Far too coherent. There isn't even any random tangents.

Heres a weirder one no one else has mentioned yet: I've heard art described as a way to express and emotion, and I really felt that with Hotline Miami. Its not done through the story or setting (in fact, the intentional ignorance there adds to it) but rather the contrest between the hyper-violent trance as you play through a level, and then the sudden cut of the music as you quietly walk past the mountains of bloodied corpses back to your car. I feel that shift, when you first notice it, really emphasises the pointless brutally of it far more so than many much more heavy-handed attempts in other games.

Stardew Valley is a good one, but I definately wouldn't consider Terraria casual or low-stress.

Skibidi Toilet is a serious of SFM shorts that became popular with young kids. Think in the same vein as the weird flash videos or early SFM videos that were popular with young kids 10-15 years ago. "Skibidi" doesn't mean anything and is just taken from that.

Tl;dr: The recent 7.6 magnitude earthquake was slightly beyond the rated limits of one plant but the plant wasn't running, and there was no damage done.

Probability. If something has a 50% chance of occuring, that does not mean it will happen every second time, and our brain has a very hard time rationalizing that. For example, we assume its near impossible to flip heads on a coin three times in a row when really, the probability is 12.5% - not that low. Another example would be something with a 95% chance of success - we naturally round up and assume thats basically garenteed success, but theres still a very decent chance of failure, esspecially on repeat attempts. Our brains are just not wired to handle randomness well, which is part of why gambling is so addicting and why games like X-Com have to rig the odds in the players favour to avoid pissing them off.

They added some bonus content including a mini-campaign originally bundled with other products, and added a bunch of QoL updates for modern systems (including but not limited to the Steam Deck).

I don't know about your location specifically or the specific age range you're refering to, but at least where I am, school/college tends to start at like 8:00 am, and most students want to or need to work fairly busy jobs given the ongoing cost of living crisis. Considering that, it means they can't stay up late, and don't have much energy to socialize compared to older generations. Although again, this varys by area and individual.

That feels awfully soon. I hope they can actually create enough new content for this, as Below Zero felt far too similar to the first. It felt more like a new game plus rather than a full-price sequal.

Video is very too the point so I'd recommend watching it, but...

Tl;dw: Epic very optimisticly sells a 10th the amount of Steam, and offer effectively no discoverability. Most indie devs will get sales in the double digits and total playercounts in ths single digits.

First thought is that its almost certainly something from Warhammer 40k. Probably one of the Dark Eldar (or just their civilization as a whole). They're a super-advanced, post-scarcity civilization that basically worships torture and uses their technology to "perfect" it.

Edit: spelling

At least the stuff I've seen is more a criticism of the lack of functionality for the Rabbit, esspecially unique functionality or areas where it excels. The fact that it is basically all able to be contained in one app is viewed as evidence of the relative simplicity, and the fact that (as reviews highlighted) a phone provides a better interaction method compared to the dedicated devices just highlights how unnecessary the hardware is.

Basically, its competing against phones in functionality, but a phone at that price can do everything it can and better, plus so much more. Even worse when considering everyone also already owns a phone and won't be able to replace with a Rabbit.

Not suprising. Paying to have your weapon included in a modern military shooter is pretty tame compared to a lot of product placement.

Minetest isn't really a substitute for Minecraft. Yes, its similar, but its far less polished, lacking in content, vanilla and otherwise, and is missing a lot of the technical functionality that makes much of Minecraft's content (esspecially on the modding side) possible. Don't get me wrong, I want to like it, and I've debated trying to contibute to it myself (although my skills are very lackluster) but as it stands its only really a substitute in the context of things like casually playing Pocket Edition.

I'm asking because I've personally found it far more hostile than Reddit (the only other platform I've put much time into). What I've mostly seen is that people downvote quickly and tend towards eliteism relative to Reddit. That said, I recognize that this could be just by instance or community, so I'm curious how others have found it.

What about Vampire Survivors, as well as numerous other games, using spinners or other slot-machine-like animations to represent RPG drops? Should all of these games be banned for the same reason? If anything, many of these better re-create the slot machine experience with their flashy effects and more substantial results.

In my very limited experience, Android is buggier in general (although mostly due to carrier/manufacturer modifications) but much easier to troubleshoot or find work arounds for.

It sounds like you just don't like the idea of skill-based or team-based games. Plenty of people do. Its not an excuse to ruin it for others through smurfing, or to take it away from those who do enjoy the games.

Specifically on lemmy, I tend to keep it to a minimum. Lemmy seems to have an issue with one-sided discussion and lack of nuance, even ourside of the blatant propaganda.

Outside of Lemmy, I follow it, but try to keep it to a low rumble seeing as I can't really have any effect on it in my country.

Or Pheonix Point, where Epic bought an kickstarter game that was funded under the promise of releasing on Steam, GOG and potentially other stores and promptly made it exclusive - and this was in the early days when their launcher/store was in a much worse state too.

After that long, taste and texture might start deteriorating, but as long as you're sure it has remained completely frozen (the recommended tempretures are 0F and -18C) it should be safe effectively forever.

I know people who hate some music and are apathetic at best to all the rest, but I feel like theres enough variety that no one would hate all music.

