On the show today: Survival crafting and horror sound like a match made in spooky heaven but after Nathan tried the demo for upcoming Project Mist, he started asking if these two should ever be near each other. We discuss why the mechanics of these genres has trouble meshing. Jump scares are just not as scary as horror can be by building atmosphere. We talk about the idea of tension and release and some games that prove to be scary without relying on jump scares. Mascot horror has probably...

On the show today: Urban legends are sometimes rooted in truth, but sometimes they become self-fulfilling prophecies. Take the case of the Goat Man of Pope Lick Creek. A monster that is said to lead people to their death by crossing a trestle bridge may not be real, but the consequences of that story are just as bad. USA Today – https://www.usatoday.com/story/news/nation-now/2016/05/16/pope-lick-monster-dangers/84444718/ Mr. Ballen –...

On the show today: Alex has played over 70 hours of Warhammer: Space Marine 2. Having already been familiar with Space Marine back in 2011, Alex wanted to discuss how the new game follows up with the story and mechanics of the first, so he's going to do that. Dredge has an interesting mechanic called Panic, which accrues when you stay up too late at night. Suddenly you see things that aren't there and get attacked by monsters that don't exist. This is similar to sanity meters in other games...

On the show today: WikiHow can theoretically teach you things, but can it help you avoid a TPK? We look at the article and ask if we can learn anything from the article. Avoiding a TPK – https://www.wikihow.com/Tpk-Dnd Card mechanics have been used in many ways in video games. Sometimes you construct a deck to use against other decks. Sometimes the decks are constructed to do battle or are built over the course of a run in rogue-likes. However, I was a Teenage Exocolonist uses it in...

On the show today: Dave the Diver was an indie darling last year and Nathan got to play it on stream this month. Having continued to play it far after our monthly stream, he found that many of the advances hinted at the beginning get paid off far later and entice players to keep moving forward. Let's discuss how Dave the Diver incentivizes players from the beginning. Deep Diving with Dave - https://youtube.com/live/KaD_UjScZ6w?feature=share Is it okay to be a bad DM? One Reddit question...

On the show today: Elon Musk took issue with the Fallout slogan "War Never Changes" back in May. Instead of simply complaining, we take a moment to look at how players can see the same information in different ways and how to better inform players to the themes of the game. https://futurism.com/elon-musk-fallout-tweet https://x.com/girldrawsghosts/status/1815417466509463757 Josh Sawyer (of Black Isle and Obsidian fame) had a video talking about breaking game balance in Fallout: New Vegas....

On the show today: DC Lasair is here to explain how he runs tabletop game streams, the tech he uses, the way he structures games and how to move story along when you are playing live. How long can you hold an audience's attention? What do you have to go over with your cast ahead of time? How much prep do you need? DC has run many charity livestreams. How do you set those up? What resources are available? What kind of incentives can you give for donations? Also, there is a cold cut beard...

On the show today: Oh Deer asks you to act like an NPC in a video game lest you get shot by an increasingly unhinged hunter. The TPK crew played this to hunt each other for sport and came away with a sense that it was unlike other gaming experiences because of it's structure. What does it feel like when you have to act like you are not playing a game? Getting a player acclimated to a new game can be a daunting task. Tutorials and training can become too overbearing or sparse for players to...

On the show today: It's not used very often, but tremorsense is an extrasensory ability some monsters use in D&D. There are some interesting scenarios that utilize this, but it's often a secondary thought. What is tremorsense? What are some fun ways to utilize it? Also, could there be something similar for water? Flanking maneuvers are common in warfare, but less common in RPGs. But they can provide good tactical advantages for you as a player. They can also backfire on you or be...

On the show today: We recently made a pros and cons episode on modding games and it got Nathan to thinking about something. What if he modded a game he had already played and beaten several times? And so, this is a tale of playing the modded version of KOTOR. Can you actually categorize all video games into "Parkour" and "Menu"? A Calvin & Hobbes meme seems to think so, but it might not be as simple as all of that. Let's discuss what these terms actually refer to and if this assessment...

On the show today: Space is really big, but you might not want to play a game in it. There are games that bypass the enormity of the great void, but others insist on making you traverse it. How can we mitigate this vast nothingness? And why would you travel 45 minutes to a space station on the other side of the galaxy? Games often punish you when things go wrong. However, there are some that insist that you succeed regardless of your ability. The fail state is non-existent. So, is...

On the show today: The Exit 8 is not a long game, but it's not a bad thing. Can you imagine an Exit 80 just to pad the runtime? Some gamers want to maximize the amount of content, but it doesn't always apply. What do we want to experience in a game and how long is too long? Traditional thinking is that villains are more interesting to play than heroes, but perhaps that's just because heroes were not written with complexity. Instead of just reacting to the villain's dastardly plans, the...

