Lurker > Kenri

Oh no, King Neptune's Adventure looks exactly like the sort of jank garbage I'd love. I might have to play it. Unfortunate.

"""Out of stock""" now, unfortunately.

All four of those sound like fake games.

Bat178 posted...

I say let's get dangerous and pick AOC.

I feel like she's pretty clearly the best option assuming she can actually win the primary.

The Muppet. Then the saint I guess

Age, like gender, is mostly about vibes to these people.

SirChris posted...

I will take literally anyone over a republican or one who aligns with their beliefs

It sounds like SAS aligns with their beliefs pretty well unless Thorn is just making shit up (which would be admittedly very funny but I don't think he is).

colliding posted...

more of [a focus on how to write]. critique of the writing and how the writing and gameplay intersect, but nothing on the technical side.

This is what colliding said earlier in the topic but it's still not super clear to me.

My objection to Obra Dinn is that the writing works really well to create puzzles, and each little vignette is well written, but once you start imagining the whole thing in chronological order a lot of it doesn't really make sense. I guess that's something the class can critique though.

Obra Dinn feels like an odd choice for a class about writing because like. That game is amazing but the writing itself is pretty weak.

Crimes are fine but if it's bordering on a crime then it's not okay.

Honestly I think it would backfire no matter who does it because the general population of the US cares way more about buildings than people.

I almost added (although that would be wicked) but thought it would make the sentence too unwieldy.

I think the word we might want here is extralegal.

Nobody reasonable is saying "AOC should firebomb a Walmart" but reasonable people might say "Gavin Newsom should not cooperate with Trump even if his station legally requires him to".

Edit: orrrrr you know, what NFUN said

Definitely also had that problem. I thought I was just slightly too far away or pressing buttons too frantically, though. It seemed to happen less when I moved with more intention.

Lopen posted...

Like you're trying super hard to try and subdivide the very poor into morality brackets so you can still judge the ones who voted Trump

And you're trying super hard to claim that at a certain level of poverty you inherently stop being a good person. Like, to the extent that you're having trouble even conceiving that such people might exist.

Lopen posted...

possibly due to a delusion similar to what Foolmo is saying where you know people who are poor in the sense but it isn't really the same as people who are actually suffering, possibly due to just... not knowing anyone who is a decent person and a red voter due to sheltered living in highly blue areas. I really don't know.

Begging you to stop assuming a bunch of weird stuff about me.

Lopen posted...

I just... yeah I don't know how you can know people who are REALLY poor and say that they necessarily owe anyone anything.

It's not about owing, it's about not taking from.

Lopen posted...

I won't ever judge Aria for being single issue on trans rights

She isn't single issue on trans rights lmao, what a bad example. She's made tons of posts about how Palestine is one of her biggest issues.

Lopen posted...

Well first of all there are varying degrees of poverty, but I mean sure, every poor person isn't voting Trump? Duh? All I'm saying is if you had a poor person who was single issue economy, which I feel many are (not all-- until a few years ago I was a "bleeding heart poor person" so yes I know we exist), and they voted Trump for that reason, I wouldn't say "oh that person is a piece of shit" without any other information about them.

Do these poor single issue economy Trump voters want everyone to have more economic opportunities and to reap the benefits of an improved economy, or just themselves/possibly their family and friends?

I think this is going to be a really tough class to teach "as literature". If you're teaching it as writing, game design, history, etc it's a lot easier. But most game writing/narrative is pretty juvenile and I don't necessarily mean that in a negative way, it's just more like young adult fiction than the stuff I read in college. Anyway here's my best shot at it:

Venba
We Know the Devil*
Milk inside a bag of milk inside a bag of milk
a new life.
tomorrow won't come for those without *
Gone Home
Juniper's Knot**
Analogue: A Hate Story***

*You will likely have to provide a walkthrough for getting all the endings in these two games as they're a little obtuse
**This is a straight up kinetic novel with no gameplay, so maybe that's not what you want? The writing is incredibly strong though.
***Analogue has some light dating sim stuff that is admittedly not to its benefit, but the rest of the game is good enough for me to recommend it anyway.