You could try spraying them with a strong smell like lemon juice or pepper water. Depends on the cat, but generally they don't like these smells. You could also try and find some more bite-able toys, and trt and encourage them to target those instead of the plant, although in my experience, most cats are too stubborn for that.

I'm guessing this is what they're referring to:

I've personally seen it served identically at a few different unrelated places. I'm guessing its sold pre-made, considering that the appearance is always identical.

Chickadees are suprisingly friendly - or maybe just stupid. It takes almost nothing to get them acclimated enough to you to land on you. I used to feed them sunflower seeds out of my hand.

I saw this posted a couple days ago which pretty succinctly summarizes the current state of the market.

That said, worth noting that these launchers and complex storefronts aren't really needed either, which is part of why I don't have an issue with Steam. If you have a good game, you can just sell it on your own website like Minecraft, League of Legends, or Tarkov. Steam's biggest (or at least most universal) utility for developers is just that it provides very cheap, very effective marketing.

Guessing they accedently added the button early, for something they plan to do for the 25th anniversary in a few days, considering it didn't work and was immediately removed again.

Currently two:

War Thunder - It has so many issues from the grind, to unadressed design issues (IE 10kg HE shells doing no damage on a direct hit), to balance issues including p2w vehicles. That said, under all the shit, theres a solid foundation, and no other game comes close to replicating it.

Super Auto Pets - Its an autobattler streamlined to the point where its the perfect casual game when I don't feel like anything else. It also doesn't have any of the normal f2p traps, and is monitized purely on cosmetics that can also be earned for free.

Edit: I guess Dota 2 counts too. I put a ton of time into that. I'm not a particularly good player, but its one of the best team-based games out there, so I enjoy playing it with friends.

I mean, considering the state of the industry, while yes, its an overly jaded and cynical take, I can absolutely see where its coming from. We've had repeated cases of games launching unfinished, only getting more common and more accepted, you've got increasingly greedy companies happy ruining perfectly good games to try and squeeze out more money like in Overwatch 2, even single player games aimed at kids are full of them. I was trying out Lego 2K Drive, hoping it would be a nostalgic return to the Lego Racing games, but its chock full of microtransactions, with even common parts like the 1x2 grill available in basically Lego set featuring a vehicle only available in a store, with rotating stock to cause FOMO.

While yes, good games do still exist, accusing someone of being a troll for getting jaded witnessing the increasing prevalence and success of these practice is completely uncalled for.

Edit: Quick correction: the 1x2 grill was eventually added to the third battlepass. Doesn't change the fact that a huge part of the content is locked behind scummy microtransactions. Also found out that, you can't name your vehicles without an internet connection.

I think this is the 14th.

This depends on the game. The DRM is opt-in. A lot of the games that are available on GOG are also DRM free on Steam. For other games, they may have DRM, but its usually because the publisher isn't willing to sell without, meaning its not on GOG anyway.

I woundn't say this is suprising news. Most of the big companies and triple-a studios have been in a race to the bottom in recent years, and these are the main companies marketing and selling to console and mobile users. PC on the other hand, has always been less ruled by the big players and thus hasn't been as impacted.

I'm not suprised. On one hand, there wasn't exactly a lot of marketing around it. I didn't even know it was announced until last week, and I follow gaming news and some VR news. On top of this, its an expensive, casual device - the sort of thing a kid will ask for after seeing someone else using it, not something people are lining up day-one to buy. At least something like the Valve Index, for all its disadvantages, very clearly targets enthusiasts who will go out of their way to seek out newer or better products. If Valve decided to release a Valve Index 2 (or for a more direct comparison, a Valve Index Pro) I'd be willing to bet their day-one numbers would look better, even if their overall market is much smaller.

Its not quite a pirate game, but if you're willing to expand your seach to include a nautical mystery game aboard a trading ship in 1807, than Return of the Obra Dinn is worth a look.

Not even just that. They approached games that has already promised not to be exclusives, including kickstarter games that had already been funded with that promise, as well as buying games and removing them from other stores.

They were paying to have the games removed from better stores so they wouldn't have to compete. That is an example of anti-competitive practices, not just making a better product and charging more for it.

IMO, Five is easier to learn and more straight-forward, while Six feels more convoluted, but Six gains some depth and variety from that if you put in the time to learn it.

This is such a weird IP to pick, and an even weirder choice of killer. It feels really weird to cram a lich-turned-god into the same gameplay mechanics as a slasher movie killer, esspecially over many more iconic, recognizable, and unique character/monster designs.

I'm not a D&D fan in the slightest, but I would have thought something like a Mindflayer or some sort of lesser beholder would be more fitting, more inconic to D&D and more distinct from the other DBD killers.

Annoyingly, my cat has zero interest in spiders. Any other bug from silverfish to houseflys, she loves to hunt, but not spiders.

Guess what the one bug I'm afraid of is.

Man, this whole article is terrible and doesn't even think over the surface level of the reception here.

This isn't some double standard. This is one tech that makes an old card work with okay results and one card that makes a brand new card (and only that brand new card) work okay rather than good.

Even then, odds are, for the most part its not the same people making these comments. Those who buy the latest toys and won't tolerate sub-par results will obviously not like a tech that makes motion look worse. They will have almost zero interest in frame generation, and they are the only ones with access to DLSS. On the other hand, you have those with older cards, just happy to scrape by (who couldn't use DLSS anyway) who can now scrape by slightly longer.