#from a game design and balancing perspective

[the-valiant-valkyrie]

are there ANY good resources on properly creating and balancing mechanics for creature tamers out there??

[hugintheraven]

How Bethesda fixed Vampires without realizing it

So there's a LOT of takes on vampires across media, and most of them are radically different from each other. The Elder Scrolls series has an interesting version that I haven't seen anywhere else, that incidentally fixes a bunch of lore issues with vampires, and yet Bethesda hasn't ever really leaned into any of that.

So, the issue with vampires in large RPGs like Elder Scrolls games, D&D, etc, is that a world where various elements of character building are supposed to be balanced, vampires are heavy on the upside and light on meaningful drawbacks. So in Oblivion, Bethesda completely reworked their vampires, coming at it with a blank slate:

Vampirism is a 4-stage affliction, with each stage increasing the numerous benefits of being a vampire as well as the middling drawbacks. Stage 4 brings with it all humanoid NPCs recognizing you as a ravenous monster and attacking you, basically wrecking the game. And, this is the unique part, you reduce stages by drinking blood. Being a vampire is LESSENED by doing the most vampiric thing out there, it actively makes you weaker.

And this is great. From a gameplay perspective, you vanish below ground to kill zombies/robots/whatever, and you grow stronger as the dungeon goes on. But if you don't rush through it, or if it's large, you surface having ignored your hunger for several days and have to do a whole second quest to sneak into town at night and drink blood, where the only reward is to engage with the game again. It's a drawback in the gameplay sense rather than the stats sense. And it lets game designers throw the player against weak vampires in town early on, and face dungeons full of max-bloodlust monsters later once the player knows how things work.

Meanwhile, from a lore perspective this is also great. Suddenly, it's not that vampires have to be evil, it's that they have a choice. A good person who flees their family to hide in a cave is going to starve, turning into a ravenous, uncontrolled, extremely strong monster. Someone who's comfortable sneaking around town drinking blood, meanwhile? They never lose control. They walk in the sun. They're perfectly human. Or as human as anyone can be while the blood of their neighbors flows in their veins.

And Bethesda doesn't DO ANYTHING with this. People you talk to in-game just treat it as "all vampires are evil, why would you expect anything else", when they've created a world where vampire morality is so much more interesting. The few vampires who exist in civilization that you're not supposed to kill don't really discuss their condition at all. And there's plenty of evil vampires choosing to live in caves running societies of vampires, when that makes no sense compared to basically any other way of life they could set up.

Bethesda games are a masterful disaster, in this as in everything else.

[cobblestone-butch]

Love love love watching Pearl, Etho, and Tango talk game balancing and rule clarification. Pearl sees games as a skill to master, and her perspective is concentrated towards what feels both achievable and fair, throughout a journey from beginner to pro. Etho sees games as a puzzle to solve, a system to optimise, and his concerns about game balancing focus on where the loopholes are or what could be exploited in a way that produces skewed results. Tango's role is creating and running a game that is engaging, so he curtails pure 'game design' suggestions by asking if something is going to be fun, for the players of all levels and the viewers, too. In conversations between them, the points they raise are how they show their personal investment in their game and its players. I think that's neat

[bixels]

You know what, enough time has passed and I've given media reviews/reccs in the past, so I'm gonna recommend Pixar's Win or Lose as seriously worth a watch.

I came into the show with zero expectations a few months ago and was pleasantly blown away by the writing, art direction, and character dramas.

Win or Lose is an original drama mini-series created by Pixar that follows a co-ed middle school softball team and the week leading up to a big championship game. Each episode picks one character, either a kid or an adult, and focuses on their perspective/storyline during that week. So in the first episode, we notice a lot of weird mysteries or threads in the background (Why is this character crying uncontrollably? Why are these two fighting?). As the show progresses, we get to see each character's sides of the story and how they interconnect with and affect each other. It's very, very well written and well crafted.

Each episode also tackles a pretty mature and at times distressing theme about growing up and parenting, similar to Inside Out. Here's a one sentence synopsis of each episode's general conflict and theme to give you an idea. Spoilers ahead:

Laurie, who's terrible at softball, desperately wants to impress her father, the team coach, but is dragged down by anxiety, visualized by a growing blob that whispers intrusive thoughts.

A geeky, middle-aged middle school teacher tries to get over a break-up with online dating.

Rochelle, who's the eldest "forced-to-grow-up-too-fast" daughter of a struggling, social media-obsessed single mother, must raise money on her own to pay for her team fee, falling into dangerous situations with older teens.

Following the perspective of the single mother during the events of episode three, we see her side of the story and the complicated ways she works to fend off judgmental parents and support her daughter.

An imaginative but lonely little brother of a softball player becomes friends with a group of teenage outcasts, for better and for worse.

A boy and a girl on the softball team begin dating, but undergo relationship troubles when the boy's insecurities about coolness, honesty, and masculinity cause him to lash out.

Kai, a Black, trans-coded girl on the team, must balance her self-confidence and love for softball while appeasing her sports-loving father, who pressures her to always be her best.

The culmination and climaxes of each episode's arcs and conflicts collide in the big championship game, with a main focus on the team coach/father from the first episode, who's ready to burst from the stress and tension of an impending divorce, his anxious daughter, the game, and mid-life feelings of worthlessness.

Each episode also features a creative way of externalizing and visualizing emotions, concepts, or mindsets like anxiety, e-dating, and pride. Rochelle transforms into a tall business woman with shoulder pads when she goes into money-making-mode. Gravity flips and disappears when she feels like she's losing control of her life. Some episodes even feature completely different animation styles. As a result, each storyline is presented through an unreliable and exaggerated perspective that prioritizes the protagonist and skews reality, often shown through the eyes of a child.

These screenshots really don't do the animation justice, you need to see it in motion to get the appeal. The dialogue is snappy and fun too, and the characters are immediately charismatic and likable. Here's a clip from the first episode.

The two biggest controversies this show had were 1. its art style and 2. the censorship.

The art style was ridiculed and criticized online for looking "grub-hub commercial-ish," which has been said about previous Pixar movies as well (Luca and Turning Red). The characters are extremely cartoony, with sometimes weirdly exaggerated proportions. And admittedly, some of the designs are not it (the noseless barista...). But I think a lot of people and artists will agree that even if the art direction looks strange to you, it grows on you quickly. Pixar knows how to animate and they know how to work with their own models. Plus, given the limitations and labor of a 7-episode show, it makes sense that things had to be simplified. With the gorgeous lighting, textures, and colors, the show's style really reminded me of stop-motion or Nintendo games. It's just fun.