All of these are digestible as short stories/novellas and can be beaten in one sitting, except Analogue which is a bit longer. FYI most of these have strong LGBT themes, that's just what I happen to read so my list is necessarily full of it, especially after I took out games with too much gameplay.

Lopen posted...

However a person who isn't directly interacting with the social issue and literally can't afford to live shouldn't be talked down to by some bleeding heart person on the Internet who is financially much better off either.

What about by some bleeding heart person who is financially worse off? Because the typical bleeding heart that I run into lives in poverty.

Okay then yeah, 100% agreed.

Cupcake2006 posted...

Secondly, even the reduced argument itself on the surface looks dumb. Eggs are commonly seen as a basic source of food - filling, nutritious, and reasonably priced. So when someone says "lol you want cheaper eggs what's wrong with you," my reaction is like... the fuck? You want this basic piece of literal life-sustaining food and nourishment NOT to cost as little as possible?

It's not really what you're talking about here but yes, correct, I do not want eggs to cost as little as possible, because that requires factory farming and a huge amount of animal suffering. I'm not even a vegetarian, much less a vegan, but it seems reasonable to me for animal products to be somewhat expensive. So like, I'm way more concerned with how hard it is to find vegetables at reasonable prices than eggs (this goes back to your "everything has gone up in price" point, which is correct). Note: the current price increase is not because of better conditions for chickens so it's not really relevant in 2025, but my point here is there's a middle point that exists between skyrocketing prices and "as low as possible".

Anyway the reason most people (who aren't me) make fun of "but eggs" is because Trump is a fucking economic disaster and everyone should know that. If you want cheaper eggs he might literally have been the single worst person in the entire country to elect.

Lopen posted...

A bleeding heart over human rights, if said rights don't directly affect you or those close to you, is a luxury to those who are relatively better off.

I truly think you've got this backwards, though the bolded part might just be doing a ton of work here.

LinkMarioSamus posted...

Not terribly relevant but am I the only one here who just finds Bernie Sanders's rhetoric offputting and holier-than-thou?

only possible post more obnoxious than someone in 2025 still saying "Bernie could've prevented all this"

DoctorPiranha3 posted...

"I didn't think he'd deport the good ones!" has become my favorite slogan the past couple of weeks from certain minority groups. That's going to get repeated quite a bit in the years to come.

It's wild to me but I think people just genuinely don't understand how mass deportation works. There's always bycatch, and not just of "good ones" but also of legal immigrants and even citizens. Even calling it "bycatch" is arguably wrong because it's an intentional and inherent part of mass deportation.

It probably is lol, but I can't unsee the suitcase.

-You can kill all the enemy spawns in 13 by dashing through/near them, not just the small ones. So definitely kill the big skulls and the big ox/stag looking thing.

-Keep moving.

-You can double dash (in 13 only) by pressing the dash button twice quickly, it's a little finicky though.

-Try to get into a rhythm of going back and forth across the room hitting up everything actionable before going back to the other side. Reset machines before you need them if you're not in the habit of already doing that:

Light blue machine - gives you light blue suitcases on almost no cooldown, so there's nothing to do here.

Dark blue machine - gives you striped computer chips(?) if fed a light blue suitcase

Yellow machine - gives you yellow bolts. Double tap interact to take one and reset it to make another.

Red machine - gives red plugs(?) if fed a yellow bolt

Basically you should always reset yellow whenever you grab it, and try to reset the dark blue and red machines while on your way to do other things. You never want to just be sat there waiting for a machine to spit out the part you need.

-Probably obvious, but even if you have no parts in your hand, you can interact with a busted generator to learn what parts it needs.

-This is tricky to master, but try to get comfortable enough controlling your character that you can watch the rest of the screen instead of watching your character. (Honestly this is just a great tip for video games where you directly control your character in general.)

-Just build muscle memory, there's not necessarily more to it than that. It took me like 20-30 tries the first time but I just replayed it to write this post and got it on my first attempt because the muscle memory is already there.

Seanchan posted...

