#dive mechanic

[techdriveplay]

A Short Guide to Helldivers 2

Welcome to the action-packed world of Helldivers 2, where the battle for democracy spans across hostile exoplanets teeming with alien threats. At first glance, Helldivers 2 might seem like your typical co-op shooter: drop into enemy territory, unleash havoc on alien foes, and extract before the peril overwhelms you. Yet, delve a bit deeper, and you’ll discover a complex game ripe with strategies,…

[jet-teeth]

More funky dread - this is actually one of the first sketches I'd started with the idea, I might make more variations later In the meantime, please look at the style of mechanical joints of this dive suit it's INSANE:

[demisofphoenixdrop]

So-

I am a little obsessed with shadow knights.

SO HERES A COMPREHENSIVE LIST OF MY HEADCANONS

How Becoming a Shadow Knight Works

So, to become a shadow knight, one must pledge their soul to the shadow lord.

Sounds easy enough, right?

The problem is, it’s not a one-and-done deal.

When someone undergoes the ritual to become a knight, they die and half of their soul is taken. It goes straight to the shadow lord. It fuels him. This is usually a clean break since most of the time if someone wants to be a shadow knight, they give their soul willingly. The half that remains reanimates the body from whence it came.

When they obtain immortality, the knights give the rest of their soul to the shadow lord and gain infinite power.

This is complicated when you look at characters who didn’t wanna buddy-buddy up with the shadow lord.

Laurance’s soul was taken from him. It was torn in half because he was unwilling and clung so tightly to his loved ones. His soul is unstable.

Virgil was so full of rage when they were taken and killed, their magic got tied up in their transformation and now their fire is somewhere between trying to kill them and keeping them alive.

It's messy.

So, half-soul bearing Shadow Knights are much less powerful and in a constant balancing act if they want to keep their cool. They can use shadow knight magic, but it's very temperamental and often ends up overtaking the user, leading to realm corruption or murderous rampages.

Fully-realized knights are different. Where their soul used to be is now a dark star of pure magic. It draws in energy and power from around them and is tethered to the magic of the Nether. They have complete control of that magic.

Visually, shadow knights tend to look more or less like they did before they died. The main differences are that their ears take on more of a point, their canine teeth become notably more prominent, and there's a certain red glint to their eyes. Fully realized knights have completely red irises without much exception.

[foreverfearlessred]

I’m still there, dust collecting on my pinned up hair

[your-royal-momoness]

It’s ok if you let the bad things get you down. It’s ok if you care about what others think. It’s ok if you engage with those habits you’re trying to break. You don’t have to only go forward. There’s strength in realizing that not every day is going to be one of immense progress and you’re not any less valid for giving yourself a break.

[bathylychnops]

air bladder tool in subnautica great and all for escaping predators quickly but they should introduce a decompression sickness feature since you ascend waytoo fast withthat thing. decompression sickness or overexpansion injury feature for Subnautica youshouldnt ascend faster than 9 meters per min or your lungs explode (at only 33ft the air in your lungs is halved, so ifyou resurface too quickly, you would have 2x the amt of air your lungs can hold)

[akkivee]

if we’re getting to use abilities in hypdream, my biggest hope is that they define what all dice’s speaker combinations can do like in the manga:

3 posse stars allows for all three of them to use a combined attack as pictured above

3 lightning bolts give an attack boost to dice

3$even gives the team 10x their power for an attack boost

2 sevens and a lightning bolt results in his speakers attacking his team, and maybe you can infer any miss will provide the same result

2 sevens and a posse star is typically a dud but there’s a 1/8192 chance of a reroll with that particular dud lol

and i’m so curious if there’s more and if they’ve implemented them LOL

[nelkenbabe]

november brought a devastation into my life, but i (almost) finished nanorwimo, got my first christmas bonus ever, preordered a physical copy of bg3 to pay in rates, and will be seeing Hozier in concert tonight

this weekend is good. the rest? to be determined. but this weekend is good

[writhe]

[the-matron-of-ravens]

I just gotta make peace with the fact that I see the relationship between FCG and Dancer VERY differently than the majority of the CR fandom.

But ho boy every time I see a post about how FCG is abusive and Dancer is standing up for herself I just die a little inside

[crustaceousfaggot]

So. Who's gonna tell the Mechs/Forgetmenauts girlies about Kabaret Sybarit.

