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InitialsDiceBearhttps://github.com/dicebear/dicebearhttps://creativecommons.org/publicdomain/zero/1.0/„Initials” (https://github.com/dicebear/dicebear) by „DiceBear”, licensed under „CC0 1.0” (https://creativecommons.org/publicdomain/zero/1.0/)MI
Posts
5
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482
Joined
2 yr. ago

  • The Witness is one of those games I more enjoy reading about than playing. I really love the theory that the game was designed with the goal of just abusing the popularity of the devleoper, and trying to make a game as annoying and time-wasting to play as possible, just to see if the audience would still accept and praise it, because it's from someone who's a popular and known game designer. Which is what has happened - the game was really well received. And it's also true that some mechanics aren't making any sense and are in direct contrast with the main description of the game on Steam:

    The Witness is a single-player game in an open world with dozens of locations to explore and over 500 puzzles. This game respects you as an intelligent player and it treats your time as precious. There's no filler; each of those puzzles brings its own new idea into the mix. So, this is a game full of ideas.

    This is blatantly false. There are puzzles that requires you to wait for an hour. Slow moving lifts and contraptions. The whole first part of the game is just the same mobile-game style puzzles, with minor twists in between. And that's why I love the game from the game design perspective - because if it's true that it was indeed made to mess with players, it was a success and I really respect that the developer did that.

    Also, it has inspired someone to make The Looker, and parody games are my most favorite genre.

  • Thank you, there are some games I haven't heard about. Hypnospace Outlaw and Antichamber sounds cool, the rest I've already heard about or have on my backlog, but thanks for reminding me that I should finally play them.

    I've played Return of the Obra Dinn, it's exactly along the lines of what I'm looking for. Have you heard about The Case of the Golden Idol? It's similar to Return of the Obra Dinn, in it being a detective game that nails the design and solves issues of that genre in a clever way. I've found it in a game awards I've recently stumbled upon - the Independent Games Festival, which looks like one of the few game awards that are worth following (the only other one I know about are the BAFTA awards).

    Because in general, I'd say that most game awards are a joke. I mean, look at the "Most innovative gameplay" from the last few years of Steam Awards, and compare them to BAFTA or IGF. I may have a different outlook skewed by my interest in game design, but I just can't get over Stray winning so many game design awards, especially in a year where games such as Immortality came out. I mean, there's literally not a single unique mechanic in Stray. It's a platformer where you don't even have to jump manually -.-

  • I did play it for a while, but as you've said - I've eventually given up. I did see a few talks/videos about the game, and I really like what they are doing! Which is enough for me to enjoy the game, since I can appreciate a good design in theory. I had exactly the same experience with Pathologic - I'm just not patient enough to finish it, but I really love reading about it's design and what they are trying to accomplish with it, even though it's not for me.

  • Thank you, those sound interresting. I have already played The Forgotten City, and it was an amazing experience. Hell Let Loose I never got into, I did try to play it for a while but eventually have up - unfortunately, that's the kind of game I don't have friends or dedication for. I imagine it's similiar to Eve Online, which I did play for a few years and had an amazing time and community in, but it's one of those games where you really have to invest a lot of time and make the game for other players, because being just a linemember isn't that interesting. But once you get into higher positions, be it squad leader/fleet commander, that's where the game really shines. But I'm not assertive or brave enough for that.

    But I really fondly remember the experience of being a covops/stealth bomber fleet member in larger Eve Online alliance, and training for a fleet commander. Nothing will ever come close to it, but I'm just not made for leading people. And without it, the experience is not as unique or interresting, since it basically boils down to "simon says".

    Radio Commander and Majesty sounds like fun, I will have to try it.

  • Journey was one of the first games that made me fall in love with unique game design.
    ::: spoiler spoiler about a game mechanic that makes it so good The way how they sneaked in non-consentual multiplayer (which I actually didn't even realize is a MP until I've read about it somwhere, I though it's an AI) is amazing and made the experience so much better. It was a really emotional experience thanks to that, and the fact that I will never have a chance to meet the other player who made my experience so interesting only adds to it weight. I still think about it sometimes. :::

  • It was a game I spent my literal childhood on - I remember having a Dreamcast ever since I was 4 years old (I was born in 1996), and the one game I spend most of my time on was Sonic adventure and Sonic Adventure DX. I was replaying the Sonic Adventure a few months ago, and the game is still crazy good! But it was such a surprisingly different experience than I remember.

  • For some shorter experiences I haven't seen mentioned when skimming through a few comments here, I definitely recommend trying Transistor. It was one of the strongest emotional experience I've ever had in a game. I've managed to play it in a single sitting, but it is around 6 hours long. Supergiant games make such a uniquely perfect audiovisual experiences, that every game from them is a treat, but Transistor is the strongest emotional experience I've played from them.

    Another one would be two-hours long walking simulator with amazing environmental storytelling - What Remains of Edit Finch. You can play it in a single sitting, and it's gorgeous and really well done.

