from falling over dead, things which don't have clear obvious RoI are met with EXTREME skepticism, even if it passes the 'this is a cost effective way to increase our playerbase' test.

Another thing that WotC support could make viable, which is both radical and classic, is to support a structure like little league for Magic, making it easier for smaller groups to set up the machinery of decent playgroups/tournaments in anticipation of fostering a lifelong relationship to Magic.

Of course, they could also be heavy handed about it. Or they could focus on things only they have the resources to do (eg: worldwide stuff like country v country tournaments, cross-platform stuff, pro tour support, not just events)

The current 'none of the above' approach is disappointing.

To some degree, this makes sense: WotC has tended not to be the primary event runner of Magic events. However, that doesn't mean they couldn't bring more resources to bear in support of this sort of decentralized Magic tournament series development.

The NRG series continues to do an excellent job, much like SCG as its predecessor, of passively making the case that WotC organized play could be doing so, so, SO much more. The amount of resources WotC could point at Magic organized play is quite high. They just... would rather not.

On the wizardry report, it took me less playtime to to rescue my characters and then proceed not to use them. They had some gear improvement, but now they're the backup squad because the second squad I built more powerfully.

My ninja could become good any time now, though, that'd be nice.

I said yesterday that Dragon Quest 2 plays like a game made by people that loved Ultima.

I'm more familiar with ultima in general b/c there are people who speedrun it in my radius, wheras speedrunning wizardry is, uh, not the point.

"The law, in its majestic equality, forbids the rich as well as the poor to sleep under bridges, to beg in the streets, and to steal bread." -Anatole France

And there's the eventual dagger: On the last floor, an enemy which decided to do more damage than you can actually reasonably have HP. 12 hours of playtime resting as 6 corpses on the last level. Can't get back there w/o doing everything again.

Will have to think about restarting.

im a sucker for a spirit bomb with good music

the amount to which D&D really defined so much early RPG gaming is definitely under-emphasized. you might learn about in Final Fantasy, but jesus, the entire wizardry line being notes cribbed from D&D?

(after 7 the levelling curve starts to be a beating, but you can still grind if you want)

like... the game being in any way playable is held together by murphy's ghost being an easily accessible early grind spot allowing you to get a new character to 7 with fairly low risk

the town's rez can annihilate you too, I had that happen once already

another thing you wouldn't expect: wizardry 1 isn't _long_. It's 10 20x20 floors, 5 of which are basically _completely option_, and one of which is a linear teleporter sequence! some later entries only have 6 floors!

without aoe healing or silence mitigation, and with rezzes not only having chance to fail, but chance to permanently annihilate the character, it's incredible.

even the most punishing games in that vein provide tools to help you manage ultralethal scenarios. it's really something to behold.