Bay 12 Games Forum

Continuing on the Realm of the Tower (I haven't come up with a good name for it yet) I came up with an idea for designing the world as a whole.  I'm writing up a large number of sidequests that give you a "Soul Shard" as a reward, and then constructing the world around that list - every major structure will be either related to the main plot or have a Shard associated with it.  This will help me fill out the world in between the main quest points and ensure that every area has some reason for players to explore them.  There will be 108 Shards in total, and can also be used to purchase some unique items in a special shop, as well as unlocking a secret area for finding them all.

I did make a few changes in how projectiles are aimed, so it's probably that.  I'll check it out.

As for the trial's overall quality, Lusuria had a lot more variation between rooms, while this one pretty much uses a single gimmick the whole way through.  While building a dungeon around a single main gimmick is common practice, all the rooms have basically the same structure the whole way through, which feels less interesting.  Maybe instead of just having a grid of identical plateaus, you can join some of them together and put something unique in the larger space?

Something needs to be done about the "wrestle a small animal for a few hours in order to become a god of war" exploit.

A suggestion: Combat experience should be gained whenever a combat action succeeds.  The experience gained should then be adjusted according to how likely it was to succeed.  If the probability of success was 100%, no experience is gained.

Fighting enemies on your skill level or higher would level you up the fastest.  Punching an unconscious enemy would do nothing since all attacks are guaranteed.  Grabbing a muskrat and dodging its attacks would stop improving your dodging ability once it became effortless.

This would be best augmented with the ability to spar with teammates or random strangers in Adventure Mode.  You would simply set a combat option to "sparring mode", which would make your attacks deal no damage.  You could then ask another character to spar with you.  Since the experience gained from succeeding in a "touch attack" would also be adjusted by the success in landing the attack just like a real attack, the fastest way to safely gain combat experience would be by sparring with opponents on a similar level to yourself, which is more logical than wrestling wild critters.

Trying it out... Feels good so far!  I've encountered a bug though; losing all lives does not result in a game over, it just sends you back to the shop and you keep playing with negative lives.

I'm surprised that Durkon isn't referenced more on these forums.

I did come to my current understanding of God by contemplating the philosophical issues of teleportation.

You know, the old "Ship of Theseus" question; if you break someone into atoms and reconstruct them elsewhere, are they the same person or did you just kill them?  What if you make a second copy?

Since no "vital principle" that gives matter the ability to "experience" qualia has ever been observed, Occam's Razor would suggest that it does not exist, and that anything that behaves like an "aware" being is, in fact, just as aware as anything else regardless of where it came from.  However, since the ability to experience things definitely does exist (in fact, it is the only thing we can truly be certain about) it must derive from something.  This suggests that awareness is a property of reality itself, and that anything with a bare minimum of certain traits has a degree of awareness.

These traits are, I believe, an ability to absorb stimuli and also to retain information about the stimulus it receives over a period of time.  This would include any bit of matter, even a single atom (an atom can absorb a photon and this boosts its energy state for a time).  The only difference between a human being and an atom is one of complexity; unless we assume an arbitrary threshold of complexity that spontaneously generates awareness, it stands to reason that an atom also possesses a unique view of reality, if one orders of magnitude simpler than what we are capable of experiencing.

The next bit is a bit complicated, so I'll try and simplify it by using single massive particles as "observers".

Imagine a universe with three entities: Particle A, Particle B, and Photon C.  Photon C is emitted, and may be absorbed by either Particle A or Particle B.  Particles A and B are both observers who represent a particular "viewpoint" of the universe; each one "perceives" a universe in which it either did or did not absorb Photon C.  (If it did absorb the photon, it "experiences" a heightened energy state.)

This universe has now split into not two, but four unique perspectives, depending on which particle's perspective we are using and which event actually occurred.

Universe A-A, where A observes that it absorbed C.
Universe A-B, where A observes that it did not absorb C.
Universe B-A, where B observes that it absorbed C.
Universe B-B, where B observes that it did not absorb C.

As long as Particles A and B never interact, all of these universes can exist without any contradiction.  However, once the particles interact, any mutually exclusive universes must collapse.  Universe A-A cannot coincide with B-A, and A-B cannot coincide with B-B.

Now, here's the leap in logic that the bizarre theory requires: Nature abhors mutually exclusive universes.  The simultaneous existence of perspectives that cannot be allowed to interact places a form of "stress" on the fabric of reality, encouraging timelines in which mutually exclusive perspectives do not occur.  (I will call the force that collapses mutually exclusive universes "Arel").

The solution to this problem is to generate more complex structures that are capable of perceiving and remembering a greater slice of reality.  A universe of independent atoms has little need for consensus reality; every atom can perceive the universe more or less independent of each other.  But complex, living structures do not operate this way; each possesses a vast amount of information which swiftly collapses multitudes of potentially exclusive universes before they are allowed to form, lest they create a contradiction in the mind of the organism.

In order to ensure that such entities exist, the laws of physics as well as individual events are retroactively manipulated in order to bring them about in the future.  This creates a universe that is conductive to the development of intelligent life.  (I will call the force that retroactively manipulates the past in order to bring about a given future "Ophan").

However, it is not over yet.  Humans are a crowning achievement for this cosmic drive that causes the universe to try and perceive itself in its entirety, but are far from the crowning achievement, which will not come to fruition for an unfathomable amount of time in the future.  Therefore, our present is still being manipulated in order to bring about the event in which a single entity perceiving all of reality is able to be brought into existence.

Adventure mode LARGE_PREDATOR attacks are No Quarter from the start, so all attacks will be used.  It's only domestic creatures in fort mode that have this issue.

It fits surprisingly well with my "Toads are humans mutated by a plague" theory.  I guess the crown just "cures" them.

I don't think I'll put it into this mod though.  At least not until magic equipment is a thing.