u/CertainItem995

Kicking around an idea to end a VtM campaign after seeing some inspiring character art today. This gist is, what if vampirism is way more common than we've all been appreciating? That the numbers of speculation have been way too low this whole time and the mass of humanity way less of a threat than imagined. Then one night you get up, go to hunt and realize almost every damn person out there is a vampire. Soon it's only vampires and the whole damn ecosystem of the night starts to collapse. I know it's not terribly original, but how would you spin it?

Like the title says, it occurred to me the other day while perusing the lists that I've never seen an adaptation of the Battle of Blair Mountain. Does such a game in this style exist?

I've been really interested in tabletop games as tools for teaching the core skills of labor organizing lately, and I'm on the fence about picking this up to see their take on it (as a personal preference thing I tend not to care for PbtA). Have any of you played it and can speak on how well it functions in that capacity?

After post a comment about the literacy crisis the other day I have been reflecting on some generational differences between my generation of gamers and the kids coming up. One of the things that crossed my mind is that I can't remember the last time I saw educational games that were for a specific sub-demographic of kids. I figured my algorithm wouldn't point me towards it but even after searching it eluded me.

To be clear I'm talking about series like *Cluefinders* or *Jumpstart Adventures* or even *Carmen Sandiego* (I remember that last one being mostly just rote trivia but there's enough variety across entries to the series that I'm including it anyway) that had varied challenges based on applying information that would be reasonably challenging for a child at that grade level. They had more plot than 'activity center' game programs like "ABCmouse".

Are these still getting made? If not, with the rise of mandatory tech in schools do you think they are due or a comeback? If not do you see any flaws in the genre that might be a barrier that could be fixed? Would love to hear folks' thoughts on this.

So I'm coming into this with the following thoughts: me and my friends all love Star Wars Squadrons, but we're terrible at flying the damn things and the most fun part of the game is shooting the fighters, turrets, and ship components. I also have a love of on rails shooters like Star Wars Trilogy Arcade, Star Fox 64, and Beachhead since I was a kid and I miss having fun with a flight stick without having to worry about maneuvering.

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That all said, I want to make a game iterating on the genre about being the gunner in an ersatz Y-wing, my twist is that the levels are technically open but a bot does the flying around the level, you defend it from creeps and torpedoes, and are occasionally rewarded with being able to go nuts blasting apart large high-value targets in bombing runs like capital ships or enemy bases. The default loop is that the bot flies you around the level, you shoot threats, hitting things racks up a "turn the tide" score, and when the level ends (time, player defeat, or overcoming a boss) the score determines whether or not the player moves on to the next level.

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Where I'm stuck: I'm mostly happy with the controls, and how to tell the bot to not fly directly into objects, but I can't decide how to approach the enemy hit rate (and implementing the actual shooting in general). I don't know how to code the shooting mechanics so that the bot only gets hit enough times to raise tension with a risk of losing, but not so vulnerable that it feels like a holdover of the 'designed to eat quarters' era. I contemplated having an 'evasive maneuvers' toggle to make the bot fly in a way to lower enemy hit rate while counting on the extra movement making it harder to hit stuff in turn. I also considered letting the hit rate be fairly high but let players to a minigame to heal (think like R2D2 in the back of Luke's x-wing) but I'm paranoid about feature creep. The solution I can think of is to have enemies "always be accurate" under the hood and just make a certain percentage of shots go wide, another would be to make everything an object that can be dodged or collide to keep things consistent. Do you guys have any thoughts? I have built some prototypes of games over the years, but this is my first pass to a more ambitious project.

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If there are games that already play like this that I could learn from, please do also let me know. All feedback appreciated.

I finally found this community after looking to learn more about these games for years (thrilled to be here by the way). I know this is probably an idiocy self-report, but until I literally got here I had been under the impression that unit counters in these games were referred to as 'chits' was that ever a thing? Or am I having a years-long Mandela effect?

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On a more intelligent note, my dad just downsized as part of retiring, and gave me his old collection. A few of them are kinda problematic, but on the whole it seems like a good way to spend time with the old man now that he actually has some. Since I'm on the hook for the rules I wanted to know if this genre of games has any recurring design or common mechanics that might help me learn them faster? Like is the information on counters generally the same from game-to-game within a given scale?

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(If specifics help most of these are Milton Bradley 'american heritage' series, with a few avalon hill)

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Any help appreciated, thank you for your time!

This is something I always wanted to learn, but I'm struggling to find reliable sources. I'm unfortunately tone deaf so I never made it war into music theory, but after listening to some faryafaraji content I realized I could just ask, are there any textbooks or respected websites you guys know about that compile or list common or known cultural associations with different musical instruments/keys/scales/modes etc along with definitions? Stuff like "major keys sound more happy" or "europeans keep using the duduk for an orientalist sound even though it's from armenia."

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Any help appreciated, thank you for your time.