@benstrater.bsky.social
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Marks new NG2 vid is a perfect example of what I mean since he focuses on using terrain
youtu.be/7frML8CZLpY?...
Modern CAG devs and players think that this terrain stuff is bad & gets in the way of combat, so they turn everything into an arena or encourage YOU to do it by never using terrain
youtu.be/7frML8CZLpY?...
Modern CAG devs and players think that this terrain stuff is bad & gets in the way of combat, so they turn everything into an arena or encourage YOU to do it by never using terrain
December 13, 2025 at 11:34 PM
Marks new NG2 vid is a perfect example of what I mean since he focuses on using terrain
youtu.be/7frML8CZLpY?...
Modern CAG devs and players think that this terrain stuff is bad & gets in the way of combat, so they turn everything into an arena or encourage YOU to do it by never using terrain
youtu.be/7frML8CZLpY?...
Modern CAG devs and players think that this terrain stuff is bad & gets in the way of combat, so they turn everything into an arena or encourage YOU to do it by never using terrain
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Another big sign of how peoples relationship to single player games has changed is the popularity of "Beating *game* but without etc etc" type videos
The videos are a reflection of culture. The personal ruleset has become the default, because the games cease to be fun without it
The videos are a reflection of culture. The personal ruleset has become the default, because the games cease to be fun without it
January 3, 2026 at 9:47 PM
Another big sign of how peoples relationship to single player games has changed is the popularity of "Beating *game* but without etc etc" type videos
The videos are a reflection of culture. The personal ruleset has become the default, because the games cease to be fun without it
The videos are a reflection of culture. The personal ruleset has become the default, because the games cease to be fun without it
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People anthropomorphize video game enemies in a way that creates really fucked up discussions and critical eval. Where if enemies are good at pantomiming "aggressive gameplay" their design is treated as good even if it's completely unfit for the types of player mechanics the game they're in has
January 3, 2026 at 4:46 AM
People anthropomorphize video game enemies in a way that creates really fucked up discussions and critical eval. Where if enemies are good at pantomiming "aggressive gameplay" their design is treated as good even if it's completely unfit for the types of player mechanics the game they're in has
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smash players will say stuff like "sonic is designed to annoy you" and then they'll go on to say he has a badly designed moveset, like bro have you seen sonic his entire fighting style in his own series is being an annoying little rat fuck so he can get eggman's mech to punch itself in the face
January 1, 2026 at 10:20 PM
smash players will say stuff like "sonic is designed to annoy you" and then they'll go on to say he has a badly designed moveset, like bro have you seen sonic his entire fighting style in his own series is being an annoying little rat fuck so he can get eggman's mech to punch itself in the face
“Difficulty and punishment aren’t the same thing” ok, even if you think that they aren’t mutually exclusive either since most goals of a game is to beat them and punishment makes achieving that goal harder to do…
January 1, 2026 at 8:41 PM
“Difficulty and punishment aren’t the same thing” ok, even if you think that they aren’t mutually exclusive either since most goals of a game is to beat them and punishment makes achieving that goal harder to do…
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On a more pessimistic note I feel like next year will be an intense acceleration of all the shitty AI based trends we saw this year and passive dumb acceptance from the avg person in the medium so hope for the best prepare for thr worst
January 1, 2026 at 2:04 AM
On a more pessimistic note I feel like next year will be an intense acceleration of all the shitty AI based trends we saw this year and passive dumb acceptance from the avg person in the medium so hope for the best prepare for thr worst
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will never understand the subset of action game players that have hundreds of hours in devil may cry or whatever that actually sit down at their consoles and pcs to play gacha games like pgr or wuthering waves
December 31, 2025 at 8:28 PM
will never understand the subset of action game players that have hundreds of hours in devil may cry or whatever that actually sit down at their consoles and pcs to play gacha games like pgr or wuthering waves
Moots, what makes a good 2d platformer and is donkey Kong returns and tropical freeze good ones?
December 21, 2025 at 1:08 AM
Moots, what makes a good 2d platformer and is donkey Kong returns and tropical freeze good ones?
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Reviewing rly simple games is a really nice litmus test cuz they force u to ditch the usual crutches of describing parts of the game without ever connecting it all together to get anything worthwhile out of it. U basically have to directly think about how everything connects & ur own play experience
December 13, 2025 at 7:57 PM
Reviewing rly simple games is a really nice litmus test cuz they force u to ditch the usual crutches of describing parts of the game without ever connecting it all together to get anything worthwhile out of it. U basically have to directly think about how everything connects & ur own play experience
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>Started dying on the first stage of Fight n Rage after a couple of really good attempts
Enough for today...
Enough for today...
November 15, 2025 at 4:13 PM
>Started dying on the first stage of Fight n Rage after a couple of really good attempts
Enough for today...
Enough for today...
