#Into The Breach

[adh-d2]

Can we talk about Sami for a sec?

She's not the precocious kid. Not the one with the sweet voice who'll break your heart with their innocence, curiosity, and optimism.

She's not the defiant kid. Not the one who'll rage and fight and inspire you with their rebellious spirit.

But she's the one taking it upon herself to care for baby Bayrn. She's the one gently reminding them of how to keep out of trouble. She's the one trying to reassure the new kid that things won't feel this bad forever.

I'll always have a special place in my heart for the kids that aren't as noticeable as their peers. The ones making themselves as small and silent as possible to keep everyone else safe and happy. Don't worry. We see you too.

[azertyrobaz]

Rampart's field trip with the Batch.

[andorianimpostor]

Dal R'El - "Into the Breach, Part 1" | Kathryn Janeway - "Future's End, Part 1"

[melymigo]

I always thought of Echo as the older brother in the batch, not just because of his age compared to the others. But because of how he interacts with them, he is the responsible one; he is the most mature and the one who sees the bigger picture and does things for the greater good. Even if Hunter is the "leader", Echo doesn't try to impose; he can give his insights on matters he believes are important, but ultimately he lets Hunter take his own decisions. He is the most experienced; let's not forget he was an ARC trooper, and he worked alongside Anakin Skywalker and the 501st.

And with the last episode, he is the one whom his brothers can rely on, no matter what. I am the youngest of my siblings, and I understand from where it comes that trust and comfort that they seek out in him. I remember when I was feeling overwhelmed and hopeless in some situations in my life, and I always ended up calling my older brother for advice, like if he could "magically" fix everything.

[niyana-the-ambiguous-mobian]

I'm sorry, I'm just love this small bit of animation here with Wrecker when he's on the ship.

The way his eyes are just glued onto his tablet, scrolling through it and bouncing his foot up and down. He's like an IPad kid.

[miss-musings]

The Bad Batch stripping all their armor of color in 3.13 “Into the Breach” isn’t just emblematic of the darker tone going into the finale.

It’s also the first time since the pilot ALL of them have matching armor/color schemes.

Crosshair, of course, gets Imperial armor in “Aftermath,” while the rest of them keep their black-red-and-gray color scheme for S1.

Then in S2, they start to change their color schemes to be more individualized.

So, by the time Crosshair reunites with them in S3 and starts wearing his old, unmodified armor again, the others’ don’t match his anymore.

Now, though, they’re all matching. For the first time in a long time, they’re all UNITED.

[christiansorrell]

Tacticians of Ahm is itchfunding NOW!

For the last year or so, I've been designing and playtesting Tacticians of Ahm, a game inspired by tactical combat roleplaying designs meant to keep classic grid-n-minis TTRPG combat but to reinvent it in a way that keeps it fast and exciting without slowing your entire session down to a crawl!

Pick up the rulebook and get all future updates for free HERE!

Tacticians of Ahm is a tactical combat-focused tabletop roleplaying game in the corrupt3d fantasy world of Ahm. A bit-rotten blight has appeared in the Northern Sea and from it flows the Corrupt1on, fractured light and shattered shapes sowing chaos across the realm. As Tacticians, you alone are prepared to face the darkness spreading across the lands and reunite the scattered peoples of Ahm.

Unique Elements of Tacticians of Ahm:

Always-hit, set-damage grid-based combat!

Class-specific attack patterns, abilities, and more!

Easy-to-use weapon and ability diagrams!

Rules light out-of-combat play using a single d20!

A digital fantasy world corrupting with age!

You know it's a video game, but your characters don't!

If videos are more your speed, check out this intro to the game:

Inspired by video games like Into the Breach, Final Fantasy Tactics and Fire Emblem, Tacticians of Ahm was created out of a desire to maintain the rewarding tactical choices and big dramatic moments of traditional grid-n-minis TTRPG combat without slowing the pace of play by removing as many of the frustrating aspects of play as possible and streamlining the rest. Combat is fast and furious! You can always easily read your abilities, know the damage you will do (and when you can do it), and more.

Check the Itch page for more info and pick up the game!

[jedipoodoo]

My takeaway from everyone's reactions to the last two episodes

[queen-daya]

Hunter Being Omega’s Dad -> Into the Breach

[amandamadeathing]

Headline paired with Admiral Rampart and CF99 from "Into the Breach" . Source unknown. "Auxialry member of friend group still hasn't learned their place."

[adh-d2]

JFC They gave Echo a swelling musical score and a dramatic entrance then sent him off on his own I am TERRIFIED for him

[azertyrobaz]

I can't wear this.

[icy-watch]

That's not

I don't

Why would they

They probably shouldn't have

Hey, Ninjago writers, you might wanna rethink that name. Spend a little bit of time on Ao3 and you'll know why.

[fioras-resolve]

"Is the Berlin Interpretation still relevant?" Part 10 - Results

So, I guess I should finally explain what I'm talking about. I promise I'll stop spamming these tags now.

