{"id":5927,"date":"2022-11-25T22:25:46","date_gmt":"2022-11-25T22:25:46","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/distractionware.com\/blog\/?page_id=5927"},"modified":"2022-11-25T22:25:46","modified_gmt":"2022-11-25T22:25:46","slug":"dicey-dungeons-reunion-design-the-robot","status":"publish","type":"page","link":"https:\/\/distractionware.com\/blog\/dicey-dungeons-reunion-design-the-robot\/","title":{"rendered":"Dicey Dungeons Reunion Design: The Robot"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>ok so this slightly got away from me, but here is the penultimate Dicey Dungeons Reunion design thread! This time round, it&#8217;s the Robot, and its extremely weird Coin episode!<\/p>\n<p><center><img decoding=\"async\" class=\"media\" loading=\"lazy\" src=\"https:\\\\distractionware.com\\blog\\images\\twitterthreads\\reunion-robot\/FZQDTvuWAAAN6xH.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"640px\"><\/center><\/p>\n<p>The robot episode is, uh, a little different<\/p>\n<p><center><video controls=\"\" autoplay=\"\" loop=\"\" muted=\"\" width=\"640\"><source src=\"https:\\\\distractionware.com\\blog\\images\\twitterthreads\\reunion-robot\/FZQECHJXkAAlPMn.mp4\" type=\"video\/mp4\">Your browser does not support the video tag.<\/video><\/center><\/p>\n<p>This episode absolutely started out as a joke. I had the idea and it made me laugh, so I decided to try implementing it. I didn&#8217;t think it was going to go anywhere!<\/p>\n<p>To be honest, I&#8217;d been a bit stuck on the Robot episode! I knew I wanted to do something different with the push your luck mechanic, but I couldn&#8217;t figure out something I liked.<\/p>\n<p><center><img decoding=\"async\" class=\"media\" loading=\"lazy\" src=\"https:\\\\distractionware.com\\blog\\images\\twitterthreads\\reunion-robot\/FZQFr0GWAAEK8hq.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"640px\"><\/center><\/p>\n<p>A classic example of a push your luck game is just flipping coins, and betting on how many times in a row you&#8217;ll land on heads. This is weirdly compelling!<\/p>\n<p>Slight tangent, but I love this dumb roblox game, &#8220;rng difficulty chart obby&#8221;, which starts out with 50\/50 odds to succeed on each level and halves that each round: <a href=\"https:\/\/www.roblox.com\/games\/5943722073\/rng-difficulty-chart-obby\">roblox.com\/games\/59437220\u2026<\/a><\/p>\n<p><center><img decoding=\"async\" class=\"media\" loading=\"lazy\" src=\"https:\\\\distractionware.com\\blog\\images\\twitterthreads\\reunion-robot\/FZQLR8oX0AEubHO.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"640px\"><\/center><\/p>\n<p>You might reasonably ask &#8211; is it&#8230; is it ok to use Coins instead of Dice? Does that not break the rules of the game? Yes it does, I&#8217;ll allow it<\/p>\n<p><center><img decoding=\"async\" class=\"media\" loading=\"lazy\" src=\"https:\\\\distractionware.com\\blog\\images\\twitterthreads\\reunion-robot\/FZQL-oEWIAA2PQZ.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"640px\"><\/center><\/p>\n<p>Dicey Dungeons was actually *very* strict about its only D6 rule. It was always a bit tempting to play with Dungeons and Dragons dice, D20s and the like, but I figured, the game is probably better if you just focus on real dice.<\/p>\n<p>A big part of that is just that it really hurts your ability to do probability in your head once you start messing with weird dice. D6s are kind of magical; everyone seems to have an intuition for them.<\/p>\n<p>Not only does Dicey Dungeons only use D6s, it also doesn&#8217;t have &#8220;powered&#8221; dice, which is a thing a lot of people suggested back in the early days. (i.e. you never get a &#8220;magic&#8221; dice which has different properties, like doing extra damage or inflicting a status when used.)<\/p>\n<p>This is a subtly different thing from e.g. a burning dice or a blinded dice, which doesn&#8217;t change what the equipment can do. This seemed as fundamental a rule as the only D6s thing, and therefore equally up for playing around with in this episode!