It's the bureaucracy. There's no single person to point at.

It might not be a single person but there are people physically (or digitally or whatever) doing it. Bureaucracy isn't a force of nature, it's just a bunch of people following procedures. Those people have names, though you might not always know them.

Seanchan posted...

diversity, equity, inclusion, gender, pronouns, transgender, non-binary, sogi

I am no longer allowed to use those terms at work. If we don't remove those terms from documents they will be permanently deleted. I now have to go through literally hundreds of documents to "sanitize" them so we don't lose them. Insanity.

time to go through and insert them into documents the Trump admin might want to keep

Are you allowed to say who the person is that will be carrying out the permanent deletion?

It's immensely cursed to think about but yeah, not all websites are "modern technology" anymore and this one is definitely one of the ones that isn't.

Underleveled posted...

Once again, Level 13 is making me want to break things. Like level 9, I've spent over 2 hours of attempts on it. It's funny, everything I've read suggests most people find 12 much more difficult than 13 but 12 only took me a few attempts.

I definitely found 13 to be the second hardest level. 12 wasn't exactly easy but there's just so much going on in 13.

Isquen posted...

I know the term "politics" goes hand in hand with incel lately, but what does this have to do with the current "fuck the red states in particular" counter-tariffs and trade war?

Well you see, disaffected men are pretty much the entire reason that's happening right now.

Metal_DK posted...

With that said, in an absolute value sense men just deem more women as attractive.

100% not my experience, at least if we're talking about physical attraction specifically. I feel like tons of men are low key disgusted by women's bodies and I hardly ever see the same attitude from women*. In a subjective sense I also see way more women dating less attractive men than men dating less attractive women, but it's possible my view is just skewed there.

*Unless they're lesbians/not attracted to men at all.

Metal_DK posted...

Men deem a lot more of their female friends as dating prospects than the other way around.

Okay, I see what you're saying here. I don't think this means women are less interested in men than men are in women, but it does mean that women are more likely to interact with men they wouldn't date than men are to interact with women they wouldn't date.

I dunno though, I've been on both sides of the friendzone (kinda hate this term ngl) and it's just a difference in expectations. Neither party should really take it personally or let it get to them.

Metal_DK posted...

Dating and socializing is not really a system perpetuated by men.

Sure it is. Maybe not currently but for thousands of years of history it has been. That's only possibly changed in the last couple decades.

Metal_DK posted...

Women just are less interested in men as a whole than men are to women as a whole

I straight up don't think this is true, except maybe in the sense that women are more likely to be bi/pan than men are.

Metal_DK posted...

The jealousy I think leads to the radicalization of young men here. Men tend to have to pay to get their profile boosted, there is a shortage of women on these apps to begin with. That alone is the start of the animosity, and in general men kind of have to do more work in the initial stages of the dating game to get the ball rolling. At least in my experience

You're still digging at the surface here. Why does this situation evoke jealousy? Why does jealousy lead to radicalization and why does "a shortage of women" lead to animosity towards women? It is frustrating that men have to work more to get the ball rolling but that's a system largely invented and perpetuated by men and I'm not sure it's ever been less true than it is right now.

I'm not really expecting you to have answers to this stuff BTW. It's just something I struggle with. Like similarly, I have a masters in history and I still struggle with the "why" there too -- i.e., with research I can explain what material and social effects led to some event, but not why those material and social effects led to that event, and usually when I tried to ask my professors/advisors about that they kind of didn't even know what I was asking.

I mean I fully recognize that it sucks, I'm just not sure where the wires get crossed and it goes from "Tinder sucks" to "men/women suck". Surely if you start out with a genuine love for the opposite sex you're not going to be radicalized into sexism by a lack of matches?? But I dunno, I struggle to understand this stuff.

edit: this was in response to Metal DK

It's up and down in difficulty so you might get stuck on one level then breeze through the next few.

But it's also not an easy game and doesn't really teach you how to play very well. I suspect a lot of people will get skill-gated hard on level 9.