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When it comes to single-player combat in any genre
I’m finding more and more that people just see mechanics as a means to an end and that “Let me do what I wanna do” seems to be the general opinion that most people lean towards
I’m finding more and more that people just see mechanics as a means to an end and that “Let me do what I wanna do” seems to be the general opinion that most people lean towards
November 9, 2025 at 11:30 AM
When it comes to single-player combat in any genre
I’m finding more and more that people just see mechanics as a means to an end and that “Let me do what I wanna do” seems to be the general opinion that most people lean towards
I’m finding more and more that people just see mechanics as a means to an end and that “Let me do what I wanna do” seems to be the general opinion that most people lean towards
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Yup, a common pattern I've noticed in COMPLEX styles of games specifically is that people can have near encyclopedic knowledge of game mechanics but then completely fall apart when talking about a game's design overall, mystifying it as a happy accident or unknowable or whatever the fuck
October 29, 2025 at 11:01 PM
Yup, a common pattern I've noticed in COMPLEX styles of games specifically is that people can have near encyclopedic knowledge of game mechanics but then completely fall apart when talking about a game's design overall, mystifying it as a happy accident or unknowable or whatever the fuck
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I really think a big part of why games are so hard to talk about with people is because we don't experience them as a coherent whole & many ppl don't want to. Different pieces of gameplay like bosses/levels/interactions are very spatially & temporally detached from one another
October 29, 2025 at 10:13 PM
I really think a big part of why games are so hard to talk about with people is because we don't experience them as a coherent whole & many ppl don't want to. Different pieces of gameplay like bosses/levels/interactions are very spatially & temporally detached from one another
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“Player expression” in cases where making a different decision would result in the same outcome isn’t really that interesting to me
October 27, 2025 at 1:46 PM
“Player expression” in cases where making a different decision would result in the same outcome isn’t really that interesting to me
Man really wished more moots of mikes used Bluesky more so I could have an incentive to use this app more and replace it with twitter
October 24, 2025 at 2:06 PM
Man really wished more moots of mikes used Bluesky more so I could have an incentive to use this app more and replace it with twitter
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There have been many criticisms of Magenta Horizon, but one of the most unfair ones is that the game's combat arenas are just square rooms after square rooms. On the contrary, there are many different combat situations like this. #MagentaHorizon #indiegames #actiongame
October 22, 2025 at 8:21 PM
There have been many criticisms of Magenta Horizon, but one of the most unfair ones is that the game's combat arenas are just square rooms after square rooms. On the contrary, there are many different combat situations like this. #MagentaHorizon #indiegames #actiongame
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Developers will do literally everything but slow down the player movement speed including bending spacetime
Clip from :
www.youtube.com/watch?v=aIrP...
Clip from :
www.youtube.com/watch?v=aIrP...
October 22, 2025 at 11:01 AM
Developers will do literally everything but slow down the player movement speed including bending spacetime
Clip from :
www.youtube.com/watch?v=aIrP...
Clip from :
www.youtube.com/watch?v=aIrP...
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Tomonobu Itagaki (creator of Ninja Gaiden 2004, Dead or Alive) has passed away according to his Facebook
October 16, 2025 at 7:23 AM
Tomonobu Itagaki (creator of Ninja Gaiden 2004, Dead or Alive) has passed away according to his Facebook
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Hesitant to celebrate Itagaki as a person but also sad to see a creative like that go, such vision is missed today
October 16, 2025 at 2:27 PM
Hesitant to celebrate Itagaki as a person but also sad to see a creative like that go, such vision is missed today
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A Father and my fav game designer Tomonobu Itagaki passed along today
Thank you for showing action games can be more even when philistines couldn't and still don't see it.
Even when you missed, it was still interesting and worth seeing. Real artist
RIP
Thank you for showing action games can be more even when philistines couldn't and still don't see it.
Even when you missed, it was still interesting and worth seeing. Real artist
RIP
October 16, 2025 at 9:29 AM
A Father and my fav game designer Tomonobu Itagaki passed along today
Thank you for showing action games can be more even when philistines couldn't and still don't see it.
Even when you missed, it was still interesting and worth seeing. Real artist
RIP
Thank you for showing action games can be more even when philistines couldn't and still don't see it.
Even when you missed, it was still interesting and worth seeing. Real artist
RIP
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Rest in peace Itagaki, one of the GOATs. He didn't just make awesome games but also changed countless people's views on what action games could & should be. Actually had a really strong vision on how to push the genre forward, directly shaping people's tastes
October 16, 2025 at 9:41 AM
Rest in peace Itagaki, one of the GOATs. He didn't just make awesome games but also changed countless people's views on what action games could & should be. Actually had a really strong vision on how to push the genre forward, directly shaping people's tastes
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i think sequels to gundam series/media are inherently a doomed concept because the only truly satisfying way to end a gundam series is to free the protagonist from its terrifying power and gravitas
but then a sequel has to be like "well there's gotta be a gundam right" so you gotta go back on that
but then a sequel has to be like "well there's gotta be a gundam right" so you gotta go back on that
i was thinking about gundam today (bad idea do not do this)
October 11, 2025 at 6:35 PM
i think sequels to gundam series/media are inherently a doomed concept because the only truly satisfying way to end a gundam series is to free the protagonist from its terrifying power and gravitas
but then a sequel has to be like "well there's gotta be a gundam right" so you gotta go back on that
but then a sequel has to be like "well there's gotta be a gundam right" so you gotta go back on that
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More writing/vids/etc. on game design should be treated as a piece of a convo rather than being seen as the final word or being seen as worthless & wrong. Feels like ppl only respond to stuff when it makes them mad, and no ideas get built on
October 6, 2025 at 10:54 PM
More writing/vids/etc. on game design should be treated as a piece of a convo rather than being seen as the final word or being seen as worthless & wrong. Feels like ppl only respond to stuff when it makes them mad, and no ideas get built on
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Wrote a post about Silksong's enemies, how they follow in the footsteps of beat 'em up enemies (probably incidentally, idk) and why that's a good thing
www.patreon.com/posts/139192...
www.patreon.com/posts/139192...
September 18, 2025 at 4:08 PM
Wrote a post about Silksong's enemies, how they follow in the footsteps of beat 'em up enemies (probably incidentally, idk) and why that's a good thing
www.patreon.com/posts/139192...
www.patreon.com/posts/139192...
@phdnix.bsky.social was pre Islamic Arabia Hellenized to a extent?
July 24, 2025 at 11:42 PM
@phdnix.bsky.social was pre Islamic Arabia Hellenized to a extent?