Lightnews — Scholar-powered news

Lorde Stan Account @knightattheopera.bsky.social · 2d

My friend Directsun is on a mission to get more people creating Zelda-style puzzle dungeons. Give his blog a read and let him talk you into it:

puzzledungeon.com/puzzle-dunge...

Puzzle Dungeon Design: Themes & Gimmicks

Here are a couple of formalized steps for crafting puzzle dungeons that feel at home at the table—and are actually fun.

puzzledungeon.com

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Reposted by Lorde Stan Account

Mischief and Mayhem Studios @mandmstudios.bsky.social · 4d

All our games, Tower Alchemy (mix to unlock towers), Ark Defender (survive in a hostile galaxy), They Dug Too Deep (defeat unleashed swarms), & Doomed Stars (become the empire ender), are part of the #SteamAutumnSale!
#indiedev #indiegames #indiegame #IndieGameDev #2dgame

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Lorde Stan Account @knightattheopera.bsky.social · 5d

I do feel like I understand the difference between types 2 and 3, but type 3 doesn't sound like a type of "fun" at all. That's just not the right word for it. I know what it's referring to, but it would never occur to me to describe that using the word "fun." It's just a completely different thing.

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Prismatic Wasteland @prismaticwasteland.com · 6d

Barkeep on the Borderlands is in its 2nd printing! It is now perfect bound with a spine and has much more consistent colors in the interior.

To celebrate, the next ~50 orders of Barkeep or the Barkeep Bundle will also come with a random autographed “print proof” page
#osr #rpg

Copies of the new print run on the left, the proof pages of the book (a cutaway map of a pub pictured) below and a few holographic stickers on top

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Reposted by Lorde Stan Account

Mischief and Mayhem Studios @mandmstudios.bsky.social · 8d

Our game, Tower Alchemy, is 50% off for the #SteamAutumnSale! It’s a classic #towerdefense game with a twist. Mix & match basic towers to unlock anything from laser cannons to holy storms!
#indiedev #indiegames #indiegame #IndieGameDev #2dgame

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Reposted by Lorde Stan Account

jay Dragon has firmware updates @jdragsky.bsky.social · 9d

hi i'm getting a kickass set of new genitals installed in 2 weeks from now !! isn't that fucking cool ?

i could use a little bit of help with medical bills + housing expenses during recovery and so i've set up a little gofundme!
gofund.me/394dc2e93

Donate to Support Jay Dragon's sicknasty bottom surgery, organized by Jay Dragon

Hi I'm Jay Dragon, a queer disabled game designer best known for her work on … Jay Dragon needs your support for Support Jay Dragon's sicknasty bottom surgery

gofund.me

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Lorde Stan Account @knightattheopera.bsky.social · 11d

My lawyer @prismaticwasteland.com has cleared me of any liability for sharing this meme edit I made:

Meme about the game Mausritter. The left panel is labeled "expectation," and depicts two cute mice doing little cozy mousey things. The right panel is labeled "reality" and depicts one traumatized mouse cradling the bleeding corpse of another mouse in their arms, edited from the painting "Ivan the Terrible and His Son Ivan" by Ilya Repin.

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Lorde Stan Account @knightattheopera.bsky.social · 12d

I think this is a good description of *most* of your videos in the last 5-6 years, but it doesn't seem to fit most of your older content. And, per your Vsauce vid, I still think of your older content as being equally "Folding Ideas" as your current stuff.

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jay Dragon has firmware updates @jdragsky.bsky.social · Sep 8

good morning, i wrote a manifesto about a new direction for game design / play
possumcreek.medium.com/the-expressi...

The Expressionist Games Manifesto

“Work! Intoxication! Brain-racking! Chewing, eating, gorging, rooting up! Rapturous birth pangs! Jabbing of the brush, preferably right…

possumcreek.medium.com

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Lorde Stan Account @knightattheopera.bsky.social · Sep 7

Well, in a way, you ARE using a ruler. It's just a ruler that's already built-in. And if you didn't have the hexes and instead only had a handheld ruler, you wouldn't have a consistent frame of reference for how long your "straight" segments should be when approximating a curvy route.

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Lorde Stan Account @knightattheopera.bsky.social · Sep 7

Yeah sure why not

Although honestly I wouldn't be inclined to apply the crawl label to something unless movement is the PRIMARY function of the gameplay. Which I acknowledge isn't a very rigid definition, but I've never been one much for rigid definitions, anyway.

