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I design board games and I think one of the most under utilized skills is studying other games. (There is old advice that says if you want to be a writer, then read more books.) Go back through all the games you like and write up what you love about them. Then, and more importantly, think a lot about HOW the game makes you feel that way or HOW the game gives you the opportunity to explore in some directed way. Then take that lens and re-evaluate the game that you made.

Every board/card game I design starts with a single key idea or mechanic or theme; but they all have a single cornerstone. Every playtest and design change is always looked at through that lens. If there isn't alignment, then you have two choices: ignore the change or considering resetting your cornerstone given what you know now. This really helps to stop thrashing and give focus to your game as you iterate.


I need to dig deeper into the games I love and study them. That’ll really sharpen my intuition, and I’ll keep working hard. Thanks for the comment :)

Reminds me of an article from a while ago about a homeless alcoholic that ran up over $1M in hospital and ambulance costs over the years.

https://centerforhealthjournalism.org/our-work/insights/mill...


Nitpick, but $1M in unpaid bills is nowhere near $1M in costs. Obviously this is still a troubling result but in all likelihood it was less than 10% of that in actual costs and the costs weren’t in fact borne by “the taxpayer” but rather by slightly inflated fees for everyone else, since US hospitals must bill according to an assumption that some percentage of bills will go unpaid, due to the relationship between themselves, the insurers, and uninsured patients.


And for useful reference: I was in hospital last year for ~2 weeks, and my insurance was sent a bill for ~$580k. The insurance actually paid $32k.

Hospital bills are clearly works of fiction.


$580k?! As an European, I can only imagine you got 5 organ transplants, 4 titanium limb replacements, and, idk, night vision or something, while staying in a penthouse suite with masages and coconut milk treatments...

(Obviously joking and I know 2 weeks in a hospital is very unpleasant - I'm sorry for your experience and hope you're doing well).


Indeed. Those clearly-bonkers initial bills are clearly meant to a) intimidate and terrify the uninsured, and b) present a sympathetic facade to politicians and possibly the IRS about how much cost the hospital absorbs from non-paying patients.


It’s like a tax scam right? Or is it like once in a blue moon they get wealthy whale without insurance?


Don't forget about the slave handle of Oklahoma. They gave away over 5000 square miles so they could keep slaves. And the reason they were forced to do this is that they wanted the US government's protection against Mexico and statehood prohibited slavery above the 36th parallel (Missouri Compromise. Quite ironic.

(Also, you are right, our country has lost almost all sense of empathy)


> (Also, you are right, our country has lost almost all sense of empathy)

From the outside, it looks worse than that. It seems more like the US has developed a weird active aversion to empathy, to the point where even enlightened self-interest gets rejected because it looks suspiciously like empathy.


Yup. It's odd what they do and don't teach in Texas History.

People tell me about how bad propaganda is in other places. Good thing they don't have it here, or those folks would probably be very mad at the systems who raise them- then they might have to examine their highly conflicted relationships to the abusive powers that be.

Personally, though, I do see empathy here and there.

In some places (especially among folks who think they are more likely to have been a plantation owner than a peasant anytime someone talks about 'land reform') it's notably attenuated.

Empathy is not a lost cause- lots of good folks, and lots of folks who want to be good but don't know how. But it's gonna take some work to get make it louder.


It is as simple as money. More open expression is nothing compared appeasing the puritanical powers that be. Don't put anything in your product that would stop adoption or prevent people giving you money.


Do the "puritanical powers that be" still even exist? I think you'll have to look in nursing homes to find many Americans who are genuinely scandalized a bit of standard cussing. The "bad words" which are actually taboo in this century are slurs and the like.

Companies probably lose more people by banning cursing than would be driven away by cursing.


> standard cussing...... slurs and the like.

And the difference is?

Ergo, what is considered offensive is based on social construct. (In more religious times, "god damn you" was heinous insult, which I doubt would register with anybody in modern secular Blighty.)


The difference is how they are presently perceived. I am arguing that shit, fuck, etc are not presently taboo, while other words (slurs) are. Yet American companies treat words like fuck as though they are still widely considered offensive. These companies are out of touch with modern culture; that's my point.

So what is your point? Why do you feel the need to tediously explain that offensive words are a social construct, something obviously understand already because I just got done explaining that the set of taboo words has changed over time?


I'm interesting in learning more. I don't see contact info in your profile.


Agreed. I was working on some haiku things with ChatGPT and it kept telling me that busy has only one syllable. This is a trivially searchable fact.


link a chat please


It wasn't just busy that it failed on. I was feeding it haikus and wanted them broken into a list of 17 words/fragments. Certain 2 syllable words weren't split and certain 1 syllable words were split into two.


Can't the same countries also just make all the on-ramps and off-ramps just as illegal?


It's easier and safer to use a VPN than it is to meet a man in a dark alley for some dollars.


you still have to fund your stablecoin account somehow - how do I get local currency from my pocket into the ether?


Crime. The answer is crime.

(Plus a whole bunch of pretty words to make it sound like they're saving the world.)


You'd use our platform!

User A sends local currency to User B's fiat account.

User B sends stablecoins (earned via salary, trading, mining, etc.) to User A's digital wallet (that we've created for them).


