#it has this mechanic where you play notes on a little flute to unlock a door

[transgenderer]

Do you think that the symbols for numbers that are values or quantities should be different than when they're representing something like a phone number?

...no? its like...okay, so in graph theory, we talk about “coloring” a graph, but because it would be insane to have to make up a bunch of colors when you want to talk about a graph (or for that matter, impossible to specify an indeterminate set of colors, like, if you want to say how many colors you need for a complete graph of size n, etc), the colors are named natural numbers, which works great, because the natural numbers are just like...the-thing-that-is-in-succession. like, 2 is *defined* as “the thing that comes after 1. so if you want a set of names, natural numbers are sort of the best possible set (if it werent for pesky human psychology, that makes numbers harder to remember sometimes). so like, if a phone number is 345-687-4455, those arent the natural numbers 345, 687, 4455, theyre the maximally-generic-names being put in an arbritrary ordering. like how theres nothing *numbery* about sudoku, they could be colors instead, but numbers are the maximally generic names 

#this was weirdly detailed but i was thinking abt this while playing phoenotopia #because like #it has this mechanic where you play notes on a little flute to unlock a door #and lots of puzzles have like a hint about what the tune is to unlock each door #but personally i would find it more appealing if instead of colors and symbols to represent the notes #it was numbers #OBVIOUSLY notes in real life should also be numbers #thatsoup

[phoenixrisesoncemore]

MDZS/CQL RPG mechanics

I was inspired by this awesome post from @wangxian-patriarch with additions by @moonwaif. Go check it out! And assume all those clever details and mechanics mentioned there.

This would work SO WELL for a late 90s PS1-style RPG, where graphics were improving and storylines/character arcs were becoming crazy complex but it was still kind of the Wild West/anything goes/take all the risks you want. And the best games (IMO) are those that mix genres in an episodic fashion and MDZS/CQL totally fits the bill for that! CQL even does it, itself.

This got so long that I hated to clog up their post with a reblog. Bear with me here. Batshit crazy thoughts coming at a million miles per hour. In addition to all the above wonderful stuff: picture this structured like a 75%/25% split of MDZS/CQL (because I think the interspersed flashbacks work better for a game where you get to see your past choices affect the present in chunks) but with 75% of the character expansions from CQL. AKA, more Shijie, meet WQ and WN in Cloud Recesses, interact with them at the Wen Indoctrination. Your choices determine at what pace the relationship with LWJ proceeds (see below)? The POV is always WWX.

Intro/tutorial: Mo Manor. WWX is your main character, obv. The main present story arc is a mostly linear action/adventure RPG. Mo Manor is your tutorial/training ground where you’re introduced to the main game mechanics, learn a bit about the world via NPC interaction and MXY’s notes, and get handed the first mystery/what appears to be the main game goal: who did MXY want you to get revenge on? Melodies keeps popping into WWX’s head. Begin mini game where you are introduced to the game’s musical mechanics as WWX tries to remember melodies. Most are eerie and harsh, but there is one WWX finds “strangely soothing” even though he can’t remember where it is from. Remember these songs, especially that soothing one, because it’s going to be important soon! Introduction of basic sword-based cultivation battle mechanics via an impromptu party forming with the ducklings against the corpse arm (WWX can join in with talismans or something relatively innocuous for now). Eventually WWX goes secret solo battle using flute-less demonic cultivation battle mechanics. Can you remember how to play some of those tunes to summon fierce corpses? Then LWJ appears and it’s time for you to get the Hell out of Dodge before there are questions about what you just did. Cue short sequence of getting out of Mo Village before you’re caught. Begin Little Apple game mechanics.

Dafan Mountain Quest. First big mission. Gather info and piece together the mystery while avoiding too much attention from the Jiang sect cultivators or Game Over. Solve the mystery and begin the first boss fight alongside the ducklings! But talismans and whistling isn’t cutting it any longer. Flute-based demonic cultivation mechanics activate! Remember those songs WWX has had going through his head. You’re going to need all of them now. Game Over if Jin Ling is killed by the goddess! Also: surprise! the goddess can only be defeated by a finishing move which requires summoning a high level fierce corpse. Which song is it? Succeed and summon Wen Ning, but oh no! he’s in berserk mode. Hmmm, what about that soothing song? Better remember how to play it fast or Wen Ning will kill the other cultivators and Game Over.