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Lorde Stan Account @knightattheopera.bsky.social · Sep 7

You're killing me
This fucking guy

Defend your position!
(If you'd like to)

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Lorde Stan Account @knightattheopera.bsky.social · Sep 7

My own loose definition of a "crawl" is "gameplay based around incremented movement decisions," which is much more broad. Nodecrawls are a huge category within that, but there's also endless possibilities that WOULDN'T be nodecrawls.

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Lorde Stan Account @knightattheopera.bsky.social · Sep 7

So I have to disagree with your own post on one point: NOT all crawls are node crawls. Many of the most popular types are, but there are other ways of crawling (even if I'm not really interested in them).

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Lorde Stan Account @knightattheopera.bsky.social · Sep 7

This is what I intended to convey, yeah. That's what I meant by "these two types of map aren't even really doing the same thing." But I can't claim that Representational hexcrawling doesn't count as "crawling." It has way too much pedigree. It's arguably the ORIGINAL crawl!

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Lorde Stan Account @knightattheopera.bsky.social · Sep 7

Redux of an old post of mine that was borderline unreadable, but which had a nugget of wisdom worth salvaging.

There are two totally different types of hexcrawl and nobody else seems to have pointed this out before.

knightattheopera.blogspot.com/2025/09/how-...

How Do You Handle the "Inside" of a Hex? (George Lucas Special Edition)

[Context for this post: this is a re-write of an old post of mine I wrote back in 2021. I wasn't happy with my explanation, and it's filled ...

knightattheopera.blogspot.com

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Lorde Stan Account @knightattheopera.bsky.social · Sep 1

Two more Monster Manual posts, for the letters K and L. Some of the best letters in the whole book, honestly.

knightattheopera.blogspot.com/2025/08/k-mo...

knightattheopera.blogspot.com/2025/08/l-mo...

K Monsters at the Opera

A B C D Demon Dragon E F G1 G2 G3 H I Jackalwere K L M N O P Q R S T U V W X Y Z Credit: Richard Whitters K m...

knightattheopera.blogspot.com

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Ty @mindstorm.bsky.social · Aug 26

📰 NEW MINDSTORM POST! 📰 I've thought a lot about what makes good worldbuilding, and the most consistent throughline seems to come down to one thing: being an absolute sicko about it. Here's a post about it, including some interviews from other designers.

www.mindstormpress.com/sicko-worldb...

Sicko Worldbuilding

Question: What does it take to make compelling worlds? Answer: Going sicko mode.

www.mindstormpress.com

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Lorde Stan Account @knightattheopera.bsky.social · Aug 20

White Plume Mountain. The main villain, the wizard Keraptis, is in a room not actually found on the map or described anywhere in the map key. The module assumes the players likely won't encounter him, but if they DO manage to reach his area, it just says "good luck dawg you got this."

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Lorde Stan Account @knightattheopera.bsky.social · Aug 18

This is one of the book's I don't have a physical copy of, either. I searched on YouTube for videos where you can see the inside of the book, and sure enough, your suspicion is correct.
youtu.be/-6Yl4TiuCmg

AD&D 2nd Edition: review

YouTube video by Lee OSgamer

youtu.be

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Lorde Stan Account @knightattheopera.bsky.social · Aug 18

Last year I started a series going through the Monster Manual and talking about each monster with my brother Ben. In case you missed them, here's H, I, and J:

knightattheopera.blogspot.com/2024/09/h-mo...

knightattheopera.blogspot.com/2025/08/i-mo...

knightattheopera.blogspot.com/2025/08/jack...

H Monsters at the Opera

A B C D Demon Dragon E F G1 G2 G3 H I Jackalwere K L M N O P Q R S T U V W X Y Z Credit: my sister, again No, I h...

knightattheopera.blogspot.com

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Adam Seats 🔜 PAXU @iknowadamseats.bsky.social · Aug 13

Hey, did you know I have a blog? I don't talk about it a lot, and I probably post to it even less - but I've talked about things like my experiences with Jay Dragon's games, the math behind balancing encounters, bothering people to go try new games and more. More things coming soon.

For Want of a Silver Bullet

iknowadamseats.blogspot.com

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Nick LS Whelan @linkskywalker.bsky.social · Aug 6

If you've just started following me since Blogs on Tape got going: hi, hello, how are ya. Here's some other stuff of mine to look at, now that Blogs on Tape is done:

I publish Errant: www.killjester.com/errant
I've got a blog: www.paperspencils.com
I've got a stupid homepage: www.linkskywalker.com

Errant — Kill Jester

www.killjester.com

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Lorde Stan Account @knightattheopera.bsky.social · Aug 4

You've got very satisfying handwriting

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Lorde Stan Account @knightattheopera.bsky.social · Aug 4

why must we pit two queens against each other like this

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