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Feb. 19th, 2019 05:58 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
feotakahariI find it interesting to compare how Darkest Dungeon and Mary Skelter handle their respective sanity meters.
In Darkest Dungeon, you build up stress from things like being attacked. When it gets too high, you have a strong chance of contracting a negative status effect, like babbling to yourself, insulting other party members, or even self-harm. All of these effects stress your other party members, so they’ll soon develop afflictions of their own. There’s a chance of getting a positive effect instead, but it’s not something you can control or rely on. Stress is largely an unavoidable liability, and you have to put a lot of effort into finding ways to mitigate it.
In Mary Skelter, the way you build up to an altered state is by splattering monster blood everywhere. This is a positive thing in and of itself, and the game encourages it in other ways, like giving you rewards from the malevolent intelligence that rules the labyrinth, and driving back the invulnerable monsters that would otherwise chase you. Stress is tracked separately, and again, it’s things like being attacked that drive it up. When you’re sufficiently bloodied, it’s stress that determines whether you lay waste to your enemies or attack your own party.
Mary Skelter gives you a lot more control over when and how your characters go berserk. You can remove all stress by spraying uncorrupted blood on them (!), or remove all monster blood by licking it off (!!!) But on the flipside, you’re even more boned if you’ve got a stat-boosted party member actively attacking the other party members for a massive chunk of their HP every round. Maybe that’s part of the overall empowerment of Mary Skelter, as opposed to the tense resource management of Darkest Dungeon. You’re mighty and destructive even when you’re screwing things up.
In Darkest Dungeon, you build up stress from things like being attacked. When it gets too high, you have a strong chance of contracting a negative status effect, like babbling to yourself, insulting other party members, or even self-harm. All of these effects stress your other party members, so they’ll soon develop afflictions of their own. There’s a chance of getting a positive effect instead, but it’s not something you can control or rely on. Stress is largely an unavoidable liability, and you have to put a lot of effort into finding ways to mitigate it.
In Mary Skelter, the way you build up to an altered state is by splattering monster blood everywhere. This is a positive thing in and of itself, and the game encourages it in other ways, like giving you rewards from the malevolent intelligence that rules the labyrinth, and driving back the invulnerable monsters that would otherwise chase you. Stress is tracked separately, and again, it’s things like being attacked that drive it up. When you’re sufficiently bloodied, it’s stress that determines whether you lay waste to your enemies or attack your own party.
Mary Skelter gives you a lot more control over when and how your characters go berserk. You can remove all stress by spraying uncorrupted blood on them (!), or remove all monster blood by licking it off (!!!) But on the flipside, you’re even more boned if you’ve got a stat-boosted party member actively attacking the other party members for a massive chunk of their HP every round. Maybe that’s part of the overall empowerment of Mary Skelter, as opposed to the tense resource management of Darkest Dungeon. You’re mighty and destructive even when you’re screwing things up.
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