FLASHBACK: Cloud Recesses. I need this to somehow incorporate and deconstruct the school dating sim genre. I don’t know how, but I need that. Sharing loquats and Emperor’s Smile and causing trouble will sure make you popular. The rooftop fight seems like a standard fighting setup. Is there a way to mix those two genres? A fighting mini game inside a dating sim? Because there needs to be! Is Biling Lake a mini action-platformer segment? Also agree: Jiang Cheng interaction and combo learning here—sneak out to explore the back hill and learn pair fighting dynamics. Use WWX’s original sword-based cultivation skills. Rabbit-catching mini game. Decide what colors you want to gift to increasingly grumpy Lan Zhan. Get to know Mianmian and she’ll be more active in helping you later. Befriend NHS and change dialog trees with him in present arc.

Present day Cloud Recesses: your home base. Sandbox. Your actions in the flashback effect the present day Cloud Recesses. Did you hide some Emperor’s smile somewhere 16 years ago? Home of rabbit-raising mini game and various troublemaking side quests. You get points for every Lan Clan rule you break (and how deeply you corrupt the ducklings). The challenge is in figuring out how to break them. Break enough rules and gain early access to the library’s restricted section where you can learn all kinds of new unorthodox cultivation techniques. Break all of them and get a super awesome power-up. Up to a certain point you can return here with LWJ on Bichen once he joins your party. Duckling night hunts are initiated here?

Lan WangJi Joins the Party. The main body of the game commences as you begin the quest to solve the Mo Manor mystery and figure out who MXY wanted you to get revenge on. Your choices/skill in the flashbacks as they occur will alter (somewhat) the events of this, the game’s main “spine.” Each town/city encountered on the road trip has its own aesthetic and NPC populace from which you have to collect clues and learn what your next moves should be. Lots of immersive qualities and learning about the current political/social situation. Fierce corpse and ghost fights along the way. Collect (offensively inaccurate) YLLZ and Sunshot memorabilia. Slowly grow your affinity with LWJ in battle and use the skills for pair fighting you learned with Jiang Cheng to build towards those awesome battle-couple combos. LWJ will remain in your party for the rest of the main game (excluding flashbacks) except for short bits like Yi City. You can play WWX’s dizi along the road for practice and to up your skill level. Depending on how often and in what circumstances you play Wangxian and how you interact with LWJ you’ll start to get different (but still evasive) answers if you ask him how he knew it was you. Remember to play Rest so NMJ’s pieces don’t get out of hand.

Because this is long: more below the cut

The Man-eating castle. Logic puzzle dungeon. Try to outclever NHS in dialog trees to get him to spill information.

Chang Manor. Mystery dungeon with final grave robber boss fight. Learn about the story of XXC, SL, and XY as you explore Chang manor, looking for clues as to what happened. Avoid traps set by XY.

Yi City. I mean: THE FOG. It’s Silent Hill. It’s Fatal Frame. It’s a survival horror dungeon. How long and involved should the Empathy section be? How does the gameplay change there?

Explore Jin Lin Tai. Stealth dungeon. Sneak around Jin Lin Tai as first “MXY” and later as Paperman WWX (AH! Sudden scale/mechanics change), gathering clues and looking for NMJ’s head. Empathy cutscenes.

Escape Jin Lin Tai. Action segment/beat em up. A place to really show off those growing battle-couple mechanics with LWJ.

FLASHBACK: Happy Times at Lotus Pier. The closest we’ve been to the light-hearted gameplay of the first Cloud Recesses flashback. WWX. JC, and JYL involved in shenanigans at Lotus Pier. Maybe we even get the Lotus Seed Pod Extra content of stealing lotuses from the old man. Get a chance to use those Jiang Cheng combos you learned in the CR flashback. Last chance to use those sword cultivation techniques. Nostalgia galore.

FLASHBACK (cont): Indoctrination/Xuanwu Cave. WWX/JC party using non-sword techniques. Eventually morphs into a WWX/LWJ party. This would be the first time chronologically that they would have fought together.

FLASHBACK (cont): Lotus Pier Attack and Escape. I totally agree with the above that this will ultimately work out to stealth escort missions as you work to get JC to safety with WN’s help.

FLASHBACK (cont): Thrown into Burial Mounds. This could be super expressionistic. Wandering through Burial Mounds trying to stay alive, but with crazy nightmare-like elements. Think of the way Eternal Darkness messed with player perceptions and even broke the 4th wall when it came to game mechanics. Maybe this even bleeds seamlessly into the supervisory office deaths and Wen Chao’s chase and death.

