#hong kong design

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Nathan Road, Hong Kong, 1968-1970, Photograph: Gunther W. Holtorf

[sorrysomethingwentwrong]

Kowloon City: An Illustrated Guide,

At its height in the 1990s, Kowloon Walled City in Hong Kong housed about 50,000 people. Its population is unremarkable for small cities, but what set Kowloon apart from others of its size was its density. Spanning only 2.6 hectares, the tiny enclave contained 1,255,000 people per square kilometer, making it the densest city in the world.

Kowloon was built as a small military fort around the turn of the 20th century. When the Chinese and English governments abandoned it after World War II, the area attracted refugees and people in search of affordable housing. With no single architect, the urban center continued to grow as people stacked buildings on top of one another and tucked new structures in between existing ones to accommodate the growing population without expanding beyond the original fort’s border.

With only a small pocket of community space at the center, Kowloon quickly morphed into a labyrinth of shops, services, and apartments connected by narrow stairs and passageways through the buildings. Rather than navigate the city through alleys and streets, residents traversed the structures using slim corridors that always seemed to morph, an experience that caused many to refer to Kowloon as “a living organism.”

The city devolved into a slum with crime and poor living conditions and was razed in 1994. Before demolition, though, a team of Japanese researchers meticulously documented the architectural marvel, which had become a sort of cyberpunk icon that even inspired a gritty arcade as tribute.

Courtesy: Hitomi Terasawa

[anim-ttrpgs]

Why You Should Try Eureka: Investigative Urban Fantasy Part 10: It Has Intense Action

This is part 10 of a multi-part series of posts about the awesome features of Eureka: Investigative Urban Fantasy, in no particular order.

Find the earlier parts here:

Part 1 Link: We Worked Hard on It!

Part 2 Link: It's Easy to Learn!

Part 3 Link: It's Easy to GM!

Part 4 Link: It's Easy to GM and Supports Narrative and Roleplay!

Part 5 Link: It Revolutionizes Investigation and Mystery Solving in TTRPGs

Part 6 Link: PCs are Not Just Mystery Solving Automatons

Part 7 Link: Excellent Time-Keeping Mechanics Keep the Pressure On

Part 8 Link: Fun and Easy Character Creation

Part 9 Link: Themes of Disability

For a while in its development, Eureka had a section dedicated to combat, but now that section is more broadly called “dangerous situations.” It’s rare, but dangerous situations will inevitably come up. The question is, will the PCs be prepared for them? Eureka has rules to cover everything from gunshot wounds to car crashes, from falling off buildings to drowning. If something bad can happen to a person, there’s probably a section in the rulebook covering how it would affect a Eureka PC mechanically. A lot of the times the answer will be they die, but how fast they die, and what they can do to save themselves in that time, is crucial.

Eureka takes a very “trad RPG” approach to this sort of thing, where violence and other dangers are something highly lethal, and therefore best avoided if the PCs are smart, but that the nature of what they’re doing means that it’s bound to happen eventually, and therefore the game rules need to provide a lot of “tools” and options within those situations, thereby creating agency over whether they live or die. PCs do not necessarily have to have “good” combat stats to survive, as many players so far can attest. It encourages them to be clever and cautious about things, and allows them to exorcise that cleverness and caution, without bogging the game down in too many numbers or charts.

Weapons will usually take any character down in one to two hits, and even when unarmed, characters have a wide variety of techniques that they can attempt, including the world’s first ever TTRPG grappling rules that are actually fun and advantageous!

Guns are as deadly in Eureka as in real life, and the type of gun matters a lot. That isn’t to say the exact model makes a huge difference, that would be too granular for what we’re attempting to do. A Glock 19 and a Beretta 92 would both fall under “Semi-Automatic Pistol” and function identically. Trust us, this all runs smoothly once you read it.

Bullets do 4 Penetrative Damage each, and most firearm categories are capable of firing multiple bullets within a single turn, each rolled separately. Direct hits are usually fight-ending, but that isn’t as easy as it sounds. Even with a high Firearms skill, these shots are being taken under extreme duress, and factors like cover, distance, movement, etc. will affect them too. Most shots fired will miss, and you might think that would be boring, but it’s not because of the next thing I’m going to talk about.

The Woo Roll

Named after director John Woo, the Woo Roll is a mechanic that’s makes it so that bullets don’t just disappear into thin air when they miss.

When any shot misses, a Woo Roll is made, which means something is going to happen that changes the situation as a result of that shot. (That’s one Woo Roll per turn, no matter whether one or thirty shots miss.) This roll determines whether the effect is good or bad for the shooter. A good result might mean that the shot hits a fire extinguisher behind the target, spraying him with foam and gas, disrupting his next shot. A bad result might mean the shot hits a gas line, and now the building is on fire. Usually the rule is that it’s whatever the most obvious and interesting thing within the confines of being good or bad for the shooter, but if there isn’t anything around, then we also have tables you can roll on.

Chase Mechanics

Combat is only likely to last a few rounds, but everything characters do in those rounds is crucial. These situations dynamic and deadly, and evolve rapidly, and if things are going south, run away!

Eureka has rules and incentives that can quickly shift the location of a conflict as one or more parties tries to flee. This works pretty similarly to combat, but, of course, the parties are moving and fighting across larger areas, causing the situation to evolve even more rapidly. Characters will have to overcome obstacles to keep ahead of their pursuers or catch up to their targets. These obstacles are rolled on a table that matches the environment the chase is happening in, heres a few highlights [images of entries]

As you can probably see, some of these obstacles can take a character out as easily as an enemy could. The kind of dynamic, cinematic car and foot chases these rules create are always something special.

[thisisrealy2kok]

Radica Skannerz (2000)

[ruoyuart]

New environment design work for my Hong Kong horror project :)

[gentlemanmotorslifestyle]

[skruttet]

this the kinda shit moomin has in his secret diary

[zegalba]

Shiro Kuramata: Kiyotomo Sushi Bar (1988) Location: West Kowloon, Hong Kong

[arc-hus]

Asia Society Centre, Hong Kong - Williams Tsien

[archiveofaffinities]

Hong Kong

[webdiggerxxx]

꧁★꧂

[theersatzcowboy]

Hero / 英雄 (2002)

Legendary Chinese filmmaking visionary Zhang Yimou teams up with legendary cinematographer Christopher Doyle to create a timeless wuxia epic that switches eras and perspectives through scenescapes defined by different primary colors.

Director: Zhang Yimou

Cinematographer: Christopher Doyle

Starring: Jet Li, Tony Leung Chiu-wai, Maggie Cheung, Zhang Ziyi, Donnie Yen, and Chen Daoming

[athenaismdb]

[vosling]

Between WOE.BEGONE and KILLJAM X X X, I look at the fanart I want to make and I'm that factory worker meme going "Guess we're doing cybernetics now"

[fritzy-l]

YA VOLVIÓ POR QUIEN LLORABAN 🔥🔥

Baby Lovino bcs he is so cute.

Ah, there's also my dear Hong Kong

(It's visco because I did this without Sketh 😞)

And...

Ludwig.

HAHSHAA I SWEAR I MADE A WORSE DRAWING OF HIM BEFORE.

It's just that it's hard for me to draw him 💔

[gentlemanmotorslifestyle]