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Cake day: August 4th, 2023

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  • Roughly in order of how much I enjoy them from most to least. (Not that the later ones are bad. Just that they’re more low-key.)

    Mindustry is amazing, but as I mentioned above, really really addictive. (The commercial game it’s most often compared to is Factorio.)

    Then there’s Shattered Pixel Dungeon. Amazing dungeon crawler.

    Endless Sky is a great space mercantile sim.

    Luanti is a Minecraft clone.

    Unciv is a turn-based civilization development game.

    And if you’re wanting to do emulation, there’s Lemuroid. Also, EasyRPG, an engine for playing RPG Maker games like Yume Nikki. Oh, FreeDoom is a great implementation of Doom for Android.

    Those are the ones that’ll keep your attention for a good long time. There are tons of much simpler games that are still fun like Frozen Bubble and Hyper Rogue. And plenty of games that I haven’t really gotten into very much but that people really seem to like Dungeon Crawl Stone Soup.

    Man. There are a lot now that I’m listing them out. Lol.


  • Jesus. People get big mad about this stuff.

    The problem isn’t mobile games, and it’s not console games, and it’s not PC games. It’s the profit motive and corporations and enshittification. And there’s plenty of that going on in games for mobile, console, and PC. (And, for that matter, TTRPGs. And it’s not like the 300 different collectors editions of Monopoly released every year aren’t enshittification at play.)

    Addictive gotcha mechanics are shitty when they’re tied to microtransactions. Even when not tied to microtransactions, I think they can still be shitty depending on the specific circumstances, and it’s definitely wise to responsibly manage your (and/or your children’s) engagement to not cause other problems in your(/their) life. But is addictiveness in a video game inherently a bad thing? I don’t think so. All games cause dopamine squirts whether it’s Pong or a slot machine. That’s kinda the point of games. There are plenty of Open Source games out there that cause big addictive dopamine squirts. (Mindustry, anyone?) And such games aren’t made to milk whales. They’re made because someone wanted to create and play such a game.

    Don’t be talking too much smack about shovelware! Low-quality games create their own vibes. Some are accidental masterpieces. Both of my favorite two YouTube gaming content creators do a lot of their content on really low-quality games. This series got me to buy Radiation Island and I had a great time playing it. And here is a great video on all the shitty official games based on the movie Avatar.

    “Gaming is as much about socializing as playing” is an awesome outlook to have on gaming! Addictiveness in games can be… concerning. But sometimes particular games are the key by which your kid can be involved in peer group. I’m not saying that automatically trumps any downsides and you should let your kid spend $∞ on Fortnight skins or whatever. But I think probably in most cases a balancing act is superior to a hard “yes” or “no”.

    I should probably specify that I’m admittedly an old fart who doesn’t know shit about mobile gaming. (The only mobile games I play are Open Source ones on F-Droid.) And the only modern console I have is a Switch, and I don’t have any plans to get one soon. I’ve played a lot of Breath of the Wild, though. And a fair amount of Tears of the Kingdom.

    Some final thoughts:

    • Open Source gaming is awesome.
    • The way they’re doing anti-cheat on PC is fucked-up.
    • But so is the way they lock down consoles and phones.
    • Hack your games. Hack your consoles. (If you don’t hack it, you don’t own it.) Get your kids interested in hacking stuff.
    • …responsibly, of course.
    • Play games with your kids! (And not just the ones you want to play.)

  • TootSweet@lemmy.worldtoLinux@lemmy.mlI like gentoo :D
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    11 days ago

    So, I’ve been using Arch Linux ARM on Raspberry Pis for some “desktop systems” as well as for a janky-ass NAS solution, but that project is kindof dying. They go many months in a row sometimes without any package updates. It’s wild. And when people ask WTF is going on and offer beg to be allowed to help in some way, the admins lock the thread.

    So, I’ve been looking to switch my Raspberry Pi’s to something that doesn’t depend so much on some “project” out there to be able to continue to use.

    The main Gentoo project fully supports ARM. And even if it didn’t, it’d be a lot easier to use Gentoo without support than Arch.

    Switching my main box (not a Raspberry Pi – it’s an x86_64 system) to Gentoo was basically for the purpose of trying out Gentoo again and evaluating whether I want to take the plunge and switch everything to Gentoo.

