Every elevator in the Myst series, ranked An hour long deep dive into the environment and puzzle design in the Myst series, centered upon its elevators. (Warning: Contains spoilers for all 5 games in the Myst series)

This might be the nerdiest thing I've seen in this fandom in a long long time! I love the little digressions like exactly what counts as an elevator, and the creator's obvious affection for the games.

Choice inflection points in gamebooks/interactive fiction/CYOA come in many varieties. There a few standard storyline options in "finite-state" interactive fiction, where you don't keep track of changing statistics, or otherwise do anything other than make choices. Branches and bottlenecks are fundamental to choice paths in these things. Note that spin-off interactive fictions are sometimes belabored with extraneous factors that influence the work's structure. Aspects of making interactive fiction have appeared on the site before (green, greener; blue; bluer).

Pokérogue is a free, browser-based fan-game that, well, reimagines Pokémon as a Roguelike. You start by picking up to three of the 27 "starter" pokémon from the existing main-series games, and then battle and catch your way through 200 levels of increasing difficulty. When your entire party faints, your run is over. Oh, but that makes it all sound so simple...

So yeah, there's a lot of nuance here. For instance: • When you pick your starters, you have 10 points to spend on them, and all the original starters are worth 3 points each, so you'll probably just want to pick your preferred Fire, Water and Grass options from among the 9 generations (and you don't need to stick to any one generation. Go Fuecoco/Mudkip/Venusaur if you want. Or if you just have no idea, since that's probably the safest option.) • As you catch pokémon during a run, they are added to your pool of starter options for later runs, and may be worth more or less than 3 points during your starter selection process. At this point, you might decide to go outside of the Fire/Water/Grass core. More on this below. But the point is that it's worth your while to catch pokémon even if you don't plan on using them, both because that grants you more experience than fainting them (and experience is absolutely the most important thing here) and because it opens up more options for future runs. • Pokémon generally have the same abilities, movesets, and stats as in the official games. It's possible that you can hatch special pokémon from eggs which will have different moves, but I'm not sure about that as it hasn't happened for me yet. Some abilities are practically useless (Plus and Minus, for instance) and will have little to no effect at all. A few rare ones are actively hindering (Truant being the most notable example, but also Slow Start and a few others.) Most are pretty variable, and a few are devastatingly good - if you catch a pokémon with Intimidate or Huge Power or Regenerator, remember it, as it will keep that ability in future runs. • At the end of each battle, you have a selection of things you can purchase (at no limit, though the prices increase as you purchase them, and those increases persist throughout the run) such as potions and revives. You also get a selection of three free reward items, but you can only pick one, and as soon as you select it, it's onto the next stage, so if you want to heal up a team member, make sure to do so before picking up your reward, because... • Damage persists between battles as well. You get a free party heal every ten levels (as you move into a new "area") but otherwise it's on you to keep your party healthy. Interestingly, while stat changes are still reset whenever you switch a party member out, they persist between battles with wild pokémon (most of the battles) as long as you keep the same party member in the lead. So keep that in mind both for if your lead 'mon's stats have been dropped by an opponent, or if you've raised them yourself. • For those truly new to all of this, it's worth noting that a pokémon's type matters a lot, both offensively and - especially - defensively. Each pokémon has 1 or 2 types. Moves of one type will do either x1, x2, x.5 or x0 damage to a defending pokémon depending on the depending pokémon's type(s). Since most pokémon are dual type, this multiplicative factor is calculated twice, so for instance a Bug/Grass type pokémon, whose types are both weak to Fire, would take 4x damage from a Fire-type move. Meanwhile a Water/Rock type would take .25x damage from a Fire-type attack. A weakness on one side and resistance on the other will cancel each other out, and if either type is immune to a certain kind of damage, you'll take zero damage from it even if your other type is weak to it. The type chart is a mix of intuitive and not-so-intuitive. This video aims to help. • It's a move's type that matters for that, though, and not the type of the pokémon using it. Where a pokémon's type matters offensively is in what's called "Same Type Attack Bonus," or STAB. Basically, this gives damaging moves a 1.5x damage multiplier if the user shares a type with the move itself. Which is great! But it's also nice to have "coverage" moves outside of your type to handle your weaknesses when you can, because... • Switching out one team member for another one costs a turn, unless your pokémon currently battling knows one of a few select moves that switch them out as a bonus effect of the move. The most notable of these are U-Turn, Volt Switch, Parting Shot and Flip Turn. If you get a chance to learn one or more of these, I highly suggest it. Baton Pass switches you out while passing on any stat changes to whoever replaces you, but that's a double-edged sword, and especially in the early game here, opponents are far more likely to be lowering your stats than you are to be raising them. • Many (most?) pokémon can evolve, and most evolutions happen by leveling up to a certain point, which will happen naturally as your team gets experience. Some require items, which will likely show up in the reward screen if they apply to any members of your party. Some require "friendship," which can take forever, so if you've got one of those dudes on your team, pick up the soothe bell and give it to them once you've got the opportunity. Some require trading them in the original games, but in this game (which has no trading mechanic) you can use the "link cable" item. If you're unsure if or how a pokémon evolves, you can easily look it up on Bulbapedia, where the explanation should be in the top paragraph. • "Egg Vouchers" will eventually show up in reward screens, and these are worth grabbing when you can. Eventually, you'll get to redeem them in an egg gachapon machine, and then if you continue through your run for long enough for the egg to hatch, you can get something much rarer than you might otherwise encounter at that level. This is the easiest way to add Legendary pokémon to your starter options. • Once you've got some options, it might be beneficial to go outside of the Fire/Water/Grass core for your starters. For instance, on my first run, I lost at level 8 (the first battle against your rival.) On my second, I caught a Meowth with the technician ability and the move Fake Out. This is now my primary starter, since it makes the early game so, so much easier. It's a normal type, which isn't good defensively or offensively, but the ability gives it a bonus to any moves of 60 base power or less, on top of its STAB, and Fake-out is a 40-base-power move that goes first and makes the opponent flinch (but can only be used on the first turn out on the field.) With Technician and STAB, that becomes 90 base power, which means that Meowth can single-handedly get me out of a lot of tight situations. • This game is much harder than you might expect it to be, but like most good roguelikes, it encourages experimentation and creativity. Here's a video of a player much better than I making his way through it and giving helpful tips.