Secondly is the report that Disney made Pixar censor and re-write Kai's episode, which was originally supposed to be an explicit exploration of her trans identity as a young girl and an athlete. The animatic of the original version of the episode was leaked online. The news and decision is extremely disappointing, worsens the final show, and really reveals how careless and conservative Disney is about representation. But if you watch the actual episode, you'll notice all the ways the crew tried to circumvent Disney and maintain Kai's trans identity through coding and nods to gender dysphoria/guilt/expression/affirmation/euphoria. (Her storyline made me cry too.)

I don't want to come across like I'm defending the censorship. An episode dedicated to a POC father-daughter relationship as they navigate Kai coming out as trans while playing sports on Disney+ would have been so powerful and important for family audiences. And they try to supplant the trans storyline with a clumsy softball vs. baseball edit. But I've seen talk about how this storyline was completely erased or how this show is straight up transphobic, and that's just not true. The crew did their best with a truly shitty situation.

If you like shows like Craig of the Creek or Bluey or Steven Universe, you'll probably like this one too.

[juubli]

Here are some of process snapshots of this piece of Astarion in Baldur's Gate.

I am a messy painter and I often adjust and change the designs as I paint. (Mostly because I don't have the patience to do proper line art haha)

I start out with a rough sketch, I usually sketch ideas out on my ipad and move to my cintiq to work with colors.

Next I block in rough color thumbnail. I keep this part messy as I just want to figure out the value structure and the overall mood.

At this point, I have collected a myriad of screenshots and reference images from the game, pinterest, and also from artists work that inspires me.

With the references on one screen, I start to paint the details, I work from foreground to midground to background. (Sometimes I'll bounce between the depth when I get bored from painting one thing for too long)

Sometimes after I block in the colors I'll make adjustments. I didn't like how warped the perspective was getting on the building on the screen right side, so I adjusted the vanishing point and added more tiers to the design. I went back into the game and looked at more how the stairs were designed and figured it out more thoroughly with a sketch on on top.

I think sitting down and doing the details is the most time consuming part. I still want the focus to be on the character despite all the detail going on the background. At this point I'm toggling on black & white filters constantly to check the value, grouping everything in the background together, making sure the lighting frames the subject in focus. At this point I realized, I forgot to paint Astarion's hair LOL, and that the bg was getting a bit too detailed, so I used a more textured brush and painted away some of the edge details of bg buildings.

Last, I make final adjustments, and I make a overall lighting/fx adjustment folder. Adding in some noise, adjusting the contrast, color balance, and lighting over all and call it done!

Link to Print shop!

[burrowdarling]

Best Friend Joe Headcanons

Summary: Some headcanons about your best friend, Joe

Pairings: best friend!Joe Burrow x fem!reader

Requested: Yes | No

Warnings: none :)

Note: Hi! It's finally March which means we're one month closer to football season

Word Count: 492

Check out my Masterlist here!

Taglist: @burrowbarbie @definitelynotdomanique @one-sweet-gubler @plushkhiii @enchantedinfinity @iosivb9 @hellsingalucard18 @hotburreaux @lilfreakjez @jburrgf Feel free to comment or message me if you'd like to be added to the list!

You guys were inseparable when you were younger

You were the new kid that moved in and Joe made sure to take you under his wing

You started out as neighbors, but if anything that just helped your friendship grow

All you had to do was give him a call or head on over and he would be happy to see you

Both of your parents became friends as well which only made it more frequent that you got to see each other

There were so many firsts you guys experienced together, riding the highs and lows of your teen years

Joe was your ride or die, thick as thieves and attached at the hip

It devastated you when you two parted ways for college, you knew it was coming but that didn't make it any easier

It was hard not having him close like he had been throughout the majority of your childhood

Joe was going through it too, being away from everything he knew

He couldn't imagine what you were going through in a different state, trying his  best to keep in touch when he could

You were doing the same, but it got hard balancing classes and integrating into the community there

But then Joe transferred to LSU and it felt like you hadn’t missed anything

You picked back up where you left off, not skipping a beat

Being here felt right in more ways than one and you were a major part of that decision for him

Joe did his best to make time for you when he could amidst the hectic football schedule and classes

A massive perk was having him in the same apartment complex as you

You would go for grocery runs together, and movie nights were easier (which led you to crashing at his place more often than not)

Your designated exterminator for any bug you refused to get yourself back when you lived in the same off-campus housing

You guys could do anything or nothing and you’d still find a way to have a good time together

Joe was the kind of friend that you could sit in silence with without it being awkward

You felt like you could trust Joe with anything, never judging you and always being there as a shoulder to cry on

He knew you better than you knew yourself at this point

Joe also knew that he could confide in you about anything, big or small

He’d be an amazing listener but also would offer you genuine advice when you needed it

He would definitely be the first to call you out on your bullshit too

Totally a no-nonsense type of guy

He expected the same from you though, hoping you’d see things from a different perspective

You only wanted to see each other succeed

You guys were each other's biggest supporters

You both tried your hardest to be at each other's games whenever you could

(Joe claiming that he played better when you were there watching him, but would never fully admit it)

Things just felt right with him, feeling like you had a sense of home when he was there with you

But you guys really were 'just friends' right?

Bonus: Best Friend Joe-Coded Texts

[markrosewater]

Hi mark. It’s me, the guy that was complaining about orphans of the wheat. I wanted to start by apologizing for using the word lazy. I wasn’t trying to say that the people who make this game don’t put a ton of thought and effort and care into it, but I totally get how my wording made it sound like I was trying to say that. I’m genuinely sorry I came off like I was belittling the immense work you all do.

I also want to clarify that I wasn’t trying to say “I don’t like this thing therefore it is bad”. Millions of people play magic, all with very different tastes, and I’m just one weirdo. Everybody is going to have aspects of the game they like and aspects they dislike, my opinion is not objectively correct.

What I was originally trying to get at was that it feels as though a lot of designs that are “based on” something feel like they are getting more overt. Bonny Pall is the example my brain always goes back to because the name is almost the exact same thing as what it’s flavored after, Paul Bunyan. Orphans of the wheat is just a more recent example of this and what sparked me sending my initial message.