    Aside from that, there’s SystemD which is yucky. (Yes, I know about Artix, but when last I tried it, it didn’t really feel “ready for prime time”. It depends a lot on the main Arch repos.)

    Plus, I do kindof like the idea of “more control over my system(s)”. Configuring/compiling my own kernel (yes, you can do that on Arch, it’s much less “in the spirit of” Arch) to make it as minimal as possible and disable everything I don’t need. And of course USE flags are a plus if you want a light system.

    Anyway, those are my main reasons.


  • TootSweet@lemmy.worldtoLinux@lemmy.mlI like gentoo :D
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    12 days ago

    Me too!

    I used Gentoo almost exlusively from like 2003 to maybe 2012 or 2013. I switched to Arch about then. But quite recently I made the switch back to Gentoo on my primary box and I’m happy I did.

    Only thing I still need to do to really make it long-term sustainable for my particular use is to set up a build server on my network. My “primary box” is in the room where I sleep and I need it dark and quiet when I’m sleeping. Can’t have MOBO color-shifting LEDs and fan sounds overnight. And I can’t compile something like Chromium in less than the 15-to-16-ish hours I’m awake in a given day. (And I’d prefer to compile it myself rather than using a binary package.) Hence the need for a build server.







  • Definitely not too weird a question!

    There are plenty of introverted Americans who hate how extraverted it is here. And the U.S. definitely isn’t “superior” to Germany in that way (or any other particular way.)

    Also, there’s a difference between introversion, shyness, social anxiety, an avoidant and/or schizoid and/or schizotypal personality type, an avoidant attachment style, hikikomori/shutins, autism, and plenty of other sorts of socially-averse sorts of temperments. Some are “problems”, some aren’t. Given the way you’re talking about yourself, it sounds like what you’re experiencing is something you’d like to change about yourself. I do think it’s worth introspecting a bit (see what I did there?) and seeing to what extent your desire to change is internalized shame put on you by others and to what extent changing your presentation in the world would lead to a truer expression of your true self. But assuming the latter is the case…

    Practice. Even if Germany is a pretty introverted place (and that’s valid – there are definitely differences regionally with regard to how introverted or extraverted the culture is) there are definitely places/events/gatherings/etc that are more expressions of extraversion than others. Immerse yourself in such events. Baby steps are fine. Start with contexts that are just a little bit more extraverted than you are if you like. And move on to more and more extraverted sorts of contexts. Also, I’d try to focus on events centered around things you hold a genuine interest in. (I, for instance, have enjoyed a lot of tabletop roleplaying games. That activity, even though it’s engaged in with others, feels much less overwhelming to me given that everyone’s focused on a common activity rather than just on “each other.”)

    One more word about this. Try to avoid “masking.” That is, don’t invent a facade of extraversion to show people. It’s very cliche to say it, but: “be yourself.” I think probably ultimately if you end up “pretending to be extraverted” rather than engaging in socialization in a way you genuinely enjoy, it’s likely to do you more harm than good with regard to your goals.

    Good luck!


  • I’m not sure why you’re getting downvotes exactly.

    A basic tutorial on web development like Sleepless One suggested is definitely a good place to start, just to get a basic overview of what you’re getting into. I personally learn best by doing rather than by learning. What I mean by that is if I sit down to try to learn… say… the C programming language, I’m probably not going to learn much from it, let alone retain it. But if I decide I want to write a game in C and start writing the game even from what little I know about C, I’ll learn as I go. Not to say for me there’s no benefit in a “learn C” tutorial, but if you’re anything like me, I’d recommend switching to doing the specific website you have in mind as early as possible rather than trying to “learn web development” before switching to the project that is ultimately your end goal.

    Beyond that, you’ll want to avoid falling into a trap of doing what feels to you like it’ll work rather than what’s “best practices” for “the industry.” So the other thing I think will benefit you searching-wise is to look for information about not just how to make it (technically) work but also how to do the thing you want to do “right.”

    At least that’s my recommendation.

    Beyond that, are there any existing websites that closely approximate what you have in mind for an end goal for your project? If so, could you share one? I think it might help us with more specific recommendations.