Jacob Geller analyzes every torture scene in the Call of Duty series. And breaks down the "philosophy of torture" the series presents, and the worldview that underlies it.

Mr. Geller, previously. CW: for torture, violence in general, and militarism.

"Storytelling has been a social activity since the dawn of time. Board games can add another level to it with nuanced strategies for decision-making and objectives with epic stakes."

People like to make lists of storytelling board games. Designing a narrative board game is a distinct form of game design. TV Tropes, weirdly, covers Narrative Board Games. There are, of course, books about the stories built into boardgames. Board games have a robust history of recreating and validating imperialism, genocide, and slavery, which David Massey takes on in "Slave Play, or the Imperial Logic of Board Game Narrative." [SLPDF] Flanagan and Jakobsson take on the future of the board game in their book Playing Oppression: The Legacy of Conquest and Empire in Colonialist Board Games. Storytelling has, of course, appeared on MetaFilter previously.

Vampire Therapist: "Guide vampires through centuries of emotional baggage, decades of delusions and the odd bout of self-loathing with real cognitive behavioral therapy concepts and become a Vampire Therapist! Even vampires need a shoulder to cry on when a neck to bite just won't do." Releasing July 18, demo available now.

Interview with the developer, who also voices multiple characters in the game. Cyrus Nemati is known for his roles as Ares, Dionysus, and Theseus in Hades (2018), among others.

KittyToy by Rakqoi (be sure to check out her itch.io user page for tips). Take care of and adopt stray kitties! Feed them, pet them, play with them! Inspired by Neko Atsume (discussed previously on the Blue).

"We took it to the streets and asked both hardcore and novice tabletop gamers." Meanwhile, on another forum... A loosely related blending of physical and digital. Some feel that It's The Apps That Are Wrong. A D&D-focused list of dice apps. There's also Elmenreich's "Game Engineering for Hybrid Board Games" [SLPDF]. Previously

Research article citation: Elmenreich, Wilfried. "Game Engineering for Hybrid Board Games." W: F. Schniz, D. Bruns, S. Gabriel, G. Pölsterl, E. Bektić, F. Kelle (red.). Mixed Reality and Games-Theoretical and Practical Approaches in Game Studies and Education (2020): 49-60.

You put a dollar bill into the 'Ask The Brain' fortune telling machine and await its response. Roll a seven-sided die or use a random-number generator. One Two Three Four Five Six Seven

The post title is a nod to the time Mad Magazine did one better than this post - one issue came with a flexidisc record with EIGHT spiral grooves, each with the same song but a different ending. Here's all eight versions - in full or just the intro followed by each ending.