A few years ago, I saw a video on YouTube of a speech you made, I think it was your 30 years 30 lessons one. In it you talk about how akroan horse was originally Akroan Lion, and players didn’t get it, but when you changed it to akroan horse, suddenly people loved it and it felt so flavorful. I get that it’s important to make sure that people get the reference when you’re making one. And I get that it’s a delicate balance. Too subtle, and people don’t get it; but too overt, and bozos like me send giant messages complaining.

My qualm with Children of the wheat is that it is an example of a pattern I feel like I’m seeing where you are erring on the side of “gotta make sure they get it”, to the point that sometimes it feels like the reference is being beaten over our head. But I do recognize how that’s just my perspective and other people have different opinions on where the line is for “too obvious”. For example, I think Altanak and say its name are awesome. I like how the art is someone looking in a mirror and if you say its name three times then you summon the big bad monster. But I totally get how someone else might see that and say “well all they did was make Bloody Mary a bug”. And I also totally get how there might be another person who didn’t even get the reference and would’ve needed a card called “mutilated Miranda” to realize it.

This whole *thing* is just my way of saying that designs that are references to something feel like they are more and more often mutilated Miranda or Bonny Pall or orphans of the wheat, and that fewer and fewer of them are getting even one step removed from what they are referencing.

Thanks for taking the time to write back. It means a lot to me. How close we get to references is something we’re constantly reevaluating. We’ve definitely got the note that this year indexes too high on the obvious references.

[mandalhoerian]

I’m really impressed by your analysis of Raf’s new card! Everything you stated makes so much sense and gave me a fresh perspective on his insecurities.

However, I recently came across a discussion on Reddit where someone pointed out that Rafayel's actions could be seen as problematic. They argued there’s a lack of consent from MC, suggesting that MC wasn’t fully into it. They mentioned the use of the dagger as a symbol of the MC's discomfort or pain, which they attributed to her being tense or unrelaxed. They also highlighted how MC seemed to try distracting him, like asking him to answer the phone or pointing out the snow.

Personally, I don’t agree with their interpretation, but I’m struggling to articulate why. Do you have any thoughts or interpretations that might help address this perspective?

Okay, um. First and foremost, thank you for sharing your thoughts and for trusting me with this question, but god did I literally react like this.

But, before we get into the analysis of the deed itself, let’s start first by grounding this discussion in the context of the product that is Love and Deepspace.

This is a 12+ rated action-adventure sci-fi otome game, which sets a clear expectation for the tone and themes presented. While otome games can and often do explore nuanced and occasionally darker themes (and this doesn't mean they have subpar writing just because they're meant for a wider audience), they are typically balanced with the age-appropriate rating in mind. In a banner like this that is intentionally designed to revolve around romantic sex, it’s essential to recognize that the developers aren’t aiming to create content that veers into dead dove or non-consensual territory. To suggest that the writers or developers would include something as serious as this, especially under the guise of a romance storyline, is not only a misinterpretation but also an extreme departure from the genre’s conventions and the intended tone of the game.

The entire theme of the event is centered on exploring romantic tension, intimacy, and the growing bond between characters in a way that’s exciting but ultimately safe and consensual. The "spice" in these scenarios is shockingly suggestive when you have the censorship in mind, and designed to make us scream, not to introduce dark or inappropriate themes that would completely undermine the romantic fantasy. To imply otherwise is frankly absurd and feels like reading intent where there is none.

1) Otome games, particularly those rated 12+, are crafted to engage players in a romantic and emotionally fulfilling experience. They're fluffy, they're angsty, they can be dark and heavy, but even in more mature otome games, themes of non-consent (when they appear) are explicitly framed and addressed with appropriate tonal shifts. This isn’t a game where heavy, disturbing themes are shoehorned into a romantic storyline for shock value.

2) If the developers were truly presenting a situation where non-consensual sex or coercion was involved, it would be a complete betrayal of the genre, the event’s theme, and the player’s trust. The "spice" banner would instantly alienate the audience it’s designed for and spark backlash, not romantic engagement. The devs know their audience and their ratings, and this simply isn’t the place or context for something so serious.

Now that we're done WHY this sort of scenario CANNOT be the case for infold's writing, let's go into the symbolism and the language used to describe the act.

Rafayel enters the room abruptly and begins kissing MC without preamble. While this could initially seem forward, the scene takes care to show that:

MC actively breaks away to question him multiple times. This demonstrates that she is neither overpowered nor silenced, she has the agency to assert herself.

When she bites his lip, Rafayel respects this boundary and answers her questions, and more importantly, stops being non-verbal and communicates. It shows he is responsive to her cues, even when caught up in the moment.

The dynamic here leans into playful tension rather than coercion. MC’s actions (breaking away and biting) and Rafayel’s response (answering her and continuing to interact with her desires) showcase a mutual push-and-pull, common in romantic tension scenes.

As the scene progresses, it becomes clear that MC is not just passively involved but actively reciprocates:

Holds his hand on her own to make him accept the call while they're being sexual. That's freaky.

She flips him over and begins initiating physical affection, kissing him from his ear to his chest. This is a strong indication that she is not only comfortable but also eager to participate in their intimacy.

The "punish" action selected by the player highlights MC’s playful intent and interest in this interaction, especially in the context of teasing Rafayel while his friend’s call looms in the background. This playful edge basically screams mutual enjoyment rather than discomfort.

And now to the main course

the dagger

Listen. As much as we've normalized that this is dick in puss moment, infold can't. So, they've got to use euphemisms to describe Rafayel's dick and what he does with it. The metaphor of the "dagger" isn't meant to represent his dick and it hurting her.

Soft sharpness seeps into me bit by bit: This describes the initial entry, slow and deliberate, emphasizing Rafayel’s care in ensuring the act is comfortable and mutual. "Soft" reflects the intensity of the sensation without implying pain by juxtaposing with "sharpness". It also tells you that "soft sharpness" is his dick and it's describing how gentle he's being. How can sharpness be soft? When you're careful with it that it doesn't feel "sharp" anymore. It's meant to be a stand-in for his cock. It's not describing pain. It's his peanis. The dong. The verb "seeps" here says all you need to know, it's not painful.

Then it (the <<soft sharpness>>) digs into me like a dagger: This directly describes Rafayel increasing his movement (or thrusting), with the "dagger" symbolizing THE MOVEMENT. You know what you do with a dagger? Stab with it. The imagery of a dagger isn’t meant to evoke harm, it’s a stand-in for the deliberate and rhythmic motion of penetration.