The Berlin Interpretation of Roguelikes is a genre definition that was made at a roguelike dev conference in 2008. It was a handful of people who were inspired by Rogue to make their own procedural death labyrinths. This was just before Spelunky. It was before The Binding of Isaac, it was before FTL, and it was before Risk of Rain. In other words, this interpretation was made right before the definition of a roguelike radically changed. Before these genre fusions, roguelikes were mostly games like NetHack and Angband, games that were directly inspired by this RPG from 1980. They were roguelikes, because they were "like Rogue."

But let's talk about what this interpretation is actually doing. It is not, in fact, a set of rigid guidelines of what features a game needs to be part of the genre. It is a set of high and low value factors, that a game may not have all of, but the more it has, the more it is, well, Rogue-like. There isn't a game that purely embodies each of these factors, because there's doesn't have to be. Even Rogue isn't fully faithful to this interpretation. It's just that if your game has enough of these factors, then it's clearly working in the same design space, and part of the broader conversation. That's all it was doing.

So is it still relevant? Well, kind of, but not really. Sure, permadeath and procedural generation are still important to people, but for it to be turn-based and grid-based aren't necessary anymore. And I guess for the later polls, either people got tired of me posting these in their tags every day, or they just don't have an opinion one way or the other, because their vote counts didn't even hit the triple digits. It seems like complexity, resource management, and exploration/discovery are still important, while non-modal gameplay and hack-and-slash aren't as much. But I hesitate to give these results the same kind of credence because of how many people from the earlier polls didn't vote on these ones.

It seems like, these days, the roguelike isn't really about its base mechanics. It's a structural genre. You can graft any base mechanics onto it, as long as you start a new run after you die, and each run is made unique by randomness. It seems pretty straightforward.

Okay, what about Mystery Dungeon?

The Mystery Dungeon games these days are mostly known for being Pokemon spinoffs, but the series goes back to the 90s with games like Shiren the Wanderer. These games are directly inspired by the original Rogue, complete with grid-based movement, item discovery, and heavy resource management. It's more "like Rogue" than a lot of modern roguelikes. But because it's structured more like a Japanese RPG, with checkpoints, persistent progression, and a full-blown story, it would probably nowadays be called a "roguelite." Even though it precedes that term by decades!

I'm honestly really surprised that Mystery Dungeon doesn't come up more in discussions about roguelikes. Like, it's a really obvious point of contention, and one that's worth talking about. But only one person in my replies actually mentioned Mystery Dungeon in their thoughts about permadeath. I suspect it's because most of the roguelikes people are invested in these days are indie PC games from the West, while Mystery Dungeon is a Japanese series on console and handheld. But I can't prove it.

Speaking of roguelites though, we have to talk about that term. I don't think that "roguelite" is an inherently elitist term, or that it's useless as a label. it clearly serves some purpose in conversation, even if I wouldn't use it myself. I don't want to prescribe my definitions of terms from on high. I want to understand how people are using these terms in daily practice.

And it seems like it comes down to two definitions. One is the Berliner standpoint. It's less common, but it sees some use. Basically, if you're not making a grid-based dungeon crawler, you're not really making a game "like Rogue," are you? Genre fusions like Risk of Rain and Slay the Spire play completely differently from the roguelikes of old, so it feels weird to just call them roguelikes. This is treating it as a mechanical genre, defining roguelikes by dungeon-crawling in the same way we define a shooter by shooting.

The other definition is a broader one, defined by two key features: procgen and permadeath. This is the most common one in modern conversations about roguelikes, because it takes it as a given that these genre fusions are what roguelikes Are. By this framing, a roguelite is any procgen game that features persistent upgrades. Something like Rogue Legacy, where your progression isn't just you as a player, but your character growing more powerful. Permadeath and procgen serve a very specific purpose in conjunction with each other, and there is a sense where either of these factors being diluted misses the entire point. But plenty of people don't put stock into the like/lite distinction, because they don't see it as mattering. No definition here is wrong, they're just all operating under different beliefs.

(sigh) Look, genre is a lot like gender. In fact, in some languages, they're the same word. It's vague, it's arbitrary, and it doesn't make sense if you squint too hard. But it's important to people, either to describe what they're doing or to understand what others are doing. There's never going to be a strict, clear definition of roguelike that perfectly covers all cases, because that's just not how genre works. Roguelikes are what we mean when we talk about roguelikes. It's very easy to poke fun at a genre label like this, but it's a lot harder to understand what it's doing, and what it means to people. That's the conversation that really matters here.

Is the Berlin Interpretation still relevant? Not as much as it used to be. But your interpretation is what's really important.

[melymigo]

It's time to get out of here.

The latest episode of Star Wars: The Bad Batch is now available on Disney plus.

[niyana-the-ambiguous-mobian]

This is quite the rag-tag team of youngsters we got for this eventual prison break, one of them being a literal toddler.

We can only hope that ALL of them get out and get to go back to their homes, and that is the highest hope I can muster with how dangerous and life-threatening this plan is.