iiinova — where your digital self keeps evolving

CabalCrow @cabalcrow.bsky.social · 28/09/2026

By not work I don't mean Tetirs doesn't work - I mean the comparison.

CabalCrow @cabalcrow.bsky.social · 28/09/2026

They serve additional functions too - which is why the fights get longer. The problem really is balancing functions, both aesthetic/story and gameplay functions. This is why stuff like Tetris don't work, because in there you don't need that balance.

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CabalCrow @cabalcrow.bsky.social · 28/09/2026

As it should! If your game's name ain't a whole poem I ain't intrested.

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Reposted by CabalCrow

VieWableImages @viewableimages.bsky.social · 27/09/2026

Things look a little different after the trains stop for the night. #photography #streetphotography #tokyo #japan #sony

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CabalCrow @cabalcrow.bsky.social · 22/09/2026

Quality control will happen regardless - people do it passively all the time. The difference here is to urge people to be active at preserving their communities and values.

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CabalCrow @cabalcrow.bsky.social · 16/09/2026

Help Rxe I can't find Acr Combat 7 anywhere!

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CabalCrow @cabalcrow.bsky.social · 14/09/2026

I think people miss out that "gatekeeping" and "quality control" are pretty much the same thing. One has a negative connotation and one positve, but the are functionally the same. So yeah people should "quality control" their communities when needed : )

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CabalCrow @cabalcrow.bsky.social · 02/09/2026

Narrow shot makes target priority and routing more interesting, while fat shot lets you focus completely on dodging. I don't think either approach is bad.

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CabalCrow @cabalcrow.bsky.social · 10/08/2026

so the optimal speedrun strat is leaving the game on overnight

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CabalCrow @cabalcrow.bsky.social · 04/08/2026

you could use your hands to play fighting game on a leverless at the same time

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CabalCrow @cabalcrow.bsky.social · 01/08/2026

There is a reason why often companies outsource the UI

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CabalCrow @cabalcrow.bsky.social · 29/07/2026

Honestly the amount of effort you put into a thing does not always represent the quality - sometimes you just get lucky and that lunch break shit was actually good.

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CabalCrow @cabalcrow.bsky.social · 26/07/2026

me accidentally copy pasting a random hitbox for 1 frame where it shouldn't be

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CabalCrow @cabalcrow.bsky.social · 23/07/2026

This is exactly what I mean when I say I want more dynamic RNG in shmups.

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CabalCrow @cabalcrow.bsky.social · 20/07/2026

Fighting games are a nice exmaple, but it has more to do with tradeoffs instead. While my main point was more that having fine tuned control, naturally requires execution difficulty. Something like precision spacing control in footsies would be an example of that.

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CabalCrow @cabalcrow.bsky.social · 20/07/2026

One thing that is missable of the benefits of execution barriers is control! If you want to do X thing and only X thing, making it easy 1 button thing is easy. However if you want more and more control between the outcomes, now you need more difficulty to be able to control the outcomes.

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CabalCrow @cabalcrow.bsky.social · 18/07/2026

You should tell him that he should get it from his package manager :p

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CabalCrow @cabalcrow.bsky.social · 14/07/2026

You encourage specific playstyles. I could design the pace of the difficulty way more precisely, without having to deal with repetitions of a marathon. If want to have a marathon challenge I can add a marathon level that takes out all of the training levels that serve for pacing.

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CabalCrow @cabalcrow.bsky.social · 14/07/2026

You add sectional challenge - you design the exact amount of skill test you are required to beat. Like otherwise by the logic of "you can just marathon it" I could also say you can just marathon all the arcade shmup games and make the ULTRA SHMUP. But there is point to beating 1 game, or - 1 level.

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CabalCrow @cabalcrow.bsky.social · 14/07/2026

It does, and you are supposed to skip them unfortunately. The bigger problem honestly is that most othre genres tend to be easier, rather than something related to checkpoints. Also if we include "boss levels" into the mix you actually have plenty of hard checkpoint levels out there vs shmups.

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CabalCrow @cabalcrow.bsky.social · 14/07/2026

or in the case of most shmups you will just bomb, and use other resources that you've stacked to nulify the boss.