So, in smut-language, Rafayel was putting it in slowly, then half-way, he thrusted it all the way in, quickly.

And so, let's interpret the act going forward.

"Yellow sand as far as the eye can see is covered by snow"

Remember that Rafayel indirectly called MC "the snow" by saying "it was soft and beautiful" when she pointed out it was snowing in the desert? This metaphor reflects the emotional and physical dynamic between Rafayel and MC. The “yellow sand” symbolizes Rafayel and his inner turmoil, dryness, and insecurities. The “snow” represents MC and his soothing presence and how her love transforms and comforts him. They are also on top of each other lmao, he is being “covered” by her presence, fully surrendering to her.

"We approach the sea beyond the dunes despite the bumpiness"

The "sea" symbolizes climax or release, both physically and emotionally. The “bumpiness” describes the physical intensity of their rhythm as they near this point together.

"Ripples travel along the undulating water's surface"

Yep. They're still going at it. This metaphor captures the sensations and physical effects of reaching climax. The ripples signify the aftereffects of release, the pleasure that radiates and envelops both of them. This is Rafayel and MC experiencing the peak of their intimacy, with the “undulating water” representing their synchronized pleasure and satisfaction.

"Swept into that endless blue"

Post-orgasm bliss. The overwhelming euphoria and serenity that comes with shared climax. It emphasizes the emotional connection they feel in this moment—boundless and all-encompassing.

"This isn't the abyss. Rather, it's a place filled with red flame lilies. This is Rafayel's color."

Now, this is MY interpretation, so take it with a grain of salt.

The "abyss" here symbolizes the emotional and creative void Rafayel has been experiencing--his lack of inspiration and his deep-rooted insecurities that leave him feeling hollow and disconnected. The abyss represents the blank canvas of his mind.

The transition from the abyss to the field of red flame lilies signifies a turning point for Rafayel. The flame lilies are not just a burst of inspiration, they are deeply tied to MC and the way she has reignited his passion BEYOND pain, both as an artist and as a person capable of love and connection.

By stating, “This is Rafayel’s color,” the narrative emphasizes that the flame lilies are uniquely his. They symbolize the return of his personal brand of creativity and vibrancy. It’s not about finding generic inspiration, it’s about rediscovering his own voice and perspective and MC doesn’t simply provide inspiration, she helps him unlock what was already inside him, and I believe, somehow witnesses the bursting of life inside him in her mind throughout the bond they share. MC serves as the guiding force that helps him reclaim his “color,” allowing him to see himself, and his art, in a new light.

Flame lilies are striking and bold, often symbolizing passion, love, and transformation. They’re an apt metaphor for Rafayel’s internal rebirth. Where the abyss was blank and desolate, the lilies are vibrant and overflowing with meaning, mirroring his renewed sense of self.

So, yeah.

And let’s be honest if you’re going to suggest non-consensual sex in a scene where MC flips him over, actively teases him, and metaphorically commands his every move through a glowing mark on his chest, then maybe it’s time to step away from the Reddit threads and reconnect with nature, maybe consider why you're intentionally picking on Rafayel like this.

He even asked, “Are you sure?” AND checked in with her later with "Are you comfortable?" -- all green flags here. If that’s not the gold standard of consent in an otome game, I don’t know what is.

I hope this was satisfactory, anon!!!!!

[alexanderwales]

Alright, here's my dream Stardew Valley style game, designed for my own tastes.

You come to a small town with the usual twenty to thirty people. It's in the middle of nowhere. It's a fantasy town, and no one actually farms anymore, partly because it's only questionably profitable, partly because a lot of the knowledge has been lost. Instead, everyone uses these magic doodads which are very powerful but also very limited. The tavernkeeper has a doodad that makes him a single kind of weak ale and a single variety of off-tasting wine. The clothier has basically a square mile of linen to work with, and everyone wears her drab clothes. Tools are made from a doodad that the blacksmith owns, not even made of any actual metal, just a material that wears away after a month and needs to be replaced by a new copy from the blacksmith's doodad. People get their meals from the doodads. They get their medical checkups. It's all a bit shit.

Because I'm a worldbuilder at heart, I would have this all exist in the wake of a large-scale war that depleted the town of its fighting-age population, with the doodads being a sort of government program to ensure that more of the lifeblood of the town could be drained away. And for there to be some reason for the town to continue existing, perhaps the government is harvesting some resources necessary in the creation of doodads. That's enough for a pro-doodad faction and maybe some minor drama with them, though I do like the idea that the only reason things are Like This is because there was a war and things got bad. It's not necessarily a bleak town, but there's definitely a listlessness to it, a "what's the point".

So you're a farmer, but no one is really a farmer anymore. Maybe there are a few books, but you don't learn farming from books, you learn it from practical experience; that's a lot of what this game is about. When you start, there's no one to buy seeds from, there's just a bunch of wilderness where farms once stood, now all long overgrown.

So you go out and forage, for a start, and you clear the land, and you pay attention to the plants and how they can be used, and you start in on making recipes with them, maybe with the help of your grandfather's old, partially incomplete books. You find some wild corn that's a descendant of the old times. You find some tomato seeds in an urn. You discover potatoes because you see them dug up by a wild boar, which itself was once a domesticated animal.

In my ideal game, you need to pay attention to the soil quality, to how far apart things are planted, to what crops work well together. Farming is a matter of companion planting and polycultures. You get some chickens by giving them consistent feed, and you keep them around because they're natural pest control. Your climbing beans climb the stalks of your maize. You're attracting pollinators. (From a gameplay perspective, yeah, we probably put this all into a grid, and you have crop bonuses from adjacencies, and emergent gameplay that comes from all that, some plants providing shade, others providing nitrogen fixing.) You're a scientist making observations about the plants, maybe with your incomplete book giving you confirmation on the nature of all your crops once you hit certain production goals or a perfect specimen or whatever.

Cooking is the same. There has got to be a system that I like better than just "combine tomato with bread to get tomato bread". I'm pretty sure that it's some variant of the actual process I use when cooking, which is making sure that things are properly cooked, balancing flavors against each other, adding in a little salt or acidity or umami or whatever. Time in the kitchen, in this game, is often about making meals, ensuring that if you have a fatty piece of meat you have some asparagus that's coated with lemon to go with it. (From a gameplay perspective, I think building the dish once is probably sufficient and it can be automated after that, and building the meal is the same. I don't want to play this minigame every time I'm cooking a dish, I just want to play it a single time until I have good knowledge of the best way to grill a BBQ chicken breast with a homemade sauce.)

