BlackBricklyBear

How did you weather (or plan to weather) the onslaught by "true believers" in blockchain technology likely caused by the release of your documentary? From what I've read, the "true believers" don't like being challenged on their core premises and often brook no dissent in their circles.

By the way, have you already posted a link to your documentary on crypto-satire subreddits like r/Buttcoin? I would think the users there would enjoy it.

Did you by any chance look into singleplayer "game books" like American Knights and The Last Battledroid, where the reader could go through a pre-built RPG scenario with a randomly-generated character? I'm looking into those myself but don't know where to start.

Also, does your hobby extend into tabletop wargaming like Warhammer 40k and BattleTech?

Why did you choose to focus Shenmue so much on Chinese culture and Chinese martial art styles? Why not Japanese martial arts instead since it would have been easier to research and make a game about?

Also, there was a devoted Shenmue fan named Rodger Swan who visited Dobuita in 2008, while teaching English in Iwate, Japan, and did some Shenmue-related things such as buy toy capsules and visit an arcade. Sadly, he died in 2010 and won't get to see Shenmue 3. Will Shenmue 3 at least include a mention for Rodger Swan and any other fans of the series who died before they could see the third game in the series?

Here's the video where Rodger Swan "made his dream come true" by visiting Dobuita.

And here's the memorial page set up for his work in Japanese studies, just to provide some more background on him.

I guess I should have included some links:

• The Last Battledroid
• American Knights (this is part of the "Endless Quest" series of gamebooks)

A shame that gamebooks and old game-style book series like Choose Your Own Adventure fell by the wayside once video gaming became mainstream.

You could give BattleTech a try, because that's a game that's miniature-agnostic (you don't actually need miniatures to play the game, just a bunch of counters with a marking showing which of its sides is forwards).

Also, what do you think of the new changes to the background that D&D brought, such as the reluctance to make traditional fantasy monsters "born evil"?

The second ever RPG, Tunnels & Trolls, basically invented the form (solo adventure, RPG-style attributes, dice used for combat and skill challenges, randomized entries).

I've never heard of Tunnels and Trolls. I guess I'll have to look it up.

The Fighting Fantasy series pretty much standardized it and it became the UK-style of gamebook (as opposed to the US style, which tend to not have mechanics, like Endless Quest or CYOA). I generally enjoy FF, GrailQuest, Lone Wolf, Fabled Lands, they all have their charms.

I hear there were actually multiplayer versions of these gamebooks, once upon a time. I have no idea how they managed to work, but it must have been quite the feat back then. Sadly, CYOA is more or less gone, and I doubt that today's kids would have the patience and imagination to sit through one of those old gamebooks.

The form isn't entirely dead, either, some folks are still producing new ones, and they inform a lot of solitaire RPG designs that have emerged in recent years (you might be interested in the stuff Blackoath Entertainment has been doing).

Thanks for telling me about Blackoath Entertainment.