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CabalCrow @cabalcrow.bsky.social · 14/07/2026

Not really, instead of that I would want a boss that is so hard I need to spend hours of trying to just beat them - like a good level. The problem with a marathon style is that you would have to make the bosses easier enough so that they are beatable in marathon...

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CabalCrow @cabalcrow.bsky.social · 14/07/2026

You can make a checkpoint shmup boss rush game.

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CabalCrow @cabalcrow.bsky.social · 09/07/2026

The thing is indie has a big range even excluding solo devs. Like there are some huge teams that are indie. While you could have a group of 5 or so people with no budget at all and they would also be counted indie.

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CabalCrow @cabalcrow.bsky.social · 08/07/2026

This reminds me of how in DDP: DOJ if you pick up a powerup while lasering it stops your laser for a microsecond and kills your chain.

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CabalCrow @cabalcrow.bsky.social · 01/07/2026

but wouldn't that be the case simply because Microsoft was already hated, and just entered the video game sphere?

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CabalCrow @cabalcrow.bsky.social · 01/07/2026

who is beating them nowadays?

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CabalCrow @cabalcrow.bsky.social · 27/06/2026

your decisions early on still matter and change what will happen in your overall run - hence you are never truly replaying the same thing over and over again - you dynamically get more game rather than downtime.

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CabalCrow @cabalcrow.bsky.social · 27/06/2026

Also yet another key element I think it is the lack of downtime. In a lot of marathon games you end up with sections that contribute nothing. I think Slay the Spire is an interesting example since runs can go from 1hour up for normal plays. While you still have an easier section at the start ...

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CabalCrow @cabalcrow.bsky.social · 27/06/2026

I've actually heard complains about Devil Daggers. But I think Tetris is the more interesting case here. A big reason why tetris works is that the game loop does not really changes as you go further in - the score is the main thing that changes. Checkpoint does not really make sense content wise.

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CabalCrow @cabalcrow.bsky.social · 25/06/2026

I wish more shmup games tried more traditional checkpoint systems & level progressions. And also more non-shump gamse to try marathon style 1cc systems. The progression design must spread across genres.

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CabalCrow @cabalcrow.bsky.social · 23/06/2026

I think the biggest issue was that they made the whole concept too broad. There are too many different design problems and concepts all bundled into one. So while all of those concepts are interesting individually and can warrant a full video, as a bundle there is no interesting connection.

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CabalCrow @cabalcrow.bsky.social · 21/06/2026

This can honestly be somewhat problematic in multiplayer games with hitboxes. In general in single player games you can get away with just making the boxes smaller in the favour of the player. In multiplayer however, favouring one player would damage the other :(

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CabalCrow @cabalcrow.bsky.social · 16/06/2026

This video got me interested in trying out the game, and then I check steam and see they recently added kernel anti-cheat... We can't have nice things :/

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CabalCrow @cabalcrow.bsky.social · 16/06/2026

Give them an achivement and a fake victory screen for the successful elimination of the player.

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CabalCrow @cabalcrow.bsky.social · 16/06/2026

encourage, you are now dealing with "balance". Your goal is no longer to make the playstyles fun, but to make unintended unfun optimal playstyles less optimal than the fun ones.

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CabalCrow @cabalcrow.bsky.social · 16/06/2026

The key point really is that both "design" and "balance" play a role, and their differ based on practical consideration. While you are still itterating on the game and finding the fun "design" is likely what you are doing. However once you have strong foundation and idea of what playstyles you ...

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CabalCrow @cabalcrow.bsky.social · 16/06/2026

making it no longer optimal. As for the question of why keep the unfun playstyle. That playstyle could be fun in other parts of the game so you might want to preserve it for consistency. Or it could also be a style that is hard to make unoptimal (eliminate), so you instead try and embrace it.

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CabalCrow @cabalcrow.bsky.social · 16/06/2026

playstyle that is optimal, but arises out unforseen consequences. Like in the case of the door problem the designer likely wanted you to just play the encounter out, and not just hide behind the doors and use it as a choke. So it is a style that is optimal, so you want to eliminate it by ...

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