But if we're having a little minigame here where we pay attention to how long we're cooking the kale to make sure that it's the right texture, and we're paying attention to abstractified mouthfeel and palette, then we can get something else for free: variation. See, you're not just cooking to get an S grade, you're cooking for people with different tastes. The cobbler has a sweet tooth, the librarian loves fruity things, the mayor cannot stand fish, that sort of thing. From a gameplay perspective, maybe we represent this with a radar graph with some specific favorite and least favorite individual flavors, and maybe it's visible to the player, but the important thing is that player gets feedback and have a reason to strive for both "good" and "perfection" and some of this is going to depend on the quality of the ingredients.

And this is, gradually, how the town is brought back into the fullness of life. You're not just cooking for these people, you're also selling them food, and they're making their own recipes, and all the stuff that's not food is making their businesses not suck anymore. After the first test keg of ale goes swimmingly, the tavernkeeper wants more, a lot more, and puts in an order for hops, wheat, grapes, anything he can use to make things that will improve nights at the tavern. The clothier will skeptically take in wool and spin her own yarn, and then eagerly want more, because how awesome is it to have a new textile? There's a chemist who is extremely interested in dyes and paints, and wants you to bring him all kinds of things to see what might be viable for going beyond the ~3 colors that the doodads can provide.

So by year two, if you're doing things right, you're the lynchpin of the revivalist movement. People are now moving to the town, for the first time in decades, because they hear that you're there and doing interesting things with the wilderness. Maybe there are other farmers following in your wake, but maybe it's just new characters who are specifically coming because a crate of wine was shipped to the capital city. Maybe some of them bring new techniques for you, or a handful of plants from a botanical garden, and there are new elements for the minigames, or maybe some automation for the stuff that's old hat.

I think something that's important to me is that there's a reason for the crops you plant and the things you do. I always like these games best when it feels like I'm doing something for someone, when I can look at a plot of cabbages and think "ah, those are the cabbages I owe to Leon". Where these games are at their worst, everything is entirely fungible and I've planted eight million blueberries because they have the highest ROI.

And yeah, in most of these games, there are other minigames like fishing and mining and logging and crafting, and since this is just a blog post and not a game, I definitely could massively expand an already sizeable scope.

I think for mining the player would use doodads of their own, and maybe you could make a mining minigame out of that, using the same planting tile system to instead create an automated ore harvesting machine that plumbs the depths of the earth (possibly dealing with rocks of different hardness, the water table, and other challenges along the way).

Fishing is a question of understanding the different fish species, what they eat, where they congregate, and then setting nets or lines, since I have never met a fishing minigame I really enjoyed. Again, there's some idea that the player is gaining information over time, building up a profile of these fish, noticing that some of them go nuts when it rains, understanding the spawning season, that they go to deeper water when it's cold, etc.

Crafting really depends on what you're crafting, but if you're reintroducing traditional artisan processes to this town, then people are going to need tools and machines and things. I'm not sure I know what a proper crafting game looks like. The only experience I have to draw on is wood shop, where I made wooden boxes, cutting boards, and picture frames. Since this is an engineering-lite puzzle-lite game, you could maybe do something in that vein, e.g. defining a number of steps that get you the correct thing you're trying to make, but ... eh. I love the idea of designing a chicken coop, for example, or building a trellis if I want my climbing beans to not need maize, or whatever, but I don't know how you actually implement that. There are definitely voxel-based and snap-to-grid games where you build bases, and I tend to find that fun ... but it's mostly cosmetic, for the obvious reason that doing it any other way than cosmetic requires programmatic evaluation, which is difficult and maybe unintuitive. The closest I think I've seen is ... maybe Tears of the Kingdom? Contraption building? But I don't know how you translate that to a farming game. Maybe I should ask my wife about this, because she's always doing little projects around the house (an outdoor enclosure for our cats, a 3D-printed holder for our living room keyboard, a mounting for our TV).

Making an interesting crafting system is difficult, which is why pretty much no one has done it.

And if I'm talking pie in the sky, without concern for budget or scope, I want the villagers to all have a mammoth amount of writing for them. I want petty little dramas and weird obsessions, lives that evolve with or without my input, rudimentary dialog trees that let me nudge things in different directions. This is just an unbelievable amount of work on its own, it would be crazy, but I would love having a tiny little town game where sometimes other people would fall in love. I would like to be invited to a wedding, maybe one that happened because I encouraged the chemist to hang out with the clothier, and in the course of working together on dyes, they fell in love. With twenty people in town and another ten that come in over the course of the game if you hit the right triggers, I do think this is just a matter of having a ton of time/budget. You write tons and tons of dialogue so there's not much that's repeated, you have some lines of conversation between characters that are progressed through, you have others that trigger off of events, and then you have personal relationships between NPCs that can be progressed through time or with player intervention. Give single characters a pool of love interests, have their affections depend on their routine which depends on what's changed in town ... very difficult to do without spending loads and loads of time on it though.

Anyway, that's one of my dream games. No one is ever going to make it, it would be a niche of a niche, and as scoped here, is too much for a small team to ever actually finish, let alone polish. But it's the sort of thing I'm imagining in my head when I think about playing Stardew Valley and its successors.

[eddiezpaghetti]

Okay, so my experience with Stranger Things is a weird one.

I didn't care when it first came out, started to watch it out of "might as well" in 2020, wasn't interested in it enough to make it past S2, forgot about it outside of going "oh, hey, cool, there's a lesbian in it now, I guess," in S3, got really annoyed when "Running Up That Hill" got popular from it because it was a song I listened to on fucking loop after one of my best friends died in high school and I fully expected its appearance in the show to ignore the whole survivor's guilt theme of the song (and was very happy to learn later that it did the exact opposite of ignoring the lyrics), saw people drawing Eddie, suddenly got a lot more interested, watched just the fourth season like a fucking psychopath because I was seriously only there for Eddie, then got interested enough to start the show over properly, having mostly forgotten what I did watch of the show before.

And let me tell you something from the perspective of someone who started with the complete fourth season, who wasn't there from the start, who wasn't tainted by ship goggles or this internal battle of hope and despair, who wasn't theorizing about what the painting could be or expecting Mike and Will to kiss when Volume 2 happened or rooting for Mike and Eleven's relationship to go down in flames or whatever the fuck. Just someone who went blind into Season 4.

