#there's something in the guy whose persona is “doublespeaking salesman”

[smallishdruid]

watching gem's secret life episodes, I'm getting less and less fond of the gimmick this past season. I think the secrets are too on the nose as a mechanic, and I prefer broader concepts. it feels like the modification gets stricter and stricter every season, which, in my opinion, is not the best move.

the secrets are ultra-specific, mostly unique to each player, and not very flexible in nature. I'm thinking of "open the end portal" or "get five people to give you their doors" (notably, not "steal five doors" or "acquire five doors") - non-negotiable and hard tracked. that's rough and not always enjoyable to watch. the end portal was a cool motivation, sure, but what if it were a global task? what if one of the major goals of the server for the season was beating minecraft? that appeals to me more. the very carefully worded secrets sets off my alarms anyway as I'm a person who LOVES getting picky about semantics.

specifically, gem's task that involved her not saying a single truthful thing felt punishing. it's not a task that I feel subverts the theme/importance of alliance in life games effectively, it's not particularly funny to me, and it's clear that it's not very achievable. maybe for a hard secret it would work. I can't be sure.

the gameplay of secret life also felt a little more convoluted than I'd like. I didn't chafe too much at the time subtraction/addition mechanics in limited life, but I think this season crossed a threshold I didn't know I had. I didn't care for the yellow lives being able to guess secrets to make green players fail. of course, only red players got outright hostile tasks, but that's because they weren't supposed to wreak havoc - another change I didn't like, but I digress. my preference would be either yellows having nuisance tasks and reds having hostile ones, or yellows having the hostile tasks and reds then being able to do the classic senseless violence. it's not that I didn't understand the tier mechanic, I just didn't particularly enjoy its implementation. it, too, felt stifling.

what I'd really like to see is a return to form. I miss the boogeyman from last life because it felt like a big change to the original very basic 3rd life idea. and that it was basic is not a bad thing, it's just a fact. a three-tier system that descends into hostility isn't groundbreaking but worked really well in minecraft. the boogey was an excellent addition because it could happen to anyone any session, it was a generic brief, and it was extremely flexible in method.

now, that doesn't mean that I want to literally go back to last life. I'd just like to see a mechanic that is broad, global, and flexible. I don't want to feel like the person I'm watching is being suffocated by the gimmick.