Ugh, so true. The insidious nature of Steam is the fact that they’re basically a PC gaming business monopoly, but they’re benign compared to other corporations, so gamers tend to turn a blind eye to that fact, or find various grasping ways to convince themselves otherwise (there’s still Epic and GOG! etc). The fact that 80%+ of PC game sales are through Steam doesn’t seem to faze or disturb them, when it most definitely should. What happens when Steam drops the facade? I imagine it won’t be long before Steam turns into the badguy.

Do what? Remind me of the babe

No worries! I’m right there with you. I’ve been juggling a lot lately.

Pico-8 is fantastic! One of my favorite projects on itch. I just beat the Pico-8 version of Celeste, and Celeste 2 as well. There’s so many great hidden gems on Pico. My favs are Celeste (of course) Pinballvania, Stabbycrabby, Driplogic and Puzzles of the Paladin. I’m always finding interesting stuff through the random section with splore. I’m thinking about learning lua and fiddling around with making a game on Pico someday.

Definitely! It’s always nice to meet like-minded folks, especially across a range of interests. I’m also into tabletop roleplaying (actually created a new community for one shot rpgs here: https://lemmy.ml/c/Every_Post_Is_An_RPG) and love reading (literary stuff, but also genre stuff at times, reading a Discoworld novel by Pratchett currently called The Truth).

Maybe you can sticky a general discussion thread, even if it’s seldom used, at least it can facilitate some discussion, especially if there is bandes dessinees chat that isn’t thread worthy.

(Man, Lemmy comments aren’t as suited to Play by Post as Discord is. I’ll have to work out the kinks next time. My intention was also to have each game last for roughly a week, so I figured we’d wrap it up with your guy’s next interactions.)

I responded to your last post to @[email protected], I figured you guys could finally meet and we will wrap things up. My idea was for each game to be a week or two. The last few interactions can be a montage of sorts for a satisfying way to conclude things ;)

(Man, Lemmy comments aren’t as suited to Play by Post as Discord is. I’ll have to work out the kinks next time. My intention was also to have each game last for roughly a week, so I figured we’d wrap it up with your guy’s next interactions.)

Bobbing up in down, with a slight dazed look, the electric woman weakly waves at you,“Hi bird guy! Are you ok up there? I’m just gonna float here a bit…”

With a loud POP! The woman flies out of the tree, knocking into the robot and thrusting both her and the robot into the harbor. She and the robot plunge into the water, scaring the seagulls away. The robot thrashes wildly, and a current carries it out to the mouth of the harbor. Below you is the electric woman, bobbing in the water, looking slightly dazed.

(Sorry for the delay) Roll of 4, +1 for Over-charged batteries

With a flash, sizzle, you focus a current into the batteries. But the current is TOO MUCH! The batteries begin to sizzle and then with a loud POP! EXPLODE! Sending you flying like a torpedo out of the tree, spinning out of control towards the staggering robot’s posterior. You collide with the robot, causing you and the robot to fly towards the harbor, the seagulls fly away in a panic as you and the robot narrowly miss the flock and plunge into the water. The robot’s squeaker sputters out in a series of watery, faint squeaks, and then finally subsides, as the robot thrashes wildly in the water, bobbing up and down, but unable to keep itself from drifting out, out, out and into the mouth of the harbor. submerged in the water, you feel short-circuited, but thankfully not covered in refuse anymore. Above you dangles the bird-man, his foot caught in a rope like a stirrup…

In 2001, at 16 years old, I snagged a brand new Dreamcast with five or six games for dirt cheap from a local game store. The DC had already been discontinued at that point, the PS2 was about to launch or just did, and retailers were just offloading the Dreamcast merch. Shenmue was one of those games, and was the game I ended up spending the most time with. There really just wasn’t anything like it, it was this epic action story of loss and revenge with this sprawling open world with all kinds of sidequests, mini-games and interesting NPCs to explore. The most painful thing for me at the time was the damn cliffhanger at the end, and I never ended up getting a chance to play Shenmue 2 (I think it only made it’s way stateside on Xbox). It was definitely a memorable, once-in-a-lifetime experience. There were flaws, to be sure, but they were easily overlooked due to the expansive, ambitious nature of the game.