[pocketgalaxies]

caper cards looks so neat

[theunwellkingdom]

Design Deep-Dive #2: New Mechanics of the Unwell Kingdom

One of the first things I did when brainstorming for this set was to look for elements of our D&D campaign — be it lore, system rules, or whatever else — that would be good candidates for new card mechanics. These could give a distinct flavor to specific colors, and to the set as a whole! After lots of tinkering, I landed on these three:

(Examples and explanations below the cut!)

1. Inspire X/Inspiration Tokens

Create X Inspiration tokens. (An Inspiration token is an enchantment with “T, Sacrifice this enchantment: Target creature you control gets +1/+1 until end of turn.”)

Main color identity: RED

For those unfamiliar with Dungeons & Dragons, there are two mechanics called "Inspiration" and "Bardic Inspiration", which lets a bard character give a bonus to any player that they can add to one of their rolls. I've conflated them here into a new type of token, which acts like a Treasure token but for temporary stat buffs!

This mechanic is impulsive and combat focused, so it seemed like an obvious fit for red. This naturally developed a Bard sub-theme across many of the set's red creatures. Of course, other colors would have access to a few Inspire options too, but most decks that build around it will likely want to splash in some red!

This mechanic bears obvious similarities to +1/+1 counters, which are ubiquitous in real Magic cards, and one of the most fundamental mechanics to the game. However, I realized that it could get tricky to keep track of lots of temporary buffs from Inspiration alongside the permanent counters... so I decided to keep +1/+1 counters out of this set entirely! This became another mostly pointless but fascinating design constraint going forward.

You may also notice that unlike most small, crackable tokens, this one is an Enchantment rather than and Artifact. This meant I could print some cool Enchantments-matter synergies and have them function with both Inspire and...

2. Concentration

If enchanted creature is dealt damage or targeted by a spell or ability, sacrifice this enchantment.

Main Color Identity: BLUE

Another mechanic pulled straight from D&D rules, Concentration spells demand that whoever casts them must maintain clear, steady focus or risk the spell being interrupted. I chose to translate this into a keyword for aura enchantments, as they're a perfect way to visually represent a persistent spell as well as tie it to the creature casting it.

A Concentration Aura can be knocked off whenever the creature it's attached to is damaged or merely targeted by anything (this will feel familiar to long-time Magic players, as some Spirits and Illusions have similar triggers on them). This can be a real restriction, as you could knock off your own Concentration spell by targeting your creature with an Inspiration token, or even attempting to attach an Equipment or another Concentration Aura to it!

This makes them strictly worse than ordinary Auras, but opens up some interesting design space. I can give them enters-the-battlefield effects, so they do something right away and don't feel like a waste of a card if an opponent can simply knock it off. Alternatively, I can create greedy spells with snowballing effects, which reward you for finding ways to protect your creature for as long as possible!

3. Hoard Counters

Exile one or more cards and put a hoard counter on each of them. Then cheat out hoarded cards, even from opponents!

Main color identity: BLACK

While this may not be a strictly new mechanic (ex. Tasha the Witch Queen stealing spells by exiling them with "page" counters), I really wanted to expand this idea and build support for it across the set.

Dragons are, unsurprisingly, a pivotal part of our campaign. In our story, they are born from the coalesced anxieties of people, literal manifestations of fear which compulsively hoard whatever they lack. As such, their hoards are not the stereotypical piles of treasure and gold, but can instead be a bit more abstract: knowledge, experiences, even the souls of the dead!

For this set, I've decided to add several cards in black which can put cards into the exiled hoard, and a key payoff card in each 'black + ___' color combo which allows you to play cards from the hoard of a specific card type. Stay tuned for examples of these.

This will be a tricky sub-theme to keep an eye on in playtests. There's a fine line between recurring value and accidentally creating and infinite loop, and the shared-pot structure of hoarded cards has the potential for trouble in cases where multiple players are trying to use it. But for now, it's very flavorful, a bit fiddly, and hopefully fun!

🔮NEXT TIME — Color Identities

[nintendont2502]

reading reviews of the xbox 360 httyd 2 game is so fucking funny as someone who was fucking *obsessed* with it when they were younger. '4/10 all you can do is fly around the island' yeah and that managed to keep my adhd ass enthralled for hours on end (and still does tbh). my brother in christ its a dragon game the flying is the entire point

[pinayelf]

i finally have some semblance of a farm lmao

[aromanticannibal]

I LOVE WHEN GAMES USE GAME INTERFACE TO PROVOKE EMOTIONAL REACTIONS IN THE READER! I LOVE WHEN GAMING MECHANICS ARE PART OF THE PLOT! I LOVE WHEN GAMES ARE UNASHAMED OF BEING GAMES