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I read this piece originally on Rascal, but I'll never pass up an opportunity to read it again, I absolutely adore it. It's very well-timed too: I just came out at my workplace three days ago, something I never thought I'd be able to do when I flirted with the idea of transitioning almost two/three/five years ago.

I think in plenty of ways I've been lucky that I've had the ability to choose risk. My family is decidedly middle-class, and were willing to handle most everything that wasn't high school for me, so I could just focus on studying. But when I graduated high school as a valedictorian, the whole thing just felt so empty. In some ways I'm glad I actually got that far, because if I hadn't, maybe I'd still be chasing it. But I realised as soon as I had it that I'd never wanted it. It was definitely the safe option, but that safe option was motivated by awful, paralyzing fear. I was just confused that it hadn't fixed me, even though I had no idea how it was supposed to.

It's strange how much less scared I feel now, when objectively I have a lot more to be scared about. If I had to guess what it is, I'd say that risk-taking is a skill, one you can get better at. I could only have the ability to risk coming out at work because I had come out, shaking and terrified, to one of my closest friends years earlier, and that risk had gone okay. But I think what's surprised me most now is how proud I feel about my transition, much more than any "objective" accomplishments or awards in my life. I'm starting to make a life that can actually fit me, and unlike everything else in my life prior, it was something I chose to do, purely because I wanted to. I had help, thankfully, but I was the one who moved first.

I still have plenty further to go, but pieces like this remind me of how far I've come. Thank you so much for writing it.

This post is very well put, because I think it helps me put my finger on why I get irked when people play D&D without doing any combat. It's not that they're playing a system with a lot of tactical combat rules and not doing any tactical combat, it's that (at least some of the time) they're not engaging with that fact, they're not factoring the deliberate absence of that part of the system into their story. And that's not a fault of play -- if they're having fun, more power to them -- but for me, that's far more interesting.

A moment from one of my games I think about a lot was when I ran the ATARAXIA module for FIST, which has a section where the players are given this enormous statblock for the mech they need to engage with to complete their mission. For a rules-lite system with little to no combat rules, it's an intimidating thing to be handed: the mech has 8 different components with separate abilities and weaknesses, and almost 8 times as much health as the average player character. It's fair to say the mission expects you to have to tussle with this thing, even if you're not going to face it head on, because it's so easy to alert it and/or its guards. But my players came up with a plan, and rolled really well, and just... disabled the mech before it could take a single action. And it was awesome! They got to feel cool, they still had a dramatic scene trying to get out of there unscathed, and they got to show off their characters' strengths. But I think it worked so well because they got to see, mechanically, exactly how much this thing could shred them to pieces if they slipped up. They didn't "engage" directly with that part of the module (insofar as they didn't get into a fight), but it still informed how they played.

Inviting a system to your table only to ignore or sidestep various parts of it is a natural part of play. But it only becomes interesting for me when not engaging with those parts is a deliberate choice -- if it's up to me, and I'm not interested in exploring that absence, I'd rather just bring a system/setting to my table that doesn't put much focus on those ideas.

i wish words were real :(

My first thought with this was that this would probably make a really good phone game. If it used the gyro, that would make for a really chaotic, fun time! ...And it would probably get you some weird looks on the train, but that's besides the point. My best was 186, if I recall correctly: I have no idea if that's any good, but I certainly hope so!

It's really nice to see an non-standard interpretation of the theme. I think maybe the hazards need a slight warning before they come through, because a few times I could hit by a boat that I didn't know was coming, and I couldn't get out of the way because I was on cooldown from inflating my buoy. I think all this really needs is polish to be a really great arcade game!

I think this has a lot of potential if you tweak some things a little. Reminds me a lot of Gravitee, an online space golf game I really like. Obviously this isn't the defacto way to fix it, but I have two suggestions:

1. I agree with JafCraze: the planets shouldn't have gravity until you place them. If you're trying to play properly, it's really easy to have that throw you off-course, and it's really easy to abuse if you want to: since the planets don't hurt you, you can just let the ship hug them forever and earn points (I could only get maybe 30 points normally, but got about 300 this way).
2. I don't know if planets should hurt you? I'm not as sure about this one, but I think it's too easy to underestimate the gravity's strength and get hurt that way. I'm thinking that either the planets should just knock your ship out of control towards asteroids, or that it should be easier to tell where the ship will go, maybe with a prediction line or if it just moves slower.