How do you demonstrate that User B earned their stablecoins via “salary, trading, mining, and etc.”; as opposed to through crime, whether the conventional crypto sort or through subverting currency controls?

What, other than money laundering, would motivate a person who had a supply of such stablecoins to want to supply them to into a market with currency controls? Is the concept there “I make my expat wages in dollars, I want to turn them back into $CURRENCY at the black market rate”?


Does user B need any sort of exchange/money transmitter license?

Do you check the laws for this in each country you are available in?

Do you notify user B of this fact and the potential legal risks?

Do you verify if they have the license?


User B is sending a peer-to-peer transaction, akin to a Zelle or Venmo. In most other countries, these peer-to-peer payments (PIX, UPI, etc.) do billions of transactions per month. And since you're sending your own funds, you're not a money transmitter. If we do work with any larger entities (e.g., an OTC desk, liquidity provider), we'd certainly be cognizant of the relevant licensing.


> And since you're sending your own funds, you're not a money transmitter.

It's MUCH more complicated than that in several countries, particularly the US.


Assuming you get banned, is your plan just "never visit any country where we do business"?


Hahaha we've had this conversation internally a couple of times.

Definitely a few places that we'd probably avoid. But also plenty of others (e.g., Kenya, LatAm, Turkey, etc.) that have been quite friendly and would be fine to visit.


And what are the legal implications for User B.

Because if you are involved in washing illegally earned money in many places that's a criminal act.


Then... just open an account in a US bank using said VPN, instead of going through a middleman who will fall over and take the lot next week


"Just open a US bank account using a VPN, duh"

It's so funny to read Americans who constantly downplay the problems that people in developing countries have


Sorry about the delay in responding - but how is "Just use a crypto wallet" any better?

What I probably should have said was that the platform should be offering a USD (or Euro, or whatever) denominated account, much easier for trading.


Can you do that without a US postal address?


lol, I think that anything you say about not being able to open a US bank account applies to the platform that is supposed to KYC


You on-ramp/off-ramp with P2P (aka just another guy). It is illegal but how can a government control that?


The government wouldn't bother with the individuals. They would designate Karsa as a criminal organisation.

And then trigger an Interpol Red Notice for the founders.


Really? I was under the understanding that we have continued to get taller and bigger driven by out our access to nutrition and medicine over the last couple of centuries.


Is this really a genetic adaptation to the environment or rather fulfilling the inherent growth potential that would otherwise be inhibited by nutrient deficiency?


By all the 'no one under 6'2"' tinder jokes I'd say it's being incorporated into genetics.


Agreed. I think most people would be a lot happier if they got rid of half their stuff.

Then, next year, get rid of half again. We all keep so much and acquire so much that brings stress not joy.


The only thing I regret getting rid of is books. I've moved many times and thinned my shelves severely each time. In retrospect I realize that I often want to refer back to them or show someone else something I had read. That being said I'd be lying if I said the value wasn't mostly sentimental.


I only kept books I would read again. But at some point I realized that was getting away from me, and I had all of these books I had in fact read twice but ten-plus years ago. The question was if I would read them a third or fourth time.

New books keep coming out, and this might be the last time in your life you read this book, and then you give it away. That statement is pretty straightforward when you’re young. When you get older it takes on a different meaning. I won’t have time for this.

So far it’s only been a couple of series. I’ve had a lot of free time this year and I’ve read 3 times as many books as I have in my next best year in the last decade, so I may be able to revise that down, however I’ve also added a lot of authors in that process, which just puts more pressure on award winning books from thirty, sixty years ago.


I was a books person, and got rid of all of my books.

Maybe all is easier than some?

Only on rare occasions do I miss any of them, and that's not enough to make carting them around and storing them worthwhile.

Also, having the the books go to good homes makes a difference in regrets. My sf collection, for example, got more use in its public library home, than I ever could've given it. And this one book that I think was inscribed by a famous writer (not their own book, but a gift to a friend of theirs), and which had randomly come into my hands, I in turn randomly gave to an ER nurse who'd had asked about it.

The only books I really should've kept were the two that friends had inscribed to me, but those were lost in a tricky move.


Books can become this really religious thing for a lot of people. I take stuff down for the annual library book sale fairly regularly--and I've intensified over the past year or two. I know that a lot will end up pulped anyway but I'm at the point where I know a lot of what I still own won't be re-read or consulted. Still have way too much.


I got rid of all my books a while ago and it was freeing. No more Tsondoku for me :)

Previously, I always gave away books to friends after reading. Knowing someone else will enjoy them mitigates any loss aversion emotions (for me at least).


I have a suggestion for you. Try making a board game instead. No complex technology to learn, way different than already being burnt out from coding all day, you can iterate on the fly by writing on your prototype, some can be tested solo (but having some friends come over once a week isn't insurmountable and is very social), lots on online testing available using "no rules" engines that let you just move "objects" around (a little tech to learn but done in a few hours), etc.

If if your game never gets published, etc. you could have a game that you and your friends got countless hours of enjoyment from. I personally get a lot of enjoyment from it. Good luck!


Heh, I started working on a board game with a couple friends and then got caught up reading card descriptions from a shared Google Spreadsheet and generating images to work with Tabletop Simulator.

It's a different kind of work from my usual though, and it was fun to see my friends in awe that they could write arbitrarily many new cards and almost instantaneously see them in the game.


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