#Area Majority

[whovian223]

New to Me - January 2025

New to Me #boardgames - January 2025 @leder.games @allplay.bsky.social

Another year and another month of new to me games. It’s 2025 now and things are still going strong on the new to me front, with four whole new ones this last month! No first impressions posts this time, though, so I’ll be talking about all of them here. And they were all good! Or at least intriguing. However, the Cult of the New to Me was not really happy with me. The oldest game was from…

[tabletopbellhop]

New #Boardgame #Unboxing

Ahau: Rulers of Yucatán from Grand Gamers Guild

Check out what you get in this Mayan themed, heavy board game.

[arcanewebs]

personal take on fem tsukasa

[slavhew]

DO YA THINGKU

for a twitter trend of redrawing miku as album covers!! i wanted to do one of my favorite single from gorillaz. Cover-accurate ver + closeups:

this was definitely the biggest thing ive drawn this year!! and a good chunk of it on stream. thank you everyone who tuned in!! it was loads more fun to make in company :]

[remma-demma]

Thinking about people not liking what happened at the end of dawntrail like… hmm.

Did you not remember the stuff with the Yok Huy. Nobody is gone if you remember them. The phrase that’s been with us for nearly the entire game, “For those we have lost….” Emet Selch entrusting us not only with the legacy of humanity in general but specifically with the memories of the Ancients and Elpis.

Just because people are gone doesn’t mean they aren’t still with us.

But the people of Neo-Alexandria are kept from that. They can’t remember anyone they’ve lost because their memories were stolen and locked away in an eternal purgatory, unable to move on or be reincarnated. The quest where you go to the graves in Heritage Found was a big moment where I was like. Huh. This fucking sucks actually.

The endless are just computer simulations, and they exist because Sphene can’t bear to let them go. Can’t even let her living citizens mourn or carry on legacies.

And that’s not even mentioning the fact that she needs the souls of innocent *living* people to power this all.

I think it’s a really good metaphor for the digital age, becoming disconnected from our irl communities, uploading your entire life on social media. Profiles of loved ones who have passed on. AI chat bots providing temporary comfort but no real human connection. All of that technology requiring enough energy to slowly but surely contribute to the destruction of our planet.

It all seems pretty clear to me as an allegory but like, I guess some people just didn’t make that connection? Or maybe they just don’t think about all the AI stuff in the same way I do.

[serpentface]

Tigran: launching into a story about a time when he was 7 and watched a guy get eaten alive by dogs, completely unprompted and unnervingly blasé about the whole thing.

Etsushir: not listening, warming his hands over the nightly allotment of yams, smoking.

Palo: this is the tenth time he's heard this story, not listening, wondering whether Etsushir is smoking tobacco and where the hell he got it and can he have some?

[daeyumi]

*guardian theme music intensifies* 🔴⭕️📍

[Linktober 2022 Day 13: Secret]

[iero]

Because me and some coworkers had a conversation about this…

[sandersstudies]

I made this post before, but it was before Tumblr had polls, so I’ll ask again.

[revvethasmythh]

I’ve already seen someone say that the wildmother “emotionally manipulated and distracted orym into not asking any questions” and I’m like…. What? How? What’s with people in this fandom accusing every other character of manipulating other characters? Do you think it was manipulation?

I'm honestly not terribly surprised to see takes like that appear--and, to be entirely fair, I think it's possible there was some manipulation there inasmuch as there was during the Changebringer's commune with FCG. They need these mortals' help; it's not surprising to think they'd appeal to them in a specific way to acquire that help.

That said, some of the takes I've seen really truly rely on a bad faith analysis of Melora's intentions there. I think it's worth noting that she has been courting Orym/has taken an interest in Orym since at least episode 42! Her interest in him is neither recent nor surprising and she, without any strings, has provided boons to him throughout the campaign. I think Orym himself is wary of the possibility of being manipulated, hence some of his hesitation after coming out of the vision, and his statement that he's willing to stand with Wildmother as a "partner" more than a follower. This is a man who doesn't really trust the gods, but could nonetheless benefit from an alliance with one.

