Post by Francisco Lemos in Desert of Despair jam comments

Appx. N Jam 2026 » Entries » Desert of Despair

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Great adventure, as always!

It's the first time I've seen "2:6" for "2-in-6", really clever! I'll use it in mine too :-)
I love the movement restriction rule! Although I'm not sure whether a darker hex means that has actually less light. Not sure how to interpret "All light shines only towards the Gravity Well"; does it mean that you only see outer hexes bright when seen from the inner (darker) hexes?
A tiny usability idea: since the PCs always start in 3.3, that hex could be marked somehow. Or perhaps on every cycle they could restart in a random outer hex.
The cyclical nature of the adventure is a really cool idea, reminds me a roguelike videogamemechanic, and the variety of scenes in the key hexes is fantastic 👏🏼👏🏼👏🏼

Thanks for reading it. In this case darker just refers to the colour on the map not the actual light in the space. The all light shines only toward the Gravity well is just flavour to telegraph its nature as a kind of black hole. Good call on adding the mark for hex [3,-3], it was a late decision to make it the default entry point and I missed the opportunity. Your statement about them entering on a random hex was how I initially envisioned it. In the end, I think them effectively going back the beginning is better, it allows them to “cost analyze the loop” which makes these kinds of attrition loop games work imo.

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Francisco Lemos10 days ago(+1)

Yes, I agree with you. Walking the same path again and again is in fact how roguelikes work, learning and improving every time. Makes sense.

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