I really appreciate the amount of polish with the sprites and music in this one.

This is a really fun idea. I think I found a bug though: the cars don't seem to despawn when they leave the play area, so you can drift into them off screen and get a ton of points (at least, I think that's what's happening). It got me about 53 points, but I don't think that really counts . Before that, my high score was 26-ish, so that's probably better to go off of, haha!

Honestly, the precision of something like this feels like it would lend itself better to a level format, maybe in the style of Geometry Dash or the like. I like the simple concept, and I definitely think this has potential!

This is a really fun one! There's something about the blocky humans and cars that gives the game its own, weird charm. Just a simple, self-contained experience. Well done!

Very funny, but I would've liked the option to advance the dialogue myself, since it moves a little too slow for my liking. This is still a very nice experience, though!

I really liked this one! The presentation is top-notch. I think that more should have been happening, though: I liked all the different tasks, but they were pretty repetitive. If you're going to expand this game, you don't necessarily have to add more 'minigames' (for want of a better word), but just make it more chaotic.

The two best parts for me were figuring out how everything worked, and making sure everything got done, kind of like WarioWare with a conspiracy coat of paint. Great job, guys!

Confusing, to be sure. I feel like it needs some kind of goal, because there isn't much to the gameplay itself. I did enjoy the kind of surreal atmosphere though.

Love the concept! I think there's a few kinks to iron out, though. There's a really easy dominant strategy: just pick one asteroid in front of you, get a tiny bit of momentum and just wait until you reach the end. It's boring, and there's not much stopping you from doing it. Maybe a timer would help with that?

I could see this being really fun though with levels to beat or a score/time attack mode. Work on this, this definitely has potential!

I like the idea of obstacles that limit your movement, but it feels a bit unnecessary in some places. I liked how the music notes combined with shiny things in level 4, but they otherwise felt pretty meaningless. Maybe if the game had a timer they would matter? Just throwing the idea out.

Also, the fixed camera was really distracting, and I kept walking off of stuff I couldn't see. Especially since things interact past the "view" you're in, it leads to confusion and headaches. The concept's not bad, just a little under-utilised.

A fun little game. I liked the style of the game, particularly the glitched death screen, the player character and the backdrop. It felt a bit same-y overall: there wasn't much of a progression. The game also lacked clarity: I had to figure out controls, my cursor was invisible and I couldn't tell what each type of DNA did. It's a good start though: it could easily be expanded upon. Definitely lean into the theming, that was my favourite part!

This seems like the perfect time-waster for my phone: if that's what you were going for, then kudos! It's super interesting to try to fit buildings around each other, but it would be nice to have some way to get rid of buildings, as the game can only go on so long. Fantastic work!

Quite good! I think the combat is quite lacking: obviously the wrench feels a bit weak, but personally I think that a cooler change would be to instead make enemies stop moving every now and then. That way, it becomes a game of exploiting the aliens when they make themselves vulnerable, while still allowing them to feel erratic and threatening. Nothing to critique about the graphics: they feel quite authentic and provide good clarity. 

Obviously there is a lack of audio, but it almost works. Maybe if you did add it later, focus on ambient noises and the like to add to the atmosphere. Also, the screen shake when getting hit was cool, but a bit overdone: it was REALLY distracting. All complaints aside, really nice job!

Awesome game! It's a great concept. If anything, I think that attracting to the wrench happens too quickly: I often attached when I wanted to launch. Also, the camera often didn't let me get a full perspective of the level a lot of the time. Great, otherwise. I'd love to see this made into a full game.

Great challenge! My biggest problem was that the position of the pipes made it feel a bit random. The valves at the bottom are way harder to tighten because it takes longer to figure out which pipe they belong to. Maybe having a few valves that change positions/pipes would be better? I loved the voice acting, that was a really good touch.

Cool idea, but it lacked a bit of balance. I ended up getting into a nasty feedback loop where I couldn't progress because a slime higher level than me kept beating me and making me lose hats. Also, some hats were just better than others, which ended up sort of rendering the choices a bit pointless. I love the art, though: it's super charming. Great work!

https://poppers.itch.io/christmas-creatures I'm going to update it to fix a bug, but I only uploaded it 5 minutes late.