Tag Archives: Illuminati

March 5, 2026 · 20:32

Yesterday’s desires, tomorrow’s vices

I was brooding today (I do that a lot) and as my imaginary visions are predicting fame and fortune in the realm of $5-$10 million (when you are allowed to call church mice decadent rich bitches you can do that) the other side of me was looking at a setting we had decades ago. Decades ago Magic the gathering started and it was quickly followed by Netrunner, Star Trek, Star Wars, Babylon 5 and a whole range of other games. To be honest Jacksons illuminati was one of the first too. We had a whole range of game designers who thought it was a quick gain to fortune, it you let this evolve into a greed thing. But the people caught on and they had enough. The weird part was that some of these games were good, they were challenging and if it wasn’t for the greed factor, they could endure. So today these games are basically gone. But why? What stops these makers from creating a digital set (containing a factory set) perhaps not all card, but most cards. Now in the case of Harry Potter

We have a somewhat large population of Harry Potter fans, there is no actual number, but these fans ruin into the millions. So what happens when they can get a ‘starterkit’ for free, so that they can play and if they like it they buy the factory set for lets say $5-$10. A game at the moment written off will gain to the effect up to $50M to $100M dollars. So when was that a bad idea? And with someone setting the new Harry Potter realm in a TV show, the stage will only increase. Then there are certain cards (I actually had one) the rare golden cauldron which (if I remember correctly) gave you potion powers. So some of these cards exist as Hologram cards and some not, but what would it be if you get that card for a mere $0.50? No haggling, no chances. A simple transaction and that would be more money in the hands of these card makers. Perhaps some fans will pay $1 for the hologram set of Potter, Granger and Weasley. People don’t have to do that, because these three are in the starter kit (as far as I know), but fans will pay the extra dollar, on that I have no doubt. And with that we can set the premise to other CCG sets. Dune also has millions of fans. Now there is no guarantee that all these fans like these games, but the setting of a starter kit and the option to play might gain traction over these games.

I believe that good business is where you find it, as the greed setting dies down, the actual game could be the next big thing. Especially on this internet where people are dying to get ahead from the boredom they tend to have and in other news, the setting against social networking and younger players gives Harry Potter an advantage and that is not something you should overlook.

Are all games valid? Pretty much, although not all games can be changed into a digital version of the game. Dune is one that might take some tinkering, but If we look at the fact that hundreds of art images are now catching dust on some hard drive is almost too sacrilege to contemplate and in all this I do think that the Harry Potter CCG might be one that could be ready in a short time. Although it is mostly up to Wizards of the Coast and the designers Paul Peterson, Skaff Elias and Mike Elliott. It seems to me that they are ignoring a good premise. Perhaps they have considered it in the past, perhaps not. But I believe that there is a whole station of alternative games out there. Especially as players like Bethesda and Ubisoft are rehashing old games for the nextgen systems. So why aren’t we looking at the other formats and see if there is an opening for them in the new setting? As far as I can tell, the Harry Potter CCG could be played on a mobile. So how many non-adults have a mobile? Consider that there are an estimated 811 million children under 14 worldwide who own a smartphone and social media bans are set to under 16, so (as I see it) over 500 million have a mobile and no social interaction (one would hope), but these numbers are out there and no one made the jump to see what could be used? Seems like a wasted opportunity to me.

Have a great day and take some time to smell the roses (if able), I have to because my TV went into Rigor Mortis yesterday, as such my day sucks because no TV also means no PS5 (bitter tears of sadness).

Remake

That is what we think. In movies, in TV series, in books and also in games. Yet the question becomes have we ever considered an evolving setting?

That thought came to mind when I was considering the political settings we currently face. So in comes an old acquaintance all the way back from 1985. It was the Balance of power. I had the Atari ST version, but it originally came from the Macintosh. It was created on a system with 512Kb of RAM, all whilst the Atari ST had 1024Kb of RAM. These were simpler times, but the software was remarkable, even for those days. So now we have PC’s with a lot more (4000 times more). The PS5 has 16GB of ram and the BlueRay can hold so much more than a 800kb floppy.

That was merely the hardware, the setting of 1985. There no longer is a simple setting of bear versus eagle. The world is a lot more complex. Big corporations have global power, The simple setting of Russia versus America is gone. There is now the Commonwealth, the Arabian nations and there is China. It is governments versus corporations and all versus chaos and anarchy. So what happens if the game gets updated to include all these parameters.

So the ‘media’ is all about whitewashing using sports. So what happens if these parameters are included? What can we see when these thousands of elements are included? There might not be an actual AI yet, but the LLM’s with deeper machine learning could set a proper larger stage to test and use in the new Balance of Power. All set on actual premises. So what happens when this game actually include the extremists and what could the game dish out against the user who decides to become a president, a monarch or a CEO of a large company?

What can we make in the complexities of media and political charged players? Consider parts of the CCG Illuminati, created by Steve Jackson Games in 1980. What if the game has both elements so that any choice could evolve? The question becomes is there a market for this game. In 1985 the game sold over 250,000 copies. It was a time when almost no one had a computer. So what becomes of an evolved setting? I have no idea, in those times there were little games, the thousands of games were only starting to get developed in 1985. So could a game like that work? I am merely one curious gamer. The connected setting is not merely can it be done, but could it work to a larger audience.

A game where we can set the stage and can see if something is set in stone, or could it evolve if certain political players are not included? How could we consider if a technocracy could not exist, or the reverse. Could it become the only way out?

All questions we might ask and what happens if there is a game that gave you a likelihood of certain evolutions.