And, the thing is, you could point to almost any act of kindness and invent a way that it could be manipulation. That's what a lot of those takes sound like to me. Why did Melora only speak to Orym and not any of the other Hells who are more critical of the gods? Because she's been courting Orym for 62 episodes now. Why did she pull away when he questioned her about Aeor? She was opening up a new path for him to walk down in the vision. Why did she show him a cosmic horror that almost broke him? He asked to see it. Why did she comfort him after that? She didn't actually mean to hurt him and was apologizing. Why did she show him Will? Because Will's soul is actually in her domain and letting Orym see him again is, like, nice. Sure, you can assess a lot of those things as manipulative if you want to--but that's a choice you have to make about assessing something in good or bad faith, just like in anything else. And Orym appears to be taking it on good faith at present, which is probably the best foot to put forward, even if you are not entirely sure of someone's full intentions. "Assess in good faith until proven otherwise" is where I'm sitting on this, particularly given the history of past positive relationships Melora has fostered with other characters in the campaigns.

[whovian223]

Top 50 Games Played of All Time - 2024 Edition (#20-11)

Top 50 Games Played of All Time - 2024 Edition (#20-11) @GaleForceNine @kayentagames @fanfactories @StrongholdGames @GamesSylex @stonemaiergames @elizhargrave

How our tastes change over time is always kind of interesting to look at. As a kid, I loved Brussels Sprouts! Now, I really really hate them. Ok, I’m kidding…nobody sane likes Brussels Sprouts. But you get my point! Things you like as a kid, or didn’t like as a kid, you may now feel the opposite. Hell, that can change from year to year! Which is definitely the case in our boardgame likes…

[thelettergii]

So bad news - I was laid off from my fulltime job at Ubisoft. Or well, they shut the whole studio down. My severance package is pretty good so I should be okay financially for a while, but it's been a rough few days nevertheless. Now more than ever, any support of my indie game Sugarplum Cafe is appreciated - reblog this post, join my mailing list, or join my Patreon for early access!

Good news if you're attending the EGL convention Ursa Major in SF Japantown - you can play Sugarplum Cafe this Saturday! With permission from staff, I will be in the Game Lounge (Osaka Room) from 3-8 pm, holding a playtest and wearing these bows. Come say hi + help break my game! (You will need to purchase a weekend or day pass to attend Ursa Major. See here for how to obtain one.)

For those of you who don't know, Sugarplum Cafe is a merge crafting game that I'm solo developing. It's about running a sweets cafe and serving tea parties to fashionable ladies inspired by dessert flavors!

[obsixwi]

More Ursa Major shenanigans Photo credit @ bon.komera Thanks to everyone who attended! We hope you had a good time!

[thanatika]

yeah i agree with your point about survival mechanics and i feel the same way about the lack of combat mechanics. "why would an educated city doctor need a weapon" because shit is hitting the fan in every way impossible and pretty much everyone is walking around armed... also why am i supposed to believe the the fact that he's a man of intellect will somehow provide him with food? i don't think anyone is going to be too eager to share food during an outbreak intellectual or not...

+ follow up for the previous ask but actually my favorite quest from the original pathologic is the day 11 bachelor quest that involves shooting down soldiers. i think it really drives the point home about how this random fuckass guy who is supposed to be battling a plague doesn't even have the time to do that anymore because the people in charge are asking completely irrelevant things of him now and he's at a position where he cannot refuse what is being asked of him. like i think it was good storytelling that even as the guy who lowkey wants to deal with the plague and solve its mystery you still have other, more pressing, less interesting and or pleasant tasks to complete

i agree! honestly, i feel this way about the combat mechanics even more than i do about the physical survival (food, health, illness, sleep) mechanics. because sure, i can see how it makes sense for daniil's position of authority to mean that his basic needs are somewhat provided for -- although i don't think it makes more sense than what we got in the original game. i've never seen anyone bring up "isn't it kind of unrealistic that the bachelor isn't given lots of food during a massive food shortage?" as a plothole that needed to be resolved. the townspeople generally don't like him much, and most of the people with power don't either, except for the kains. sure, maybe it's kind of weird that you can go see the kains while broke and on the verge of keeling over from hunger, and they won't do anything to help you, but... the kains are pretty self-centered, and they're so goddamn weird that maybe they forget that you need to eat food to live anyway. and it's half-implied that the powers that be are ultimately giving daniil this role as a convenient way to kill him, so it makes sense that they would put no pressure on the town authorities to keep him alive.