<\/p>\n<p>anyway, a coin is basically just a dice that rolls odds or evens, so<\/p>\n<p>It took a while to figure out a starting layout for this episode. The first one I tried was this, which works, but is a bit of a confusing mess:<\/p>\n<p><center><img decoding=\"async\" class=\"media\" loading=\"lazy\" src=\"https:\\\\distractionware.com\\blog\\images\\twitterthreads\\reunion-robot\/FZQPT98WAAA7WJX.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"640px\"><\/center><\/p>\n<p>There a lot of constraints here pulling against each other:<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li>You want a hand which lets you use most of the coins you flip, which is hard because you have to start with 4<\/li>\n<li>It can&#8217;t be too good, or you&#8217;ll just stick with it<\/li>\n<li>Ideally it would introduce the jackpot mechanic<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p>The final opening hand isn&#8217;t perfect, but that&#8217;s ok &#8211; it solves most of that and it doesn&#8217;t take long to find better stuff. What I mostly like about it is how &#8220;cursed&#8221; it looks, to quote the dicecord<\/p>\n<p><center><img decoding=\"async\" class=\"media\" loading=\"lazy\" src=\"https:\\\\distractionware.com\\blog\\images\\twitterthreads\\reunion-robot\/FZQQS-mXoAIBhy3.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"640px\"><\/center><\/p>\n<p>There are a few other re-purposed coin items in the episode I really like, by the way<\/p>\n<p><center><img decoding=\"async\" class=\"media\" loading=\"lazy\" src=\"https:\\\\distractionware.com\\blog\\images\\twitterthreads\\reunion-robot\/FZQRHUxXoAIf2Vq.png\" alt=\"\" width=\"400px\"><\/center><\/p>\n<p>I&#8217;m really happy with the Jackpot mechanic: you get a card with converts your silver coins to gold, doing 1 damage with each conversion.<\/p>\n<p>The more coins you put at risk, the more damage you can do with it &#8211; but you also get equipment which uses the gold coins!<\/p>\n<p><center><video controls=\"\" autoplay=\"\" loop=\"\" muted=\"\" width=\"640\"><source src=\"https:\\\\distractionware.com\\blog\\images\\twitterthreads\\reunion-robot\/FZQS1klWQAAFZB3.mp4\" type=\"video\/mp4\">Your browser does not support the video tag.<\/video><\/center><\/p>\n<p>The second Robot level up reward is always a choice between playing it safe, and taking a risk. Players are bitterly divided on which is better, Ultima Weapon or Buster Sword (it&#8217;s Ultima btw)<\/p>\n<p><center><img decoding=\"async\" class=\"media\" loading=\"lazy\" src=\"https:\\\\distractionware.com\\blog\\images\\twitterthreads\\reunion-robot\/FZQTpBSWIAAurg0.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"640px\"><\/center><\/p>\n<p>Reunion offers a version of this choice too!<\/p>\n<p><center><img decoding=\"async\" class=\"media\" loading=\"lazy\" src=\"https:\\\\distractionware.com\\blog\\images\\twitterthreads\\reunion-robot\/FZQTyC8XoAEgIEz.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"640px\"><\/center><\/p>\n<p>Really happy with both of these cards: Bull Horns offers you a chance at a runaway turn, doing huge amounts of damage, but you really have to build around it. Whereas Bear Claws fits anywhere, and raises the floor of your build.<\/p>\n<p>There are lots of financially inspired equipment names in this episode, which is something I just leaned into because I found it funny. Some examples:<\/p>\n<p><center><img decoding=\"async\" class=\"media\" loading=\"lazy\" src=\"https:\\\\distractionware.com\\blog\\images\\twitterthreads\\reunion-robot\/FZQUxs1XoAERAwi.png\" alt=\"\" width=\"300px\"><img decoding=\"async\" class=\"media\" loading=\"lazy\" src=\"https:\\\\distractionware.com\\blog\\images\\twitterthreads\\reunion-robot\/FZQU3IjXwAEJNwj.png\" alt=\"\" width=\"300px\"><\/center><br \/>\n<center><img decoding=\"async\" class=\"media\" loading=\"lazy\" src=\"https:\\\\distractionware.com\\blog\\images\\twitterthreads\\reunion-robot\/FZQVM01XwAEi9cp.png\" alt=\"\" width=\"300px\"><img decoding=\"async\" class=\"media\" loading=\"lazy\" src=\"https:\\\\distractionware.com\\blog\\images\\twitterthreads\\reunion-robot\/FZQVjvPXkAEUhw0.png\" alt=\"\" width=\"300px\"><\/center><\/p>\n<p>The thing I most like about this episode is just how many weird builds you can make work. Some of that was just luck! I added a lot of equipment to the episode, and some of it synergised in surprising ways I hadn&#8217;t expected.