When big Tech, especially the biggest video platform in the world, does something like this it is relevant to tech. The better question is, if you do support lgbtq+ people, why the public freakout about mentioning a far reaching tech policy, by one of the biggest (if not THE biggest) tech company in the world, on a tech sub?

nazis and fascists, without ever knowing what those words even mean

I am Jack’s complete lack of self awareness

Sure, if your issue is that it’s okay for corporations to remove protections for hate speech towards marginalized groups, then yes, go get bent. This kind of false equivalence between normalizing hate and ostraciszing progressives for speaking out against oppression is EXACTLY what we’re fighting against. What in the hell is the ‘rhetoric’ do you disagree with? Having empathy for lgbtq+ people? Jesus. If so, this is definitely not the place for you.

Wow. There’s a huge disparity between the brows on those two. No matter how blurry the first pics are, the thickness of Luigi’s brows would be noticeable. The person in that camera footage definitely doesn’t have thick eyebrows like Luigi :/

Wedged between the branches of the tree, you hear the parrot-guy call out to you,“Car blue oblay?", you see him hanging by a precariously by a rope over the side of a docked boat, surrounded by angry seagulls.

For me it took getting into therapy and realizing why I would lose control and drink to excess. I understand now that, for me, excessive drinking is a physical manifestation of an underlying problem I’m not confronting. If I drink when I’m not in pain or emotionally distraught, I drink responsibly, but when I am angry/sad/depressed I’ll drink uncontrollably. I liken it to taking hallucinogens, specifically mushrooms, if I take mushrooms when I am already feeling bad emotionally, I will have a bad trip, if I take them when I am already happy and in a good mood, I’ll have a good trip. It’s about being mindful about your state of mind and what you put in your body that can effect that state of mind.

I appreciate the kindness, take care too ;)

Thanks for the kind words!

Yes, I did get into SMART for a time. I found that it was easier to just go to AA since I didn’t feel like going through the hassle of maintaining a digital form and having to print it out every time I had to show it to my probation officer.

There have been a lot of successful lawsuits contesting the legality of mandating AA through the courts, in fact, no lawsuit has lost to date. I would have loved to contest it as well, but honestly I live in a small town and the police and courts here are the type to hold a grudge, so I didn’t want to draw any unwanted attention. But yeah, it is most definitely a religious organization, no matter how much they try to maintain they aren’t.

I had a similar experience myself, I was desperate and was looking for a way out. I initially joined before being mandated by the court, and for a little while I was on board, but after a year or so I got fed up with the methodology and rhetoric of AA. About six months before the mandate I was pretty much through with AA, and then I got a DUI and was forced to go. Which just further brought out my distaste for AA.

Luckily I’m just about finished with the court requirements. I only have a few more weeks of outpatient, and was told by my PO that once I completed the outpatient I’d be off of probation. So, very happy it’ll be over soon.

The positive thing was that I did take a break from abusing alcohol and resassessed my relationship with alcohol. I don’t intend to stay abstinent, but I do plan on having a healthier relationship with drinking and being mindful of when and how much I do.

Oh man, this is the fucking truth. I’m court mandated to go to AA, and it’s driving me up the wall. The steps are ridiculous and the true believers will endlessly drone on about how amazing and effective they are. It’s literally just religious fundamentalist ideology (AA itself was created by Bill Wilson, who was part of a religious organization called the Oxford Group, and used their existing principles to create the 12 Steps). The organization is definitely a cult, the largest operating and hiding in plain sight cult in the world. It’s crazy how prolific it is and most people don’t realize it is a Christian temperance cult.

That does sound equally as torturous.

What?! Doesn’t everybody do that?

That’s exactly how I felt by Kafka on the Shore. I thought it was a really dreamy, surreal journey. Very unique kind of feel. I remember really liking it, to the extent that I thought he might be my new favorite author. But subsequent works I’ve tried to get into haven’t roped me in like that book unfortunately.

Kafka did, but after that I’ve had trouble getting over that default setting time and time again. I still have Sputnik from the library, so I might push ahead and see if it lures me in, but I’m still annoyed by the repetitive use of the same motifs.