I enjoy A Link to the Past Randomizer, but primarily because it adds replayability to a game I’m already so familiar with. ALttPR becomes a puzzle of which chests/dungeons have the highest probability of containing progression items. Calculating that optimized routing in realtime while racing against a clock is fun. Also figuring out the best way to deal with a boss that you already know well, but now you have an unexpected equipment loadout is fun to me.

However. If I were to play a new game I didn’t have any familiarity with and its item placement and/or map layout was procedurally generated, I don’t think I would enjoy a first playthrough. I don’t enjoy variety just for the sake of variety. The proc-gen would have to have some known parameters that allow me to strategize in how I approach it in order to not seem arbitrary. If I didn’t enjoy the first playthrough of such a game, I might not be motivated to learn enough to enjoy future runs.

That’s why I think I don’t love Spelunky or Slay the Spire despite loving games that play similarly like Cave Story and Magic the Gathering respectively. I think I could love these games if I could reasonably plan ahead, but I feel those games have too much variance and the outcomes feel arbitrary as a result. Though that could just be my lack of dedication to understanding the bounds of the generated content.

If the concern is that the files would be out of order when displayed in a file browser, Windows File Explorer actually accounts for this by sorting the number parts of a file sequentially in the case of multiple files sharing the same prefix. E.g. “file_10.txt” will sort after “file_9.txt” and not in between “file_1.txt” and “file_2.txt” as you would expect from a naive alphabetical sorting.

I still use leading zeroes though. It looks a lot more pleasant when the file names are the same length.

Edit: I just now realized that the graphic is more privacy-focused rather than consumer-rights-focused. I don’t know what privacy issues Steam has specifically, so its inclusion on this list may not be justified regardless of any anti-consumer practices.

I’m not ditching my 20yo steam account on behalf of this graphic

I think that’s why they were included in this graphic. They provide DRM games that are vendor-locked to their platform. They require that you buy a game from them to download mods from the workshop, even if that game doesn’t use a Steam-specific modding framework (Slay the Spire and Black Ops 3 for example). They tie that account to many services in order to make it difficult to leave their platform. Services such as: per-game community forums, friend lists with direct messaging and multiplayer integration, VAC anti-cheat, and achievement tracking.

I like Valve, they contribute a lot to open source. But be honest, if Epic Games did 1/10 of this, they would be accused of trying to build a walled garden like Apple.

It will be absolute hell if Steam ever gets enshitified. It would be better if these services could follow an interoperable and open standard or were run independently. Vendor-lock from “good” corporations is still anti consumer.

Arctic Fox, It’s a Setup!

Had a beard. He clean shaved a couple weeks ago.

It’s for filtering posts by language, but most posts are “Undetermined” because (1) people don’t mark the language of their posts and (2) people don’t realize you can select more than one language (on PC, you must ctrl+click options to multi-select). If you only speak English, you probably want to select both English and Undetermined.

They either need to add check boxes to that scrollable list, or convert it to a dual listbox.

Yeah, I wasn’t sure how the square brackets would behave in markdown quoteblocks. I don’t fully trust the post preview on mobile. Should be fixed now.

True, especially if you consider the line:

[15] The second beast was given power to give breath to the image of the first beast, so that the image could speak and cause all who refused to worship the image to be killed.

Sounds like Elon’s recent AI generated video of Trump cleansing Gaza.

And this was written before the Trump assassination attempt. Revelations 13 describes a beast healing from a fatal wound. There’s also this bit which could read like it describes a loyalist vice president who prevents economic deals with countries who don’t display loyalty to the president (i.e. wearing a hat that displays his name and number “Trump 45-47”).

[11] Then I saw a second beast, coming out of the earth. It had two horns like a lamb, but it spoke like a dragon. [12] It exercised all the authority of the first beast on its behalf, and made the earth and its inhabitants worship the first beast, whose fatal wound had been healed. [13] And it performed great signs, even causing fire to come down from heaven to the earth in full view of the people. [14] Because of the signs it was given power to perform on behalf of the first beast, it deceived the inhabitants of the earth. It ordered them to set up an image in honor of the beast who was wounded by the sword and yet lived. [15] The second beast was given power to give breath to the image of the first beast, so that the image could speak and cause all who refused to worship the image to be killed. [16] It also forced all people, great and small, rich and poor, free and slave, to receive a mark on their right hands or on their foreheads, [17] so that they could not buy or sell unless they had the mark, which is the name of the beast or the number of its name.

Edit: I see now there are updates at the bottom of the article that mention the same points I did.

Just according to kakapo. I mean kereru. I mean keikaku.

(Translator’s note: keikaku means plan)

Not a film, but he was a playable character (as himself) in the “Call of the Dead” map for Call of Duty Zombies. But even as a good guy, that mode is endless survival, so he inevitability dies in the end.

Edit: I guess he technically doesn’t die if you survive long enough that the game resets at the ~70 hour ‘killscreen’.

The gibs and blood from enemies is very bright when it stains the ground; I wonder if that ties into a new gameplay mechanic somehow. I think this is also hinted at by the last scene with the psycho in the rain and giant pool of blood. It could also just be a new visual effect.

It shouldn’t be !important — that reads to engineers as “not important”. We should have picked another way to write this.

Maybe @important. Alternatively @specificity(0, 0, 0) with custom values. And allow it to be applied to both rules and selectors. That would have been cool.

I know it’s bad practice to use !important anyway, but a quick way to customize specificity inline is useful for testing.

It’s only an ecchi, so no numbers that I could find.

myanimelist

knowyourmeme

This sounds like the Linux vs GNU/Linux meme.

Max is only 4? Amateurs. I’ve seen a kid that can go 30. 30 speed.

Both surgeons are bad it seems. Assuming X went first and played in the middle (the most optimal and common move), He could have won a turn early because O would have had to miss a block on O’s previous turn.

Edit: The only case where this isn’t true is if X’s most recent move was the X in the center which would mean that the center was open for every previous turn. That still doesn’t bode well for either of their abilities.

(he’s an enigma because he has a forehead-penis)

(no, he’s not just a color-swapped Knuckles the Echidna, who has a four-headed penis, it’s just a coincidence)

“Chuckles the Enigma” (OC do not steal)