It's really fucking obvious that Will and Mike are gonna be endgame.

Like holy fuck. It's so fucking blatant I don't even know why people are nervous.

No sane fucking person would shoot this scene this way if they wanted the audience to care about El and Mike as a couple. Despite being all blurry in the background, Will's reaction to what's happening here is smackdab in the fucking middle, clearly showing that the important part is what's going through his head here. What he's feeling. It's like the opposite of that scene from Kingdom Hearts II where Sora and Riku reunite and Kairi just fucking vanishes into the aether while it's happening because, despite the fact that she was standing between them when the scene began, she doesn't matter to the scene, so she's just kind of gone when the camera angle changes. Will could have been behind one of their heads, or so far in the distance he blends in with the background, but he's not. He's so obvious that despite being massively blurred out, he's still the first goddamn thing you look at. What, you think that's an accident? You think he's in the middle of this dramatic fucking scene because of a mistake? He basically has a big flashing neon arrow pointing at him with "THIS IS THE POINT" being screamed through a megaphone.

And then this?

They're paired up like they're taking fucking prom pictures. Each one of these pairs is so fucking close to one another and so fucking far from everyone else. It's not, "Oh, they're standing vaguely near each other in a group shot," it's fucking Noah's Ark out here. Again, there's no way to take this as an accident. It's not just a framing issue. If they wanted to make the shot look balanced while still not hiding anyone else behind El, they would have scattered people around much more naturally. Even if they wanted to keep Nancy with Jonathan and Hopper with Joyce, there's so much room on that hill for three people to stand on El's left and three on her right. But they didn't do that. They put Mike and Will together on purpose in the most obvious way possible.

Like I get that coming up with crackpot theories is fun in and of itself and I'm not blaming anyone for having fun. I totally get the appeal of arguing a point and reaching for every stupid little thing to pull into it because it's like a game, okay? I've done that. But if you're trying to actually convince someone (whether it's someone who wants to believe or someone who's pissed at the very idea that Mike and Will could be in love), stay away from blue and yellow lights, stay away from costume design, stay away from the existence of closets in backgrounds. And don't worry about whether Mike's gay or bi when he's in love with Will either way. I'll give you a little tip about persuasion: You're only as strong as your weakest argument. Even if you've got strong stuff in there, too, the person you're trying to convince is going to dismiss anything you say as complete insanity the second you start going on an entire tangent about the shape of a character's fucking pocket.

Sometimes, clothes are just clothes. Sometimes, there's a closet in the background because it helps establish that a character is in a bedroom. Sometimes, blue and yellow are just a couple of colors that look nice together. And sure, it might be set designers and costume designers and cinematographers smirking and winking at the audience from behind the camera. But if the show was just those things, instead of those things in the context of everything else, they wouldn't be saying anything of note.

But this?

This tells a story all on its own. Someone with no context can look at this and automatically assume that each paired person is standing with someone they care about deeply, seeking comfort as they watch some sort of disaster unfold. And yeah, romantic couples usually come in twos, and we live in an amatonormative society, so that's going to be the first association anyone makes seeing a bunch of people paired off.

It's the same reason you look at this

And go, "Oh..."

"Those two are probably a couple."

And I genuinely don't understand how people could have watched S4 Vol. 2 and gotten scared. Because as someone who went in with no investment whatsoever, I just looked at these two--

--and went, "Oh, those two are a couple. Good for them." And I moved on. Shut up about the trees for five seconds and just see the forest for what it is.

Oh, and if you're still nervous? Little thing from a storyteller here: You don't leave a hanging thread like "Will confessed his romantic feelings for Mike by projecting them onto El, but Mike either didn't understand or at least didn't say he understood," without coming back to that later. That's Chekov's gun hanging on the wall, babes. It's gonna fire at some point. If Mike was going to reject Will's feelings, if they weren't relevant, they would have had that discussion in Argyle's van. There'd be no reason to leave you in suspense.

[pseudoquiddity]

Everyone is always talking about Pathologic in terms of cruelty and I think it's interesting that the game has to balance it. In both games, the placement of plague clouds is often cruel; in P1, walking all around Isidor's house to find his front door is cruel — obviously this is petty, but it contributes to the atmosphere. The P2 Abattoir is cruel, cutting off half your day and then sending you four letters as the Bachelor in P1 is cruel. However, of the letters you're sent, three are related and they're really just one, not-too-hard quest. The Abattoir is a combination of all the things you've learned over the time you've spent playing.

So, in reference to the devlog screenshot, it's doubly interesting that P3 hardly has to strike that balance. A lot of game design, for all games, comes down to "how hard do we make this on the player." The text here and in other promotional material frames it as "you can make errors" and Alphyna has implied in interviews that this game might be less "difficult" — in respects to P2's reputation and need for adjustable sliders. So, sure, it may be easier to save lives or get an ending you prefer. But "difficulty" isn't equatable to "cruelty." To me, it sounds like P3 has given IPL the chance to be as unabashedly cruel as they want. Because you can change it. You can change everything. You'll just have the embarassing/stressful memories of all the terrible shit you had to do along the way. Really fascinating from the perspective of game design. No need to have NPCs really heavily emphasizing that you're about to make a major decision — fuck around and find out.

(New devlog:) https://store.steampowered.com/news/app/3199650/view/515211349279641622

[aphidclan-clangen]

Hi! Happy 2025 :D

You've done an amazing job this past year, Iridis! AphidClan is one of the only clangens I can follow without getting lost or bored within a few updates (including one of my own I tried to start lol); your designs are instantly recognizable and eye-catching, the darker lore is balanced out with enough cute, light moments that it never feels overwhelming or overcomplicated, you express such a wide range of emotions and dynamics so well! Plus the diversity in your character base and your care towards representing a variety of identities, just makes me so happy to see. Everything about this comic is so uniquely creative, it's honestly incredibly impressive.