All nice questions, but there is a larger stage. What happens is that LLM is in the cloud and you merely download a copy of the evolving parameters. In this what happens when we add a second game (for example) the setting of a game like the 4th protocol, based on the movie/book with Pierce Brosnan and Michael Caine. What happens when we add an MI5,FSB,CIA element? We try to remake the wheel, but what happens when we create an element that uses the same data file? We could look at different stages all based on the same data, so the second game would have all the people in place, it merely adds the names the other game doesn’t use, but it all fits the nearly same pattern. You see, all these players (Microsoft, Google, IBM, Amazon) are creating their own ‘AI’ version. But what happens, when we do the reverse? One data set allows for evolutions in games? It was never done before because these systems were not in existence. Now we have the power, the data space and hopefully the inclination to create a new type of game, and this could fit all the formats. It is merely an idea but there is a larger need to create a unique game. At present we largely get more of the same and someone needs to think out of the box and create something new.

So, this is just an idea and perhaps the idea might not work. Yet I believe that systems like this allow someone to totally create something new and never seen before in gaming and it could lead to a new level of RPG games. I made mention of this 2-3 years ago. What happens when NPC’s in games create their own intelligence? I gave the setting in them, but there is a larger need. Something needs to learn NPC how to become more intelligent, so that we don’t get the laughable AC Unity crowds. NPC’s that keep on walking in the wall and intelligent responses in a game. You can either create a more intelligent NPC, or you can let the NPC evolve through LLM’s and that is where we need to go. An evolved remake of the Balance of Power is merely the setting that could work and create another game in the process as you prototype solutions. It is just a thought to have the weekend.

Have a great weekend, it’s Saturday now and 7 hours until breakfast (for me).

Skill to kill

Yes, very bright, is it not? But in the last few days I have been mulling over the RPG game I out here on my blog over the last few months and whilst playing Horizon: Forbidden West something stuck in my mind.

You see something got stuck there and the skill tree is fine for THAT game, but for me, for the player it had drawbacks. It is not the game, it is within the game, and that is fine, but consider that you play in such an open world. In that open world you tend to go in one direction. I tend to go the way of the sneaky archer. And that game limits what you as a sneak can do. This is not a weakness, it is not a flaw and they did NOTHING wrong. But the thought was in my head and stayed there.

So then we saw the smallest piece of Hogwarts Legacy and they gave us another path. In that path we are given:

Now, that is also a path we see, but my mind started blending the two elements. You see we get the stage of limitations, we get the stage of directions, but we often miss the blending of choices and there we ultimately see the stage where some are given the tendency to unlock EVERY skill. But that is not realistic, it is also counterproductive. So what if a game gets another edge. Consider that CCG games in the past had a limited version and a generic version. The limited version was black or silver, the factory set was gold (a factory set is a complete set of all cards bought at beginning). Now consider that we connect skills to a trait like the CCG game Illuminati did.

In that game we saw the head you ‘ruled’ in this example ‘Shangri La’ (see below), it can connect to any card, in this example we use a card named ‘Big Media’

As you can see it connects from a higher card on one side and connect to THREE sides to smaller skills. Now some have 0 connectors, some have one and a few will have two, but YOU decide the application of that skill. Now consider we go back to the first card, it is in the game not called ‘Shangri-La’, but ‘Covert’ and we have 2 of those cards in the beginning of the game ‘Covert’ and ‘Overt’, now we have archery which is (comparing to Big Media) not 4/4, but 2/3 It can connect to 2 stacks and enforce three connecting skills. In addition any card can be upgraded. The Big Media resistance will be its own power. So over time that number goes up (as you become a more skill-full archer), now consider that we end up with 4/5 stacks Covert, Overt, Social, Commerce, Faith and Govern. Six elements and you have either 4 or 5 stacks so something has to give and in the beginning you only have two stacks, so it will be about choices. How will you decide?

And there is no better choice here, it will be about YOUR choice as you play the game. Now consider that as you get awarded cards through levelling or quests, you get new options and alternative options. For example the covert archer will level up having a larger chance of getting the scout card, the scout card can evolve into a mapping card, the edge and back of the card now represents a map, yes, we all forgot about the back of the card, but in a game, in a digital environment that side has options. And as the mapping option becomes available to select you see that mapping has benefits in the commerce side, especially if you gain art cards. There is still place for improvement (there always is) but when did you see a game that gave you CHOICES to evolve skills and adapt them in any way YOU could? I have been busting my mind and I saw no such options, not in ANY game and that is the power of versatility. It now becomes a side we never saw coming, but there is more.

What if I set that option aside like I did when I designed the Amazon Luna achievement keys? What if playing a game of chess allows you to gain the strategist card to apply to this game? It is just a thought but in that setting we get a stage that skill in one side enhances another? I do not think it is a great idea, but it could apply to cosmetic sides of the game. We could add a whole range of options. As we go forth we can also add cards, or evolve abilities with a black border (Covert only), white border (overt only) or gold border (commerce only), so kill shot would be covert only and if we evolve this over time the border becomes green, or brown and it an be applied to both covert or overt. And when we see this we can concentrate on higher end card, as they bolden all cards connected to them. In this there is one more stack, the homestead stack. As I state before we can influence to some degree, but if we add the homestead stack and we allow for levelling points to this stack the overall setting improves in town and that setting opens up a whole new range of options (and limitations).

It is just one side of a game that is not ready yet, but consider who else has this and more important, which RPG allows for this?

Tag Archives: Illuminati

Yesterday’s desires, tomorrow’s vices

Remake

Skill to kill

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