I’ve been playing The Last Faith, which is basically someone’s 2D Metroidvania BB fan game. I also played Lies of P and should probably finish it as its an excellent game in its own right.

But it is also a BB clone, and what I’ve learned from the clones is that BB (and FromSoft soulslikes in general to some extent) are absolutely lightning-in-a-bottle games. I don’t think we’ll see another BB or even another Elden Ring, because getting all the aspects right is insane to pull off.

Its not just good gameplay, which is tough but i think somewhat straightforward to copy. Lies of P is probably better, mechanically, than BB and does a lot right that other clones mess up. But BB wasn’t just copying, it took the template laid out by DaS and DeS, made them faster and more aggressive. The “gun parry” is unique and an interesting new take on high-risk and reward defense.

The lore is also really hard to do right. Blasphemous 1 and 2 skate a fine line between being wonderfully spooky dark fantasy and incomprehensible piles of word salad. Last Faith and LoP are somewhat more straightforward but that makes the lore kind of dull and filled with basically meaningless names. OK, instead of blood vials or estus we got healing injections. “Formulated by the Sisters of Sanguinity to heal the sick but what if the healing juice was actually making people monsters!?” 🙉 Even the items snd descriptions feel cribbed off From’s homework.

I mean, I see why fans just want a PC remaster. There doesn’t seem like much you could do with a spin-off or sequel other than water down it’s legacy. Better to take their core competencies and apply then to a new genre or theme. Like how BB was gothic DS. Or ER was open world DS. Or Sekeiro was Japanese DS. They could do a goth steampunk Armored Core, that would be pretty novel?!

Managed to auto-typo the URL and the article title, how embarrassing.

S

I

import birthday;

let myAge1 = 4;
let sisterAge1 = 2;
let myAge2 = 44;

let sisterAge2 = birthday.deriveAge(myAge1, sisterAge1, myAge2);

print(sisterAge2);

Any bugs should be reported upstream. Please open a tracking issue to sync changes with eventual upstream fixes.

Casualy sliding this out of my pocket like, no way bro, i always keep that thang on me!

What if I told you that there are roughly 4 million steamdecks in existence. Ref

And that this is about 1\3 of the Steam Linux market. Ref and about half of the entire handheld PC market. Ref

Of course, we dont know how many MAU GOG has so maybe 4 million new customers is baby numbers, but Steam seems enamored enough of that market segment to commit huge new UI and store features (deck verification, “Runs on Deck” filters, other deck specific stuff) including the game controller mappings which do help with non-deck also but were clearly a necessary element for handhelds. Maybe deck users, it being a committed gaming platform, spend more on games?

Anyway, trying to get subscribers (always a teeny fraction of your free users) ahead of converting new non-customers into customers, seems like bad econ to me.

If GOG is so hot for game preservation why not see if they can score an emulation deal to bring lost handheld titles to PC\deck? Sega might be down, NeoGeo is owned by the Saudi’s, I’m sure they’d love some free money for their back catalog. That’s in line with Lutris’ mission of being the one game launcher for your entire library. A few strategic investments and partnerships could open up GOG as the gateway to classic gaming across devices, but that would require some vision to carry through.

Props for #2 being a #2, but of these I usually go for 6. My personal favorite though is Pentel twist erase.

Though all the kuru toga enthusiasts here have convinced me to give them a try.

I also buy 5s in bulk, those shitty bic pencils are the “little brother” option when my D&D players forget their own writing instruments.

Folks seem awfully confident in their ability to encode other things with only a single letter, but who said you get spaces or other seperators?

I’ll take A, so I can express how i feel everyday now:

AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAA

YOU’LL HAVE TO SPEAK UP ME HEARTY! THE MATES AND I ARE RAIDING 7\11 AT DAWN FOR CANDY AND SODA! ARRRRRRRRRRRR(oooooooooo)!

Moss arrows have been in since TDP as well. (Source Thief 1\2 are among my favorite games, haha)

Ah, I should have picked one to be a gas arrow, those are great too!

I’ve played stealth games before, I recognize these when I see them:

1. Standard bolt
2. Frog bolt for underwater use
3. Crystal bolt, freezes foe in magic crystal
4. Leaf bolt, lays out a soft surface to muffle sounds
5. AP bolt, for heavy armor targets
6. Fire bolt
7. Noise maker
8. Homing bolt
9. Grappling hook for climbing
10. Tree bolt, grows trees anywhere you need them
11. Stun bolt, knocks foes unconscious
12. Water bolt, splashes torches to douse them

CRANKIN’ THAT HO(RSEY SAUCE) ALL OVER MY BIG FAT B(EEF N’ CHEDDAR)!!! AWOOOO BROTHERS!!!

(hey you gonna finish those curly fries?)

One of my favorite books! Great world building and quite thought provoking!

“Licking Humans for their Salt” could be an alright Mountain Goats song. I have confidence in Darnell’s writing prowess!

You know, for kids!

These are fine examples, but all over 20 years old now! (Also I’m still salty about Origin Systems in 1992!)

But hey, EA has never stopped sucking! We can also lament recent purchases like legendary UK studio Codemasters (2021) or Respawn (2017). Respawn is especially funny since it was made by ex-Infinity Ward founders, who got bought again! I wonder what their next future-EA-acquisition project will be?

1. This article is 3 years old.

2. Good luck finding the actual list. This redditor apparently compiled one themselves. https://www.reddit.com/r/scrabble/comments/my5tie/the_419_words_erased_from_csw/

3. Like all censorship: this is ineffectual and incomplete. Do enjoy digging around the list of words still allowed “because they have secondary nonoffensive definitions” like bitch, cunt, asshole, suckhole, sonofabitch, and of course…

FUCK FUCKED FUCKER FUCKERS FUCKFACE FUCKFACES FUCKHEAD FUCKHEADS FUCKING FUCKINGS FUCKOFF FUCKOFFS FUCKS FUCKUP FUCKUPS FUCKWIT FUCKWITS

Underrated Offspring jam! I feel like Offspring get written off as pop-punk but are generally underrated as political artists.

Arguing with idiots is like playing chess with a pigeon. No matter how good you are, the bird is going to shit on the board and strut around like it won anyway.