Obviously nothing against other clangens– just that yours has something special I've been unable to find elsewhere :]

Thank you for everything you've done this year, and I hope the next goes well for you 💞

AWWWW man thank you so much <33 This is so sweet and honestly relieving to hear lol, I often feel like I don’t really know what I’m doing with Aphidclan. Like it’s a constant hazy state of cluelessness that I’ve just grown used to. Im not very aware of like… what my work reads as to others? Man I dunno if you guys even know what’s going on lmao. So it’s really nice to hear an outside perspective and realize that’s probably just a me thing. And that it’s impressive??? Damn, man, thank you lol

I’ve never quite done anything like Aphidclan before. It started at a time in my life when I was…technically my gender exploration journey started months earlier than this, but it was kinda started at the cusp of my own gender identity exploration,,explosion. The first thing I wanted to explore was being xenogender (other folk go from “cisgender —> maybe I’m non-binary or trans…” in their journey like normal people but nah man. before anything else occurred to me I went from “im cisgender” to “maybe I’m a neon rainbow insect with neopronouns actually :)” lmao) and that coincided really well with the rise of the clangen trend, so I figured I’d use some brand new OCs to explore gender identity in a…safe way? In a safe little pocket where it was all,,,nonconsequential and only tangential to my own identity. And I ended up exploring transgender and non-binary identities as well very frequently, which was mostly helped by the game giving me cats with assigned genders/sexes and me squinting at them and going “…nah. that’s a unicorncore trans man if I ever seen one” and reversing it, and then transing half the cast lmao.

I was not transgender going into this comic. I am now coming out of our first year with Aphidclan as a transmasc nonbinary man <3

I never intended it to be a thing for representation points exactly? I was certainly surprised by the lack of xenogender and more complicated/unusual LGBTQ gender identities depicted in all media ever! I still don’t really understand why something like neopronouns aren’t more present? They’re the coolest shit ever. Like- we’ve broken down gender norms and gender roles so much that now gender is not just “feminine” and “masculine,” it’s anything and everything you could ever want it to be. It’s ultimate freedom. It’s not just what it means to be “man” or “woman,” it’s “but what if I was more than that? What if I felt like a bug? Or a rainbow? Or a cloud? Or a connection to nature and the ocean and the stars? What if I felt like I was part of the universe? Or a music genre, or a concept, or a candy bar, an animal, a fairy, a slice of fruit!” You could be anything you’ve ever dreamed of being and more.

And once you get used to the funky grammar of neopronouns, it’s not that polarizingly different from other identities at all, honestly. And plus, it’s really fkin fun lol.

Aphidclan’s helped me explore a lot throughout this year. There were often times where I was struggling with my own femininity as a trans man and I remembered Firebeetle and the support I’ve received for his character, and using “well, if it’s okay for firebeetle to wear dresses and flowers and feminine things, then it’s okay for me to do that too, and it doesn’t invalidate my identity at all” and it really helped. 2024 was a great year for me creatively and exploration-wise, and I’ll certainly never be the same. Thank you guys for all your support, it means a lot <3

[sexhaver]

I've been curious about this from a game design perspective but haven't had the time/desire to play rivals enough to decide for myself--is there anything rivals does differently from overwatch that's helping it succeed where overwatch failed? or is it literally just that it's nice that a game like 2016 ovw exists again? the lack of reinhardts seems like the most significant thing to me; 3rd person, assists, etc all seem neat and different but not necessarily "better" design wise. not sure tho

everyone online loves to say that one of the main differences between OW and Rivals is that the latter has a ton of overpowered stuff with the philosophy of "broken checks broken" whereas the former has taken nerfbats to the entire cast's kneecaps multiple times. i don't particularly buy this argument because Rivals is still in its infancy, and the recent midseason balance patch is already dialing back a lot of the specific stuff people were complaining about and increasing the charge times on the most problematique ults.

teamups are a pretty substantial design difference, but not necessarily for the reason you might think. the naive answer would be that gaining an extra ability button or boosting an existing cooldown depending on your teammate is a novel mechanic, which it is, but the actual interesting part is that there are two components to each teamup: the recipient of the teamup ability, who actually gets the shiny new button to press, and the "anchor", who has to be present on the team to provide said shiny button. to encourage players to pick these anchor heroes, those heroes get a buff to their max HP (tanks), damage (DPS), or healing (supports). the two crazy i mean neurodivergent parts are that 1. these teamups theoretically rotate every season (they kept the s1 teamups the same as s0 but will be changing them for s2) and 2. the anchor gets that buff EVEN IF THE BUFF RECIPIENT ISN'T THERE TO ACTIVATE THE TEAMUP. Hulk just gets 100 (used to be 150) more max HP this season and is going to lose it in a few weeks and become garbage tier as presumably some other tank gets a teamup and becomes the new hotness. it's an interesting approach to balance and im cautiously optimistic to see how it turns out. i've played video games long enough to see failures from both the "never rebalance anything ever" camp (early Hearthstone) and "weekly balance patches fucking up breakpoints and matchups faster than you can rememorize them" camp (early Vermintide 2), and the latter is at least entertaining if it ends in fire.

i don't think that's what's making it succeed where overwatch 2 is currently floundering at best though, i'm not videoessayistbrained enough to think the average consumer cares about heady game balance stuff like that. what got people in the door initially was the Marvel IP, and eventually it reached a critical mass of players where it started drawing in people who don't care about or actively dislike most Marvel projects just because it's the most active hero shooter. then content creators jumped ship from OW2 to start making Rivals videos because that's where the views were.

i also think it's worth noting that if Blizzard stole the Men In Black memory wiper and erased all memories of OW1 and OW2 and rereleased OW2 in its current state as a new game called "Overwatch" it would stand a decent chance of competing with Rivals and gain comparably positive reception. a massive chunk of the reason OW2 is currently struggling where Rivals isn't is because of how burned people still feel by the way Blizz killed OW1 and rolled out OW2. the single biggest thing Rivals is doing better than OW2 is something OW2 can literally never do: not being OW2.

[dailyadventureprompts]

So I don't usually get involved in class balance discourse but recently I stumbled across this video and it made me realize something about D&D's game design, specifically WHY casters get access to room/encounter clearing amounts of damage while martial characters are stuck with their low damage iterative attacks.

See, since d&d was one of the first things to emerge from the primordial soup of ttrpgs there were a lot of developments in game design that we take for granted today that simply didn't exist as concepts back then. One of these was asymetricality: the idea that different players at the table might be using their own set of mechanics to interact with the game at different levels.

Today we understand that while our DMs/GMs/Storytellers/Directors are fellow players, the game is FUNDAMENTALLY DIFFERENT from their perspective and the mechanics they have access to should probably reflect that.