My advice is that each time they introduce new machinery, spend a few minutes just figuring out its mechanics/timing. It really helps to not have to learn that on the fly. I might try to put together a few more tips into kind of a cheat sheet even though I'm not an expert at the game, by any means.

UshiromiyaEva posted...

AI art and AI writing.

This but also AI voice acting.

Metal_DK posted...

Dating is horrible mostly because of dating apps really creating a lot of animosity between the sexes, but politics are part of the problem for sure

Not saying you're wrong, but I'm curious what you mean about dating apps creating animosity?

Metal_DK posted...

awkward at best socializing before classes waiting for the prior one to end, etc.

I mean the trick here is that that's a great segue into "hey you seem cool, I'm having a kickback on (whatever date) if you wanna come through"

The problem is at commuter schools neither one of you might have your own place. But if you do then this is like ideal circumstances for making friends.

colliding posted...

As a college professor, I have to say it feels like the times have changed somewhat. Like most students now are extremely weird and awkward when it comes to socializing (speaking as someone who was/is also weird and awkward).

When I was college it was definitely my most popular time, but now it really is for many a transactional experience (drive to campus, go to class, go to your job, go home). Most students live off-campus after their first year and everyone has a real job now at the same time as they are going to classes. It's kind of sad.

Even when I started college in 2012 it seemed to be trending this way. There was definitely the huge social club aspect still but lots of students I met actively rejected that part of it. I can't imagine it's gotten better, especially after covid.

I will say the dating scene was pretty dire, even as someone with two large friend groups who went to/hosted multiple social events every week. Other people were dating though so it was probably just me.

Mr_Lasastryke posted...

Don't know if this is a US/Europe cultural difference or something but I don't recognize these socially acceptable ways for men to act at all.

My understanding is at that it is to an extent, yes. It's also a matter of who you surround yourself with -- like if you've already made close friends who you can be vulnerable with, then of course it's going to be fine to be vulnerable with them. That's true even in the US. The problem is breaching that initial gap.

Mr_Lasastryke posted...

(Also, any article that tries to argue that "it's hard to be a man" automatically makes me think of Jordan Peterson, which leaves a sour taste in my mouth. Yes, I know it was written by a feminist who probably disagrees with Peterson on tons of stuff but that's still my gut reaction.)

I think that's the gut reaction of a lot of people in this topic, myself included. Gut reactions aren't always right though.

Regardless, you don't have to agree with it. It's just food for thought.

Kenri has beaten Awaria

i think it's cute but hard mode is prob beyond me

I couldn't possibly provide a full ranking, but 9 is the best and 2 is the second best and it's not close.

So I got linked to this article today, and I thought it was pretty interesting and maybe helps explain why conservatives are so anti-college right now, aside from the obvious (that more educated people are on average more liberal/progressive):

https://celestemdavis.substack.com/p/why-boys-dont-go-to-college

And that article led me to this one, about male loneliness/unhappiness. I made a post about this the other day and this article covers a lot of my same points but is much more eloquent:

https://celestemdavis.substack.com/p/hard-to-be-a-man

Not exactly politics, and probably preaching to the choir to link these in this topic, but I thought they were interesting!

I'm not sure there's a good solution that keeps out 100% of junk while accepting 100% of "legit" games (even if they're bad), but yeah something needs to be done. A complete ban on anything with AI generated content would be a good start except AAA publishers probably wouldn't like it.

Forceful_Dragon posted...

Tbh maybe the farmers will realize he's an idiot when they they don't have enough water this summer because Trump insisted we dump a bunch of it during the months where we actually get rain.

I constantly see signs here that say things like "PRAY FOR RAIN" and "is growing food a waste of water?" so my expectations are low for them to have a realistic handle on the subject

FFDragon posted...

https://www.latimes.com/environment/story/2025-01-31/trump-california-dams-opened-up

Trump forced open reservoirs in California, basically just dumping water straight into ocean, and screwing farmers in the summer - all for a photo op of "turning on the water"

Bluest state in the nation doing a great job insulating us from Trump already, I see.

Archon probably doesn't really count but it's an early 80s game with a 1990 NES version.