Things I Liked Last Month: October 2024
01 November 2024
Welcome to another dispatch of Things I Liked Last Month! Last month I wrote about ‘5 Things Baldur's Gate 3 Taught Me About GMing and Game Design’, I also released ABODE 2nd Edition, my gothic horror family tree-building RPG! Check it out on Itch, and read my behind the scenes of my design here!
A busy month! But now for the recommendations:
Balatro
I’m massively late to the party on this one, but I started playing Balatro! I’m a huge fan of games that take an established game people are familiar with (like Poker) and put a new spin on it, and Balatro does that perfectly! I feel like this will be my new go-to roguelike for a quick game between doing things. With an endless mode and hundreds of different builds, I’m not gonna finish it anytime soon.
Uncertainty in Games
I frequently mention my love of randomless game design here on the blog, and this book - Uncertainty in Games by Greg Costikyan - is such a great resource for talking about that! Most TTRPGs rely on heavy randomness in their mechanics, but Uncertainty in Games lays out a number of other ways that games can create uncertainty - which Costikyan believes is the core reason games are exciting. It’s inspired a couple different game ideas in me, one of which I’m exploring right now!
Ballionaire
Released as a demo for Steam Next Fest this month, Ballionaire is a pachinko roguelike where you build the board as you play. I really enjoyed the demo with its cute art and simple design. I can’t wait for the full release! The demo is still up on their steam page until the 4th of November, so check it out while you can!
Links
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From Nebula, How We Convinced Everyone on our Show They Were the Mole, the behind the scenes of The Getaway, which I recommended in July’s dispatch.
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Curious Archive Kind of Hates Elves
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Another banger from Jacob Geller: What We Don't Talk About in "Spec Ops The Line", I also really enjoyed his Nebula-exclusive companion video: Does Six Days in Fallujah Deserve the Infamy?
Thanks for reading this dispatch of Jackalope Mail! Let me know what you’ve enjoyed this month in the comments!