David J Prokopetz
@prokopetz.bsky.social
Main site at https://prokopetz.net
Reposted by David J Prokopetz
brb, making this clam as a Nobilis character
November 25, 2025 at 8:45 PM
brb, making this clam as a Nobilis character
Every time a pop science article is like "50 million year old [creature] still [doing thing that creature does]", I like to imagine it's talking about the same individual creature for that entire span. Like one specific clam with a VERY well established daily routine.
November 25, 2025 at 8:40 PM
Every time a pop science article is like "50 million year old [creature] still [doing thing that creature does]", I like to imagine it's talking about the same individual creature for that entire span. Like one specific clam with a VERY well established daily routine.
[1/2] That "BloodRayne" ALMOST officially shares a universe with "The Blair Witch Project" is way funnier than it has any right to be when you consider the actual logistics of that. Like, yeah, creepypasta monsters in an action platformer, whatever, but picture it from the opposite perspective.
November 25, 2025 at 3:50 PM
[1/2] That "BloodRayne" ALMOST officially shares a universe with "The Blair Witch Project" is way funnier than it has any right to be when you consider the actual logistics of that. Like, yeah, creepypasta monsters in an action platformer, whatever, but picture it from the opposite perspective.
Sometimes it occurs to me that I'm writing a forty-page character creation chapter for a game whose actual mechanics of play fit on a postcard.
November 25, 2025 at 6:16 AM
Sometimes it occurs to me that I'm writing a forty-page character creation chapter for a game whose actual mechanics of play fit on a postcard.
Reposted by David J Prokopetz
For similar reasons, I'm partial to "it's a metaphor for capitalism"
November 24, 2025 at 9:30 PM
For similar reasons, I'm partial to "it's a metaphor for capitalism"
This is my favourite game. Every part of it sucks, but each part sucks in a way that GESTURES TOWARD something that would be awesome were it not undermined by every other part. It can't be improved because everything that's terrible about its load-bearing. Did I mention it's the best game ever made?
November 25, 2025 at 1:43 AM
This is my favourite game. Every part of it sucks, but each part sucks in a way that GESTURES TOWARD something that would be awesome were it not undermined by every other part. It can't be improved because everything that's terrible about its load-bearing. Did I mention it's the best game ever made?
I love "the human condition" as a response to "what is [insert media] about?" because it's such a nothing answer that it's technically true of literally EVERY piece of media, yet there are still some things where actually saying that has some very odd implications.
November 24, 2025 at 9:10 PM
I love "the human condition" as a response to "what is [insert media] about?" because it's such a nothing answer that it's technically true of literally EVERY piece of media, yet there are still some things where actually saying that has some very odd implications.
Sometimes when I talk about Stupid Dice Tricks in TTRPGs the replies make it EXTREMELY clear that a lot of folks reading those posts have never so much as glanced at anything other than D&D5E, and their idea of an unimaginably esoteric "dice trick" is, like, making skill checks with percentile dice.
November 24, 2025 at 7:12 AM
Sometimes when I talk about Stupid Dice Tricks in TTRPGs the replies make it EXTREMELY clear that a lot of folks reading those posts have never so much as glanced at anything other than D&D5E, and their idea of an unimaginably esoteric "dice trick" is, like, making skill checks with percentile dice.
Reposted by David J Prokopetz
"There's no secret passages."
"There's small secret passages."
"No. No passages."
"Halfing-size passages?"
"Repeat after me: The"
"The"
"Walls"
"Walls"
"Are solid"
"Are capable of hiding small humanoids walking single-file"
"There's small secret passages."
"No. No passages."
"Halfing-size passages?"
"Repeat after me: The"
"The"
"Walls"
"Walls"
"Are solid"
"Are capable of hiding small humanoids walking single-file"
November 24, 2025 at 3:02 AM
"There's no secret passages."
"There's small secret passages."
"No. No passages."
"Halfing-size passages?"
"Repeat after me: The"
"The"
"Walls"
"Walls"
"Are solid"
"Are capable of hiding small humanoids walking single-file"
"There's small secret passages."
"No. No passages."
"Halfing-size passages?"
"Repeat after me: The"
"The"
"Walls"
"Walls"
"Are solid"
"Are capable of hiding small humanoids walking single-file"
Reposted by David J Prokopetz
And now I will never be able to unsee it. Mr. Orc in the Kitchen with a Morning Star.
November 24, 2025 at 2:46 AM
And now I will never be able to unsee it. Mr. Orc in the Kitchen with a Morning Star.
I love when folks who mainly design D&D dungeons try to map an above-ground adventure site, but it still has maze-of-twisty-passages VIBES, like the 2nd floor is inexplicably larger than the 1st, and there's gaps between rooms that make sense for tunnels bashed into rock, but not for, like, a house.
November 24, 2025 at 2:39 AM
I love when folks who mainly design D&D dungeons try to map an above-ground adventure site, but it still has maze-of-twisty-passages VIBES, like the 2nd floor is inexplicably larger than the 1st, and there's gaps between rooms that make sense for tunnels bashed into rock, but not for, like, a house.
Doylist analysis of Moby-Dick is fun because a. Ishmael is intentionally written as full of shit about a great many things, and b. Melville himself is also full of shit about a great many things, so every time Ishmael is full of shit you get to play a game of ON WHAT LEVEL is he full of shit?
November 24, 2025 at 2:03 AM
Doylist analysis of Moby-Dick is fun because a. Ishmael is intentionally written as full of shit about a great many things, and b. Melville himself is also full of shit about a great many things, so every time Ishmael is full of shit you get to play a game of ON WHAT LEVEL is he full of shit?
