Would this make Steve Balmer a person who applies Steve’s Balm on themselves or on another person, or a person who makes Steve’s Balm?

approaching it as a game is more likely to hurt your experience of it than help it

That is well put. Thinking of it as a game with objectives to compete and making progress towards the end, is somewhat detrimental to the experience. Akin to watching a movie to complete it rather than experience it.

post about whatever I’m playing pretty much weekly both here on !patientgamers@sh.itjust.works and on !gaming@beehaw.org in the weekly threads

Noted. Thank you.

Ah! I stand corrected on the title. Thank you.

A textbook would lose most of its credibility in my opinion with a title like “____ 4 ____”.

The fact that it contains such wonderful takes on electricity is just icing on the cake.

Disco Elysium is my favourite game from the last decade (maybe even beyond, but I have a soft spot for old games).

To me, it is a case study of how well games work as a storytelling medium if done with the right mindset and people. Everything including the art style, music, game mechanics worked for the story, and it was a joy to experience that.

It is a shame what took place behind the scenes, and I wish there is a better way to show my support to the original developers.

P.S. I could not find a way to save/follow your profile here. So, I did the next best thing, and tagged you and saved your comments.

I wasn’t aware about the similarities with Dark Souls, and about the designer’s previous interests.

I guess what I needed was a strong recommendation. Just purchased the game on Steam after checking for its compatibility on ProtonDB (it is platinum).

Thank you for the recommending the game, and for taking away the chore of deciding what to play this weekend.

Again, I am really glad we had this conversation.

Is the funny thing here the absurdity of the whole thing? Genuinely asking.

Thanks again for the recommendations. Blue Prince looks refreshingly good and different. I did hear quite a bit about Clair Obscur, but turn based gameplay never appealed to me. I did not play Baldur’s Gate 3 for the same reasons, in spite of it being so well received.

I agree with your criticisms about Ghosts of Tsushima, and have made similar observations as well. However, Ghost of Tsushima and Spider-Man are my comfort games where I just soak in their music and atmosphere while I do something else like talk with someone.

I also have felt that in my older age I’m gravitating more towards medium-length games with a proper story that you can finish and put away, as opposed to the endless MMOs and grindy ARPGs I enjoyed in my youth.

You could not have captured it better.

I am glad we had this conversation. Please do recommend me some more games. if you do not mind.

I was on a long break from gaming (almost a year) due to life, and plan to resume weekend gaming soon. For the same reason, I have been scouting these communities and threads for recommendations.

As of now, I zeroed down on the Mass Effect trilogy on the Steam Deck but I am also considering a second play through of Ghosts of Tsushima. I would prefer a light(er) game which is easy to get into and allow me to take breaks as I don’t think I will be able to pull off hour long sessions initially.

I like when a game isn’t deliberately wasting your time.

Well said.

Also, PoE is a game that I have not visited in almost a decade. How is it now? When I played it last, it felt like Diablo 2 but with very little explicit story to experience (it had lore that one could discover). I gave up on the game after a few days since without a proper story, the grind got boring very quickly.

I agree with all of your points about Blasphemous, good and bad. I knew the games (both Blasphemous 1 and 2) received mediocre reviews, but I still purchased both together during a sale because I really liked its art and setting.

However, when I played Blasphemous early last year, I had just got back into the platformers genre after around a long break. I had just finished Hollow Knight (just the first ending or two, I didn’t have the time or the patience to finish the other endings).

The wonderful art and interesting story did not alleviate the pains of the gameplay. Its contrast with Hollow Knight only made it worse. It was clunky, and the game seemed to (unintentionally) work against the player.

I did complete the first ending, as well as the first ending for the sequel. The mechanics of the sequel are a bit more forgiving, thankfully.

I still would not recommend the games, unless one really likes the art and setting of the games.

Also, thank you for introducing me to Mandragora: Whispers of the Witch Tree. I have bookmarked it, and hope to play it soon.

What a lovely coincidence.

There is nothing dumb-arse about learning new things. It is nice that you discovered Bazzite through your own research.

Enjoy the new OS and let us know your thoughts after your first run.

I love it when the game allows to continue after getting caught. Arkham series, Far Cry series and Ghost of Tsushima come to mind.

Then there are games like Assassin’s Creed (made by the same company as Far Cry) which fails the entire mission upon getting caught just to stay true to its name.

Fascinating. But isn’t this akin to stripes on a tiger or zebra, just visible in a different electromagnetic spectrum?

Whereas bioluminescence involves producing/emitting light like fireflies.

Hehe… top notch screen.

I agree with everything you said, and I use a MacBook Pro for the same reasons. I made a similar comment but you have articulated the points much better.

There is no perfect laptop as it is a subjective choice.

I got a MacBook Pro which is the one that ticks the most boxes for me. It is simply a well built and reliable piece of hardware with really nice battery life and performance.

Yes, Apple tries really hard to sink their machines with terrible software decisions and hostile repair policies. But that still does not undermine their machines build quality.

Also, this is trivial, but their website is simple and easy to use. They don’t bog one down with a slew of laptops that are hard to differentiate. I know what I am looking at, and what I will be getting.

The only other machines I own are ThinkPads. But Lenovo loses me whenever I get on their website. It is easier to look at an eBay listing for a second hand ThinkPad than to navigate and search their website for a new one. Also, their newer machines just aren’t as good as the older ones.

I say this as a user of an array of ThinkPads and ThinkCentres to quench my thirst for BSD (and sometimes Linux). I use these machines for writing, gaming, watching movies, and more. But I cannot depend on those machines for any critical or work-related tasks.

Framework laptops aren’t sold here so I have never used them. There is no point in importing one where the whole raison d’être is their modularity and repairability which requires their ecosystem to be present first.

I am not playing a ton of games really so maybe that is also something I could consider.

I too don’t play games that often, not for want of trying.

However, it allows me to be deliberate with my gaming sessions as well as when I am writing about it.

What software are you using for this and could you share something you’ve written? Only if not too personal of course, I understand you might not want to share, that is OK.

I use Org-Mode in Emacs, but I previously used Obsidian. You may definitely find the latter more palatable, as it did to me initially.

As for what I write, my write-ups starts out with links to the game’s Steam/PlayStation store and Wikipedia entry (resolved on a best effort basis), and to my journal entry to Steam Deck or PS5 (nothing more than to facilitate reverse lookup). Followed by my own brief description of the game, story, and any special gameplay mechanics worth highlighting. The rest are my thoughts on what worked and what did not for me.

There are some older, obscure games like Camy series, Monster Hunter (not the famous series), Heart of Darkness, and many more. which do not have any links but my write-ups are longer. Perhaps I play them more and have more to write about because not much is available online.

Pardon my denseness, but is this sarcasm? Since that is a TeX snippet.

Why would a RegEx start with a $?

I use my digital journal to document my thoughts on games that I have played or are next in the pipeline. The notes grow organically as my thoughts form with each gameplay.