(and honestly, artemy is taken under the olgimsky's auspices as much as the kains take daniil's under theirs! which is to say, selfishly, with ulterior motives that are more important to them than the well-being of their healer, but... the olgimskys are set up as the wealthiest of the 3 families financially, as well as the ones with the most access to food, given their control over the meat industry. so if anything it's "weirder" that artemy isn't more materially provided for, though to be clear i don't think there's an actual plothole there either way.)

but anyway, you could handwave it and say that daniil's position of privilege and authority gives him more perks than he got in the original game, but the amount of fighting you have to do to get through town is... kind of an unavoidable physical reality? like you're given so many sidequests that you often wind up walking around town after dark, and that's when the bandits come out. is the idea that the bandits would be too scared to attack him because he's so important? because that doesn't make a lot of sense to me, and even pathologic 2 establishes that he's seen as a valuable target by the bandits:

and then there's the quests where combat plays a more direct role in the story itself, like getting involved in saving andrey from the firing squad, or killing guards to break artemy out of prison, or the quest where you have to kill var in attempt to stop the arsonists (which i include on the same tier as the other ones because i really like the quest journal entry he has if you complete it where he blames himself for willow's death. it's a good character moment.)

hell, even in pathologic 2 itself, one of the biggest Bachelor Moments is on day 11, when you have that big dramatic convo with him after he killed a soldier for the papers he was delivering. plus one of bad grief's idle dialogues in patho 2 is commentary on the bachelor being "quick on the draw" and that he "already shot someone". like he just straight up is not living a combat-free existence. and overall, combat isn't just a good tool from a mechanical perspective, heightening the stakes and placing pressure on the player (though it is), it's also pretty important for him on a thematic level imo, almost as important as artemy and his "rivers of blood". in patho classic, daniil has this early interaction with the inquisitor:

which, thinking about it from a doylist perspective, was probably the writers' attempt to make it sound more plausible that this random medical researcher from the big city was competent with multiple types of guns. and i appreciate them coming up with that hint of backstory to cover their bases a bit, but with those bases covered, i think the fact that daniil ultimately spends more time shooting people than he does prescribing medicines for them actually does a lot for him thematically? i mean, if his whole thing is that he's this "tempted destroyer", someone who frames his career as a combative battle with death rather than a quest to save people's lives, whose "default" solution is to raze the town with artillery because he's too limited by his rationalist worldview and military upbringing (and bitterness over being manipulated and sabotaged) to come up with a solution that saves the any remaining infected survivors on his own. plus the way that clara frames artemy and daniil as two sides of the same coin in being violent destroyers and killers, who without player intervention will immediately devolve to running around chasing each other down in what's either an insanely dedicated tom and jerry LARP or some really elaborate foreplay. imo, that whole dichotomy (which is pretty core to the game, as the idea of dichotomies are core to it in general) works so much better with the way they're both presented in classic, stalking around with gun/scalpel in hand. hell, not to mention the effect that spending 12 in-game days trying not to starve and getting killed by bandits or guards or worms or soldiers every day would have on the player, and the way it would make them feel about the town and their natural projection of those feelings onto dankovsky, who is a perfectly fitting vessel for them as the avatar actually undergoing those virtual experiences.

ultimately i think they are mainly going this direction out of a desire to do something more creative and original, which is fine... it just seems a bit silly to me that they keep saying "well obviously that doesn't really work for the bachelor's scenario", when, well... even as recently as patho 2 in 2019, they seemed to think it fit his narrative pretty well! i'm also guessing that a lack of combat won't be that bandits are just no longer roaming the streets at night. it sounds more like pathologic 3 is set to be more of a nonlinear experience, where you'll probably fast travel from place to place instead of having to walk across town so much? so you'll be avoiding bandits just in the sense that the gameplay will be avoiding them. i guess i'm hoping that at the very least, there's still the implication of the crunch of not getting enough sleep or food and the threat of being stabbed to death while trying to get through town occurring to dankovsky in the background, even if those mechanics are deemphasized in favor of more macro-level town resource management, time control, and sherlock holmes fruit ninja or whatever the hell they were on about back in 2022 lmao.

[cidnangarlond]

hi my post from a few days ago hasn't generated anything so I'm remaking it. I have bills coming up very soon + my sister and her family to help out + no jobs in my area have gotten back to me and I've sent out dozens of applications. it's celebrate bisexuality day so please consider helping out this bisexual today if you can 💜🫶🏻

ppal: FSTsierra

cshapp: $SierraDawnbreak

[onpie]

Noodles and Tea’s work inspired me fr