I've complained before that d&d's monster making system is nigh unusable because it expects you to do a lot of extraneous work for a creature that's going to be dead in three rounds. This is because the game has traditionally modelled monsters in nearly the same way that it models player characters, which seems like the most backwards bit of game design ever until you remember that d&d evolved from wargames, where having a unified system with clearly defined math was important for maintaining competitive balance.

Magic is unbalanced for the same reason that monsters are over-complicated, because it expects the party and the dungeonmaster to be using the same mechanics despite their fundamentally different play experiences.

Think about it: however much fun it is to make things explode Fireball and it's big brother Meteor Swarm are not well designed player spells. They're really USEFUL for a DM looking to deal a lot of damage to a relevant level party, but encounter balance starts to go out the window once the players get their hands on them.

So how do we fix this? Honestly, not sure. I'm really interested in how the 5e successors are taking advantage of the asymmetrical nature of the GM/Player dynamic, as everyone's seemed to have independently learned the lesson that there should probably be a different set of mechanics depending on whether you're behind the screen or not.

For D&D itself though, I think it's one of those things that I'm going to need to tinker with for a while and up my game design skill. Learning where the game breaks down teaches us how to improve it. Currently I'm experimenting with retooling player HP and making counter-magic a LOT more common to make the use of those big encounter-ending spells more tactical. I might also take a look into it if I ever feel like tangling with the spell economy.

[maximumzombiecreator]

Nothing sours me on a crunchy game faster than when the GM is expected to patch over rules and balance problems.

I understand the appeal of designing the game with a fast and loose approach, knowing that everything ultimately has to pass through a human brain that can make adjustments and judgments. But for me this comes back to the question: why am I playing a crunchy game in the first place?

For me, one of the big reasons is that crunchy games facilitate paraplay. By paraplay I mean the play-around-play, the parts of playing a game that happen outside of running the actual session. (I've also heard this called "lonely fun" but I don't like that term, because very often there are big communities for this, and it isn't really lonely at all.)

Most of my social hobbies have some form of this. Wargames have building and painting and buying miniatures, multiplayer videogames have streams to watch and builds to learn, card games have deck building and tuning, etc.

For GMs, almost every game has paraplay, since prep can be a form of this. But for players, crunchy games give them something to do away from the table. Theory-crafting communities, fiddling with character builds, browsing lists of spells and feats, all these things give engaged players a way to engage with the game even when they're not at the table. There are a lot of players for whom this is a lot of fun!

Except…

If the game doesn't actually have balance, if it allows things to just be broken and require the GM to patch them, then these players will bring the product of their paraplay to the table and be told "no, that doesn't work, actually" and then find out that they weren't actually having fun during their paraplay. They were just wasting their time. They'll disconnect from that side of the game (if they don't disconnect from the game entirely), and then you're saddled with a bunch of rules and mechanics that aren't producing what is, from my perspective, one of the primary payoffs. Not to mention cultivating a resentment not between the player and the game, but between the player and the GM who ruined their paraplay fun.

I got no use for that.

[markrosewater]

As someone who only recently got properly into Magic this year my stance on the recent UB Standard legality is that so long as the mechanics are good, fun to play, and work well with the other Standard legal sets then I don't particularly care if Final Fantasy is legal.

But.

There is something about the Marvel Universe being Standard Legal that feels off. Final Fantasy shares many aesthetic and gameplay similarities to Magic that make it slide into the general ecosystem better from a Look/Feel perspective. Meanwhile, as much of a Spider-Man fan as I am, it is going to be incredibly weird seeing Peter Parker or Miles Morales face off against the critters of Bloomburrow, even more than Thunder Junction or Duskmourn do.

I will attend the Final Fantasy and Spider-Man prereleases because I love playing Magic and I am interested in both sets, but I cannot shake the feeling that this decision makes the overall play experience strange, especially since SIX Standard sets of a year is way overdoing it (maybe 3 In-Universe sets and 1 UB set would be a better balance?)

I understand the decision from a logical standpoint but the emotional reaction to Magic losing some of its Qualia is something that I can't ignore

I have read many of the responses to my request for emotional responses yesterday (I will continue reading - there are just a lot of people sharing). A common through line is the feeling of loss, that the decisions we’ve been making are taking things away from them.

So, I wanted to take a moment to talk about something that I believe Universes Beyond is adding to the game. I’m not talking about value to other people that aren’t you, but something that is upside to the enfranchised players that are the backbone of the game.

As I’m head designer, my focus is on mechanics and the core gameplay experience of playing the game. Universes Beyond has been a bolt of energy for the design of the game.

Because so many of you are sharing personal stories, I’ll use my own experiences as a way to illustrate my point.

One day, when I was seven or eight, I woke up and went downstairs to see that my Dad had bought me a comic book and left it out on the counter for me as a surprise. It was Spider-Man.

I must have read that comic ten times. It was the start of a life long love of comic books. I’m not quite sure why the superhero genre, in particular, spoke to me so strongly, but it did.

As a teenager I was a bit of an outcast, and when I stumbled upon the X-Men, it felt like a story that was core to my lived experience. I too was an outsider, but out there were people like me and if I could find those people, we could bond over our similarities.

I enjoy designing Magic. I mean really, really enjoy designing Magic. I don’t throw around the term “dream job” lightly. It is truly a lifelong passion. I spend so much time writing about it because it is something that brings me so much joy, and there is a desire to share that joy with others, my found family that shares my similarities.

Designing Marvel cards has been electrifying. I have spent years mastering the art of Magic design. Getting to combine that with my love of Marvel characters has been inspirational. It has inspired to make designs I would have never thought of.

It has pushed me in directions I couldn’t have predicted and resulted in designs that tickle both my inner Mel and Vorthoses.

And it hasn’t just affected my own designs. I have given more notes on card designs than I have in my twenty nine years at Wizards.

For example, the amount of back and forth with Aaron who designed the five Secret Lair cards we recently revealed at New York ComicCon was exhaustive. He and I have long bonded over our shared love of Marvel, so getting to translate that into Magic with him has been amazing.

And each Universes Beyond product we’re making has people as equally passionate about that property.

My point is from purely a design perspective, Universes Beyond has had huge dividends. It has inspired us to make fresh new designs. It has sparked creativity. We are making awesome card designs, mechanics, themes, and sets, things that most likely wouldn’t have come into existence otherwise.

The passion that beloved characters and worlds has inspired in us is translated into amazing Magic design, something that will make the act of playing Magic better for anyone who enjoys the nuts and bolts of the raw gameplay of Magic.