Thanks for offering the game for free. I love lowering skills temporarily as ability costs. Were you inspired by anything in particular for that mechanic?
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My pleasure! Super happy you loved what you saw.
The "skills stepping down" idea is based on Breathless, another one of my games. The using skills as a meta currency is something I came up with explicitly while developing TotBS' sibling game, Stoneburner.
I knew I wanted to include some sort of currency you had to spend to power abilities, but was very on the fence about including some sort of point system. Didn't want the game to have too many moving pieces.
Then it clicked, I already had that currency: skills. Plus, using them as a way to power abilities would further reinforce the need to catch your breath, thus adding more complication and drama to the narrative!