    You should also play Hellblade: Senua's Sacrifice . It's also around 8 hours long, and you definitely want to play it with headphones, it's such a strong emotional experience. The audio and game design is so well done, and the game has stuck with me for such a long time. It's one of the few games where just seeing the trailer again tears me up and gives me chills. And after you play it, I recommend watching the documentary about how they tried to protray the mental illness of the main character through game design - it's such masterfully done that I didn't even realize most of what they are doing, but it has stuck with me and it worked wonders to make the experience even better.

    And for some even more unique game design - Before Your Eyes. What makes this experience so strong is the whole premise of looking over your life and memories after you've died, with the main mechanic of how to advance time being by blinking - physically blinking, because the game can work with your camera. That makes for a pretty strong metaphor that makes it even more emotional experience.

    And just to mention some games others have mentioned, to add to their recommendations - Outer Wilds, Ori and the Blind Forest, Life is Strange, Planet of Lana, all are really good games!

  • It will. I think it's inevitable, unless Lemmy development starts focusing on automated mod tools as soon as possible. You don't want to deal with hundreds of thousand of users without a good content filter, it's basically impossible. And it will be even harder due to the federated nature, since it's easier to sneak unmoderated content into the network.

  • Even almost literally a decade ago, they already lost a battle that was exactly the same as this, when they made a decision about W3C EME in 2014:

    I know of people recommending Chrome (not Chromium) because it has Flash Player natively incorporated, so you no longer have to install it separately.

    This serves to prove that the majority of users doesn’t know about either the technical or ethical differences in the software they are using.You may also think of the pirated software the are using,but this is a different matter. Ignoring this marketshare goes against Mozilla’s idea of a web available to everyone, not to mention that Firefox is no longer the most used browser as it used to be a a few years ago and it is therefore forced to comply with this kind of requests.

    This will end exactly like it did back then.

  • This has already happened in the past, and it will unfortunately end exactly like it did before.

    It's going to end up exactly like it did with WC3 EME, as mentioned in the 2014 article mentioned few comments after the one you linked. This quote from the article sums it up perfecly:

    I know of people recommending Chrome (not Chromium) because it has Flash Player natively incorporated, so you no longer have to install it separately.

    This serves to prove that the majority of users doesn’t know about either the technical or ethical differences in the software they are using.You may also think of the pirated software the are using,but this is a different matter. Ignoring this marketshare goes against Mozilla’s idea of a web available to everyone, not to mention that Firefox is no longer the most used browser as it used to be a a few years ago and it is therefore forced to comply with this kind of requests.

  • I'm afraid the only option is to move into physical/traditional art as soon as possible. Making a living as a digital artist will become way harder than before, since most of concept-arts that people order for their RPGs will simply be replaced by ML. It's already really good, and it will only get better.

  • A part of me is kind of looking forward to it. It may be the breaking point to finally reduce my internet usage and get to implementing the Digital Minimalism, because I feel so strongly against this kind of bullshit that I refuse to use any website that keeps telling me what I can and can't do. Once I don't have control over what sites I want to support with ads, or what sites can track me and collect data about me - I will simply stop using it.

    I've been slowly getting used to the reduced user experience caused by privacy-focused approach. Reddit and Youtube has taught me to just look elsewhere instead of logging in when prompted, LibreFox has got me used to having to relog-in every time i switch tabs due to containers and cookie autodelete, and the subscription bullshit for every smart product has taught me to reflash and self-host devices I can, so I already have a NAS and pretty comfy infrastructure ready.

    But I still get drawn to some social networks, or end up mindlessly procrastrinating by browsing the web. This will finally be something not under my control (I tried Cold Turkey - it never lasted long) that will keep me out of the internet for good. It doesn't really add much value to my life, blog posts and youtube tutorials have been reduced to absolute basics without any value, most of them now even AI generated. If I want to learn something about a topic, it's hard to find actually interresting content that isn't the same basics tutorial for dummies made for people without attention span who don't want details, but just to feel like they are doing something smart with their time.

    Now that I think about, it's been a long time since I've actually found something of value on the internet, the discussions here on Lemmy are one of the last few things that I find interesting to engage with. But I'm too used to it to be able to quit on my own accord, and this may just be the push I need, to finally go all-in into the Digital Minimalism.

  • When I was looking for a good ad-blocker a few years back, I remember stumbling upon something like... Nano Defender? I'm not sure what was the name, but it was one of the few succesful anti-adblocks that managed to get past most of adblock killers, and was generally recommended on Reddit.

    After a few years, the guy sold the extension to some Indian company that promptly infected it with credential stealing malware, which compromised most of my and my GFs accounts. Ever since that, I just don't use any extensions apart from ublock and Bitwarden, since it's just a huge security risk.

    But I'm slowly building up the willpower to finally switch to Mulvad Browser + VPN, I really like the approach they took to fingerprinting - just use Tor Browser, don't need any extensions, and it's bundled with a VPN - so every other user has exactly the same fingerprint and IP as you, thus making you untrackable even by the most soffisticated methods. (Well, apart from the ones that uses ML to fingerprint you based on your typing and mouse habits...). But I have already gotten used to Librewolf, and it would mean getting rid of Bitwarden extension, and that's -effort- :(