The question is a bit more nuanced than the title suggests, which I kept succinct for clarity’s sake.

Are there any of you living off of their original art? By this I mean works that you create according to your personal vision, and without a “list of requirements“ for you to fulfil. So, if you are a visual artist - you paint/draw/design what you want, how you want, when you want. As a musician, you play the same. Etc.

Why I am interested in this topic: I struggle to call art a hobby, since I am borderline depressed whenever I don’t engage my mind & hands to create something. But from an outside view, that’s how it looks. I work a day job, and make whatever time I can for my art. I don’t earn any money from making it.

I’ve had some experience in the past with creating visual media as a commission, and it is definitely something I am not interested in pursuing.

Therefore, if there’s anyone here who makes a living off of art, without compromising their vision, I am really interested in hearing your story & advice for how someone else can get to the same point.

January 2025's Humble Choice is now available with the following eight Steam games.

Does anyone have experience with any of the games and, if so, would you recommend them? Is there anything in here that you're particularly excited to play?

Add awesome game deals to this topic as they come up over the course of the week!

Alternately, ask about a given game deal if you want the community’s opinions: e.g. “What games from this bundle are most worth my attention?”

Rules:

• No grey market sales
• No affiliate links

If posting a sale, it is strongly encouraged that you share why you think the available game/games are worthwhile.

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If you don’t want to see threads in this series, add save point to your personal tag filters.

Last night while my wife was going through my Spotify to pick a song to listen to while I was driving, she mentioned that 90% of my library consists of instrumentals. (Most of which are game OSTs) I find it much more pleasant to listen to, instead of song with lyrics.

Which made me wonder, there might be some hidden/not so hidden gems that I might be missing out on!
Please share your favorite game OSTs with everyone. (New gems, old gems! Either the entire OST or even 1 song of a game! we don't discriminate!)

Bonus point if it's on Spotify

What I currently listen to:

• Armored core 6
• Shadow of the Erdtree
• God of War: Ragnarok
• Nier: Automata
• Devil May Cry 5
• Celeste
• Scarlet Nexus
• Zenless Zone Zero
• Silent Hill
• Flipwitch (Which I understand to be an 18+ game, which I have NEVER played. I just happened to find the OST on shuffle and it got me addicted. Try the song "A Witch's Thoughts")
• Cult of the Lamb
• Fable
• Atelier series

This is a recurring post to discuss programming or other technical projects that we've been working on. Tell us about one of your recent projects, either at work or personal projects. What's interesting about it? Are you having trouble with anything?

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I've been working on a few artistic endeavors recently, and have found myself grasping for inspiration. Tildes has such a lively group of creators, as we see many put on display every year in November, and I'd love to know where you all draw your inspiration from! I'm leaving this purposely vague, anything is on the table: people, places, objects, ideas, music, whatever!

You can pick just your five favorites or whatever you think is "most important" to keep or anything. The criteria is yours to decide!

Edit: Might as well add my own picks.
Hercules
Tarzan
The Emperor's New Groove
Lilo & Stitch
The Lion King (I'm not a huge fan of TLK as a film in general but I can't deny the soundtrack is too good to lose)

If the soundtrack weren't a sticking point for TLK, my fifth pick would be Brother Bear.

Have you watched any movies recently you want to discuss? Any films you want to recommend or are hyped about? Feel free to discuss anything here.

Please just try to provide fair warning of spoilers if you can.

Game designers of tildes, lend me your aid.

My BIL, the life-insurance salesman, has decided to splurge on this year's family reunion and he is renting a castle in SW Ireland next summer. I have been given the task of designing and running a murder-mystery game on one night for the ~20 people who will be staying there. Salient facts:

I refer to my inlaws as the barking and snapping (Irish surname)'s. Hilarious but sarcastic to a fault. They have little patience for depth or lore or much historical detail. This will most successfully be a game of nasty betrayals and sudden twists and turns.

There's something like 18 rooms in the castle, with extensive grounds. But alas we will be there at the beginning of July so there will most likely be a lack of atmospheric ground fog. I love a good outdoor setting, so I will most likely try to get people running through the woods and across the lawns.

The family loves their games and takes them seriously but I figure this shouldn't last more than a couple hours or they will lose focus.

I haven't conducted one of these before but I have plenty of relevant experience. I want to keep it simple with a streamlined and elegant ruleset... but it's important to also find a moment somewhere near the end to scare the living shit out of all of them.

What I have so far: Discovering the Dead Body kicks it off. A couple obvious clues and a couple less-obvious ones will get people haring off into different rooms.

Each "player" has two modes. If the lighting is normal then they are playing as themselves and actively searching for the killer. If the lighting, however, is blacklight and the person within wears a black veil then they are ghosts, and must share a clue from a list on a card. All players will be ghosts at some point, including the Dead Body. If they enter a room with blacklight, on goes the veil.

I want to incorporate the history of the locale, as well as that of deeper legends. I mean, it's fucking Ireland. But I don't want the Disney version. One of my most successful history videos is about ancient Ireland so I'd love to incorporate something of the actual historical record instead of just a bunch of Celtic fantasy bullshit.

Some will be drunk, some sober. All will be barking and snapping. Piling on some poor defenseless unfortunate (usually one of the younger aunts or uncles or cousins) is their favorite entertainment. Subplots that subvert that bullying dynamic are also welcome.

Have any of you created an experience like this? How did you approach it? What kinds of ideas does it inspire in you?

As part of a weekly series, these topics are a place for users to casually discuss the things they did — or didn't do — during their week. Did you accomplish any goals? Suffer a failure? Do nothing at all? Tell us about it!

Tildes is a very serious site, where we discuss very serious matters like heritage foundation, net neutrality and stimulation clicker. Tags culled from the highest voted topics from the last seven days, if anyone was experiencing FOMO.

But one of my favourite tags happens to be offbeat! Taking its original inspiration from Sir Nils Olav III, this thread is looking for any far-fetched offbeat stories lurking in the newspapers. It may not deserve its own post, but it deserves a wider audience!