Bay 12 Games Forum

Really, what I would want is just a bike setup where I can pedal while playing games. Wouldn't have the boredom of exercise set in, and I have something to do with my feet. It wouldn't even need to be intense. Sitting at my computer for ten hours while very lightly pedaling will be plenty of exercise.

A game where the objective is to run over as many pedestrians aspossible, with ocasional upgrades like lasers, all using a stationary bike as controller... Endless possibilities. As long as all of them involve murder and chaos....

The Tesseract was immovable. When Tony struck it with his attack, it didnt budget at all. This was done to show that that shit was well protected, but it also tells us that that shit ain't moving from that spot. It didnt transfer Tony attack into the roof. Its locked in place.

It transferred the attack back at Tony. There's no rule that the forcefield has to exert force in the direction that it was sent, into the rooftop. Just a bubbley energy field doing bubbley energy field stuff.

Also, Tesseract was floating in the center of a machine, and the machine was either powering the Tesseract or the Tesseract powering the machine, either way it was turned off by putting the Scepter to block the energy beam thingy (the Scepter wasn't a proper key or anything, Mr. Science Guy just said it "might" be used, because it could penetrate the bubble because deus ex). The forcefield itself was centered around the Tesseract itself (the machine had uncovered parts).

The machine itself is resting on the roof. While it might have resulted in it just floating there and helping the machine float somehow because of it being anchored into the cube (the whole setup was "self-powered", no longer needing energy from the ARC, but the Tesseract wasn't doing the portaling by itself) it isn't a foregone conclusion. Plus all the Frame of Reference stuff that Starver said, but those are usually handwaved in comic physics. (there is even a superhero that travels by standing "still" relative to Earth's rotation, but somehow never actually leaves Earth even tho Earth is moving. So, somehow anchored to the center of mass or something?)

Rise of the Thread!

So I was just watching Avengers for the 100th time, and got to the part where they find the Tesseract machine thingamabob on the roof of Stark Tower. Anyway, the thing is shielded with "pure energy" and impenetrable and all that. Not saying that this would have disabled it, but... what would have happened if they just collapsed the rooftop? It's not like the thing would just stay floating in the air pointing upwards like nothing, at least it would fall down and mess up the portal a bit. Would the force "sphere" of energy start to just bounce all over like a transparent beach ball?

Well if it keeps working at best they'd make the portal appear in a weird place that isn't open sky, like the middle of another building or on the street if it fell all the way. Probably wouldn't have helped at all to stop the invasion... but fun to think about.

Or you could keep scores of different consequences of your actions without actually having to have a branching choose-your-own-adventure. Sorta like RPG stats but not of your own character but how you have been dealing with things.

Like the reputation system in New Vegas, or the relationship thing in Alpha Protocol, except you track a lot of more arbitrary things than just how much people respect you. At some point these get evaluated at certain branching points, at the ending "slides", whatever. Even if some later converge, they will still affect how hard some puzzles get later if you use the easy way at the beginning.

EDIT: Actual point & click example. I think it was Kings Quest 4 (I'm not sure, could be confusing with another game), there were a couple places were you had to get rid of some animal to access certain place (different creatures). You could like, throw a rock at one, with no immediate consequence. Or you could use a less aggressive way. But later to get past a different challenge, the game remembered if you were mean to one of these beasties and didn't let you thru. (in this case it rendered the game unwinnable I believe, but this wouldn't need to be so extreme)

Our group just infiltrated the underdark city of Menzoberranzan. Well, more like blundered into 50 guards/army thing then convinced them we're not completely useless so they escorted us inside. Our party of 4-5 (usually 3 per session active) of level 10 people have been really pathetic at this. Even 4 "peasants" with blowpipes are a challenge because we can't see anything and we're attacked from extreme ranges in those huge caves. Even with light spells, cantrips, cat eye goggles and shit.

It's pretty annoying. Luckily we're Evil Moustache-Twirling Villains so at least we can diplomacy with them, but I've never felt so uselessly overunderpowered.

(well, TBH this "50 NPC encounter" seemed pretty one-sided and not meant to be won by combat, but minor skirmishes shouldn't pose such a huge challenge, should they?)

One final alternative: Spellguns. The player would have a magic gun capable of firing spell cartridges, which are basically just ready-made spells, which they can buy or just find around the world. And these, like the others, would come in battle and utility forms. And you might be able to find or buy different spellguns that either enhance certain spells (some very specialized guns may only be able to fire certain spells or types of spells) or apply modifiers to all spells fired from them, in addition to variants capable of firing multiple spell cartridges before needing to be reloaded. And you might eventually be able to learn to make your own spell cartridges from basic components, which would take time but allow you to have more customized loadouts and allow you to make things like bullets that instantly kill their target (though they need to be made with something taken from the target to work, and might even have a limited-time use).

Not a computer game, but the roleplaying game Iron Kingdoms has the gun mage, who can cast spells by shooting bullets. Well, he physically also hits you with the bullet, so using them to buff your allies is probably not a good idea. Now, these aren't spell-cartridges that anyone can use, just them channeling their magic or whatever.

Finger on throat means death!
#METAPHOR

Looks like a game I'd like to try, if it isn't overpriced for e.a.

Specially love the mining beams. I've always wanted mining beams, that just remove all the blocks in their path. The interior-decorating part is also nice, animals and stuff look straight out of Fallout games.