On the show today: Green Hell may have the most extreme level of survival mechanics Nathan has ever seen. It is unapologetic in how many ways you can die and presenting you with a world that wants you dead. It can be frustrating and will likely make you paranoid. It is also one of the best survival crafting games he has ever played. Why does this level of mechanics work so well for Green Hell and why can't you recreate it for other games in the genre? Mods can break a game but they can also...

On the show today: Have you ever started playing a survival crafting game where you wash up alone on an island? I know, it's never happened before, but for the sake of this conversation, we're going to talk about how this is a common trope and we can change up the formula. Maybe it's not an island. Maybe you're not alone. Maybe you went there intentionally. Also, we brainstorm a survival crafting version of Oregon Trail. A traditional RPG storyline involves a very powerful character who is...

On the show today: Someone needed to know what happens when you get turned to stone. Primarily, do you shrink? Yes, this is a physics segment about being turned to stone. You are welcome. https://www.reddit.com/r/rpg/comments/p1325p/a_pointless_thought_on_the_physics_of_being/  The bad guy is using ceremonial circles for blood sacrifices. What do you do? Is there something more interesting than just fighting some demons? We discuss investigation and outside-the-box ideas for purifying...

On this episode of Total Pebble Knockdown: KlaytonCalix joins us to discuss Steam Next Fest Summer 2024. He wanted to tell us about playing Drill Core and Ova Magica, which were among the 12 games he got to this time. Alex tells us about Viking survival in Aska and why it worked better for him than Valheim. Nathan attempts to explain what you do in Goblin Cleanup, the most unique and bizarre game he played during Next Fest. What has Steam Next Fest done to game demos? Once, we would have...

On this episode of Total Pebble Knockdown: We are back from vacation and Nathan wanted to discuss his time at Hancock Shaker Village because it got him thinking about how fantasy tech works. We will talk a bit about the round hay barn, the water turbine and how pre-industrial societies handled common day-to-day life. What does this teach us about the world-building of your RPG? Nothing says relaxing vacation like hiking up a mountain. So, Nathan went up Monument Mountain and stared over a...

On this episode of Total Pebble Knockdown: It's our first episode recorded in front of a live studio audience! Some folks listened in to our episode before we went on vacation and had some comments to add to this discussion of weird questions from Reddit. The player wants to kill off their character because they did stats bad. But, like, why would you do that? Perhaps they can just go to an adventuring tavern upstate. Can you hard boil a red dragon egg? What qualities would the egg...

On this episode of Total Pebble Knockdown: Nathan searched for "Total", "Pebble" and "Knockdown" at r/DMAcademy and found the first entry that came up. The results will shock you. Should you take away player agency or perform "total action denial"? Is it good game design for either the players or the monsters? We shall discuss this because we here at TPK still have a free action. How acceptable are total action denial and total action domination? -...

On this episode of Total Pebble Knockdown: May 9 saw the release of at least 10 noteworthy indie games, at a time when AAA publishers are shuttering studios. We discuss whether the major releases are even interesting anymore and what smaller games we have been playing lately. A thread on new indie games - Ryan T. Brown 🎮🩷 on X: "There may never have been a day as big as today for indie games. On the back of mass layoffs of major AAA studios, today more high-profile and under-the-radar...

On this episode of Total Pebble Knockdown: Comedy is all over games, but some games rely on it far more than others. After playing Helldivers 2, Alex and Nathan decided to compare the humor seen in that game to some others, such as Borderlands and Breathedge. What is the difference between them and what works better? The Helldivers 2 we were NOT going to discuss at this time - Helldivers 2 on Steam now requires a PSN account to play - Polygon Hardcore and Ironman modes rely on an all or...

On this episode of Total Pebble Knockdown: Candyland may not be a very feature-rich game, but perhaps it could be used as a mechanic for another game... for reasons. We look at a post suggesting this and ask the question about what these mechanics could be if we really wanted to whip out this board game from the back of the closet. Candyland as a mechanic? - https://twitter.com/riseupcomus/status/1783156398752203009 How hard should you play with the mechanics of a game so you can do a very...

On this episode of Total Pebble Knockdown: Fallout got a TV show and Nathan thinks it did a really good job at representing the series, even for people who have no previous experience with the series. Let's talk about how the characters help introduce many of the big themes about Fallout. Also, how can you adapt one medium into another, especially when you move from an interactive to non-interactive one? Demos can really help sell a game to skeptical players, but they need to succeed at a...

On this episode of Total Pebble Knockdown: Metroidvanias are coming back and Nathan recently found a few interesting mechanics that should be more utilized in examples of the genre. Why? Because Nathan needs his Metroids and Vanias! Alex got to play Ripout during a free weekend and frankly did not know how to feel about it. He spent 6 hours trying to figure out if he liked it or not. His conclusion? Listen to find out! Also, Nathan was bad at playing Metal: Hellsinger. Larian has shelved...