Return to Cloud Recesses. More areas to explore are unlocked. Dialog trees with LWJ. Feelings.

Journey to Burial Mounds. This is your chance to really grind and refine those battle couple combos. Side-quests? How far has word spread that the YLLZ is back? How will that effect the way you can or can’t interact with NPCs. I also like the idea of interspersing the flashbacks from Sunshot and up through the building of the Burial Mounds settlement in here, so as to have the player get to interact with and design the settlement in the past before the ruins of it are seen in the present.

FLASHBACK: Sunshot. mashup of beat em up/strategy tactics using demonic cultivation with chenqing and the tiger seal to clear a path for the army of cultivators. WWX is a party of one for this.

FLASHBACK (cont): Post Sunshot. More deconstructed social sim mechanics. Use chenqing to help JC bag prey on Phoenix Mountain. Social decision trees at that really uncomfortable conference scene. Qiongqi Path rescue of the Wen Refugees. The LWJ in the rain confrontation either does or does not happen (or happens somewhat differently) depending on how your relationship has progressed thus far in the past.

FLASHBACK (cont): Building Burial Mounds Settlement. Settlement/Survival Sim elements. Choose where and how to build and what to grow. Play with and protect a-Yuan. Work to revive WN. Make demonic cultivation tools. Whatever you make will still exist in future and can be gathered/used for the Second Siege battle. JC duel (ouch, there’s those moves you learned together being used against you). Play around in YiLing with LWJ and a-Yuan. Spend the day as a family. Feelings.

Arrive at Burial Mounds. Explore the ruins of the place you built. Feelings. Gather items. Release the Juniors. Fight with the Cultivators.

FLASHBACK: Death of JZX/Nightless City. Beat em up using Wen Ning at Qiongqi Path. At Nightless City this time you’re solo sending hordes towards the cultivators. Heart breaking solo battle against LWJ, as with JC, he now knows and can anticipate your moves based on your previous flashback interactions. HORRIBLE TRAGEDY AND MASSIVE DEATH.

Second Seige of Burial Mounds. Massive beat em up where you finally get to utilize the full extent of your battle-couple skills along with Wen Ning in a series of brawls to end all brawls, eventually the ducklings join your party for brawl wave 3. You know that really big battle that happens near the turning point of video games that’s inevitably the second or third biggest battle of the game (and sometimes more difficult than the actual final boss battles)? That’s this one.

Return to Lotus Pier. Here’s where you get memories of WWX’s first night at Lotus Pier and YanLi saving him from the tree are interspersed as you explore the heartbreakingly different present day Lotus Pier. As with the other locations that you experience in both past and present, some choices in the past effect the location in the present. FEELINGS.

YunPing City: Final major location. Explore and gather info. Prep for the final battle. Drunk LWJ mini game shenanigans. (Sexy time? I mean, Indigo Prophecy did it...) Stealth your way into Guanyin Temple.

Guanyin Temple Climax: Dialog trees with JGY determine how difficult he is to defeat here in battle. Final boss fight against NMJ’s fierce corpse: poignant party/combo with both JC and LWJ.

Denouement. Maybe the Sizhui revelation happens differently depending on how you interact with him throughout the game. Obv NOT getting the revelation is considered the BAD ending.

Ultimately, how the relationship between WWX and LWJ unfolds in CQL and MDZS is influenced by the plot structure (or at least is better served in each medium by how it makes use of the plot structure). The character of that relashionship journey is so different between the mediums, but each has wonderful aspects. How that plays out here is kind of up in the air without nailing more things down. Is it possible your actions could determine the timing and expression of the ship such that you end up with something more distinctly MDZS or something more distinctly CQL? (And by that I don’t mean one is overtly sexual and one isn’t, but rather whether the revelation of their feelings comes all at once near the end or rather more gradually, shifting in intensity and character as the plot goes along). That would be quite a thing to pull off without breaking the central narrative. I don’t even want to think about how complex that decision tree would be, but it could potentially be kind of amazing!

#mdzs #mo dao zu shi #grandmaster of demonic cultivation #cql #the untamed #chen qing ling #this is A LOT but i don’t care i am having a great time #i’ve only dipped my toes into game design previously but man this makes me wish I had done more #Because this is so fun #game design #rpgs #mdzs rpg?