<\/p>\n<p><center><img decoding=\"async\" class=\"media\" loading=\"lazy\" src=\"https:\\\\distractionware.com\\blog\\images\\twitterthreads\\reunion-robot\/FZQWflWX0AIMZB3.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"640px\"><\/center><\/p>\n<p>A key ingredient in that are the combination items, which really came into their own in this episode.<\/p>\n<p>Being able to prepare equipment over multiple turns leads to this rhythm of setup turns and payoff turns, which feels fantastic to pull off. The setup:<\/p>\n<p><center><video controls=\"\" autoplay=\"\" loop=\"\" muted=\"\" width=\"640\"><source src=\"https:\\\\distractionware.com\\blog\\images\\twitterthreads\\reunion-robot\/FZQYfGcWAAENJXz.mp4\" type=\"video\/mp4\">Your browser does not support the video tag.<\/video><\/center><\/p>\n<p>&#8230;and the payoff:<\/p>\n<p><center><video controls=\"\" autoplay=\"\" loop=\"\" muted=\"\" width=\"640\"><source src=\"https:\\\\distractionware.com\\blog\\images\\twitterthreads\\reunion-robot\/FZQZEiLXoAAxVRB.mp4\" type=\"video\/mp4\">Your browser does not support the video tag.<\/video><\/center><\/p>\n<p>One last thing to mention is this, my favourite item in the episode:<\/p>\n<p><center><img decoding=\"async\" class=\"media\" loading=\"lazy\" src=\"https:\\\\distractionware.com\\blog\\images\\twitterthreads\\reunion-robot\/FZQZd1jX0AEUjBC.png\" alt=\"\" width=\"400px\"><\/center><\/p>\n<p>You *usually* get this on the last floor, but it can appear as early as floor 4 in a rare drop. It lets you save up coins for the boss fight!<\/p>\n<p>Most of the time when you take it, you&#8217;ll end up getting into trouble and losing. But if you can pull it off, then you&#8217;ll have a boss fight that looks like this:<\/p>\n<p><center><video controls=\"\" autoplay=\"\" loop=\"\" muted=\"\" width=\"640\"><source src=\"https:\\\\distractionware.com\\blog\\images\\twitterthreads\\reunion-robot\/FZQcIRaWIAAdGfg.mp4\" type=\"video\/mp4\">Your browser does not support the video tag.<\/video><\/center><\/p>\n<p>I think that&#8217;s all I&#8217;ve got to say here. As you can probably tell, I love this episode &#8211; it&#8217;s weird and fun and I think it&#8217;s the best episode in the DLC, and probably the best one in the whole game<\/p>\n<p>Just one thread left, on the Inventor. Will try not to leave it so long!<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>ok so this slightly got away from me, but here is the penultimate Dicey Dungeons&#8230;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":0,"parent":0,"menu_order":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","template":"","meta":{"footnotes":""},"class_list":["post-5927","page","type-page","status-publish","hentry"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/distractionware.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/5927","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/distractionware.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/distractionware.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/page"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/distractionware.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/distractionware.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=5927"}],"version-history":[{"count":4,"href":"https:\/\/distractionware.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/5927\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":5931,"href":"https:\/\/distractionware.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/5927\/revisions\/5931"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/distractionware.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=5927"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}