Welcome to the lobbying topic for CGA!

This is your chance to try to sway people's votes by endorsing certain titles. Let people know why a certain game is awesome, or how a particular entry is of historical value, or why others really need to play this gem of yesteryear.

Lobbying is not limited in any way, so you can endorse/support as many entries as you like.

Negative lobbying is also allowed, but please try to do it as fairly as possible. The point isn't to rag on someone else's choices, but it might be acceptable in cases such as "The camera controls unfortunately can be very frustrating" or "It's quite hard to get up and running." Basically: try to keep it to valuable information that people would want to know before playing, but not for the purposes of hating on a game in particular.

Anyone can participate. CGA does not require membership and is always open to all.

Importantly, this is NOT the final voting topic. This topic will remain up for 48 hours, after which we will hold the voting in a separate topic.

A reminder on the voting mechanics

Just so people remember how the voting will go and can plan accordingly:

• Each person will have 20 votes to distribute among games they see fit.
• Each person will be able to allocate a maximum of 5 points per Single Game/Arcade Special.

A reminder on the culling mechanics

And again, so people can plan for what happens to the list once voting is completed:

• The top 6 games will be chosen to be played (or more in the event of a tie).
• The top 50% will advance to the next round. They will start the next round with a base score of 70% of their vote totals.
• The bottom 50% will be removed from the list.

Game List

All nominations and boosts have been added, so this is the final list of games and their vote totals that we will be deciding on.

I was never a wordle fanatic, but I am hooked on this Alphable game now https://geoffpevlin.com/games/alphable/. I also play https://cluesbysam.com/.

Do people know of other web-based (hopefully free) logic puzzles like these? I like the daily format, but wouldn't limit myself to that if there are others that are also interesting.

I've done all of the https://www.rustylake.com/ games too, which I quite enjoyed, but these types of puzzles require a little bit more time investment that I don't really have right now. (I also hated that some of the "logic" in those games did not seem to make sense to me, and I'd have to google the answer to continue with the game.)

I also like https://timeguessr.com/ but don't return to that one as frequently because I can't play it on my phone.

I really like in-person escape games but they are expensive and vary drastically in quality, so was very happy to find these types of games scratch that same itch.

There's a lot of stories of people getting off caffeine and documenting the changes and benefits they experienced. But I'm wondering if anyone has gotten on caffeine as an adult and could share what benefits, if any, they gained. For reference, I've never consumed much caffeine and have been debating doing so. In terms of actual work and school, I've never found the need. But, I'm generally a bit lethargic/slow paced by nature (have trouble getting up in the morning, inefficient with my time especially when I don't have much going on) and maybe a light jolt and ritual in the morning would be worthwhile.

Steam Next Fest is currently underway, lasting until March 2nd. Coincidentally, I had just been thinking a little while ago that I kinda miss game demos. About a month ago I came across a little twin-stick shooter called Minishoot' Adventures and ended up paying it more attention than any other random game I see that looks kinda cool, because they had a demo available. I installed it, played it for a couple hours, and instantly bought the full game once I was done. It's quite a good game, but they got my money primarily because the demo was able to hook me into making an impulse purchase, totally defeating my usual standard of decision-making about buying games.

For Next Fest, Steam is recommending me a deluge of indie 2D platformers and metroidvanias, and I'm not sure if that's because those are the games in development that tend to have demos or if Steam thinks that's all I'm interested in (spoiler - I'm not). So, have you discovered any truly noteworthy upcoming games in this year's Next Fest? Also, what was the last demo to win you over?

TLDR; I'm looking for a free way to improve bookmark management without increasing cognitive load.

I find that with the constant stream of information online, paired with my ADHD, I tend to know nothing in detail. So I bookmark so that I can return to the same articles regularly instead so that I can 1) stay informed with more depth rather than breadth and 2) contribute to online discourse when I see a gap.

I'm using bookmark folders (by topic) for articles I want to refer back to regularly, and the built in "reading list" for things I do want to come back to but don't plan to keep a record of.

But my bookmarks are overflowing because of all the other stuff I have folders for (admin logins, shopping, local services, social sites, online office stuff, literature and languages, fun stuff, etc).

I also bookmark folders for these:

• Politics (local/national)
• Environment
• Human rights issue #1
• Human rights issue (n) ...

These basically have 1) compelling facts in support of the issue or 2) important memorable counter statements to common misinformation.

But I get easily lost among clutter, and I contend with brain fog. I've seen stuff about "second brain" online, but to be honest they're way too complicated for me (raindrop.io synced with this and that...). Is the folder system I'm using as good as it gets for people like me who need to avoid complexity?

I'm currently on macOS & iOS but plan to return to linux when I next upgrade in a few years.

Do you have any obscure books that you really enjoyed that you haven't had a place to recommend or feel like more people should read/know about?
Feel free to share them here, hopefully with a brief description of the book and why you enjoyed it.

I'm not putting a limit on number of reviews or that these have to be "hidden gems", but ideally lesser known works that have stuck with you, or you felt were great and feel like others might enjoy them as well.

On Monday I was in my local mall and there was one of those gem / crystal shops. I have no idea how these people make rent and salaries, so I figured I'd take a little look around.

I ask the dude for a stone to make me happy and he gives me a few options then suggests this other luck / wealth one; $3! Well, me, being a genius, bought both and immediately bought a lottery ticket.

Wednesday rolls around and I just checked the numbers. After nearly 20 years of never winning anything more than a buck or a free ticket, I won $108 (4 8 15 16 23 42 oh my!)

If we ever do a meet up, I'm gonna be 30lbs heavier with all the rocks in my pocket. I really need a stone for tagging this nonsense post...