The framing that sexualised character design is only remarkable to the extent that it's applied unequally becomes very funny when extended to non-human character designs.
November 23, 2025 at 9:53 PM
The framing that sexualised character design is only remarkable to the extent that it's applied unequally becomes very funny when extended to non-human character designs.
[1/3] Narrative RPG which proofs its true ending against data mining by arranging for all player-facing decisions to have 2, 4, or 8 options, yielding 1, 2, or 3 bits of binary data. These decisions are arranged so that no matter what path is taken, its choices yield exactly 128 bits worth of data.
November 23, 2025 at 4:30 AM
[1/3] Narrative RPG which proofs its true ending against data mining by arranging for all player-facing decisions to have 2, 4, or 8 options, yielding 1, 2, or 3 bits of binary data. These decisions are arranged so that no matter what path is taken, its choices yield exactly 128 bits worth of data.
Not that kind of blog, I'm afraid.
November 23, 2025 at 3:29 AM
Not that kind of blog, I'm afraid.
Plugging away at a second set of random inventory tables for "Eat God" (penguinking.itch.io/eat-god), if anyone has any useful suggestions to offer and/or dumb references they're dying to see included.
November 23, 2025 at 2:37 AM
Plugging away at a second set of random inventory tables for "Eat God" (penguinking.itch.io/eat-god), if anyone has any useful suggestions to offer and/or dumb references they're dying to see included.
PS2-era JRPGs where the dialogue portrait is wearing an expression of exquisitely wrought anguish, and then the character's actual 3D model in the background is just
November 22, 2025 at 11:46 PM
PS2-era JRPGs where the dialogue portrait is wearing an expression of exquisitely wrought anguish, and then the character's actual 3D model in the background is just
Reading an "x reader" fic and squinting at the screen like, okay, are we doing a meta thing where the text implicitly problematises its own construction of unmarked identities, or did the author just not notice that the logistics of this sex position require the reader insert to have four arms?
November 22, 2025 at 7:52 PM
Reading an "x reader" fic and squinting at the screen like, okay, are we doing a meta thing where the text implicitly problematises its own construction of unmarked identities, or did the author just not notice that the logistics of this sex position require the reader insert to have four arms?
BRB, starting discourse about how viewing art on the Internet is morally bankrupt regardless of its origin because even if it was made by human hands, what you're seeing on your screen is not the ORIGINAL human-made digital file, but a soulless machine-made replica in your browser's Internet cache.
November 22, 2025 at 7:15 PM
BRB, starting discourse about how viewing art on the Internet is morally bankrupt regardless of its origin because even if it was made by human hands, what you're seeing on your screen is not the ORIGINAL human-made digital file, but a soulless machine-made replica in your browser's Internet cache.
I have a lot of respect for folks who submit their speedrun times to the global leaderboards like clockwork even though they're not remotely competitive. If I found out my PB was in 1387th place, I wouldn't bother to fill out the submission form – they're truly in it for the pure love of the game.
November 22, 2025 at 4:56 AM
I have a lot of respect for folks who submit their speedrun times to the global leaderboards like clockwork even though they're not remotely competitive. If I found out my PB was in 1387th place, I wouldn't bother to fill out the submission form – they're truly in it for the pure love of the game.
After "film trilogy that dropped a critical plot point exclusively via timed Fortnite event" and "video game series whose story only makes sense if you're aware of the events of a canon pachinko machine", I feel like there are whole frontiers of user-hostile narrative design waiting to be explored.
November 21, 2025 at 9:29 PM
After "film trilogy that dropped a critical plot point exclusively via timed Fortnite event" and "video game series whose story only makes sense if you're aware of the events of a canon pachinko machine", I feel like there are whole frontiers of user-hostile narrative design waiting to be explored.
[1/3] I know it sometimes seems like people who know their history are weirdly invested in complaining about the "generically medieval" thing, but let me put it in fandom terms.
November 21, 2025 at 7:00 PM
[1/3] I know it sometimes seems like people who know their history are weirdly invested in complaining about the "generically medieval" thing, but let me put it in fandom terms.
It's often joked that Undertale's code is the product of Toby Fox doing "musician programming", the natural counterpart to "programmer art", but it's worse than that. Undertale is not Toby Fox's first rodeo. It is the work of someone whose understanding of of coding came from romhacking SNES games.
November 20, 2025 at 3:59 PM
It's often joked that Undertale's code is the product of Toby Fox doing "musician programming", the natural counterpart to "programmer art", but it's worse than that. Undertale is not Toby Fox's first rodeo. It is the work of someone whose understanding of of coding came from romhacking SNES games.
Annoying the enemies-to-lovers 'shippers by interpreting any instance of two characters trying to murder each other over objectively petty shit as "sibling coded".
November 19, 2025 at 1:59 AM
Annoying the enemies-to-lovers 'shippers by interpreting any instance of two characters trying to murder each other over objectively petty shit as "sibling coded".
[1/3] The funny thing is, this isn't even the first time we've had a period where AAA computer games have become so bloated and poorly optimised that you can only install like two of them at a time. The last time around it was big-budget point and click adventure games, if you can believe it.
November 18, 2025 at 9:24 PM
[1/3] The funny thing is, this isn't even the first time we've had a period where AAA computer games have become so bloated and poorly optimised that you can only install like two of them at a time. The last time around it was big-budget point and click adventure games, if you can believe it.