I've been wanting a new card game to sink my teeth into. There's so many though! I plan on trying them all out more or less, but was curious to hear what others are playing, if anything new was on the horizon, and what opinions were!

I've played MtG Arena, Pokemon TCG Live, Yugioh Master Duel, Legends of Runeterra, and KARDS.

I liked them all to varying degrees, but still wanna seek out others before I start leaning in to one. Warhammer also has a digital ccg coming out called Warpforged. I liked the demo, but I don't think it has a release date :(

Anyways, what do y'all think I should try and play?

Since the minimum and recommended specs for Starfield have come out, I've been budgeting to do a big upgrade on my PC with an AMD 6800 xt and a fancy new 1 TB SSD (which is the first game I've ever seen that requires an SSD) just so I can run the game in all it's space epicness.

What was the game that you were so excited for that you made the jump to upgrade your PC to the next gen of hardware? New or old!

Recently Lockheed Martin put out a post on social media [1] where they showed a silhouette of a yet-to-be-revealed aircraft. Most people seem to believe it will be the reveal of their entry to the NGAD program [2] (Next Generation Air Dominance).

While not much is publically known one interesting tidbit is how much it looks like the silhouette of the Testor Corp [3] F-19 [4] model that was released back in the mid 80s. Testor said at the time that the model was based on intelligence (aka leaks) of what would eventually become the F-117.

Aviation forums in the past have said F-19 model is what they WANTED the F-117 and it does look quite a bit like the Have Blue [5] test craft they built, however, the legend is that they couldn't get the math to work for radar deflection properly at that time due to lack of computational power and ended up with the geometrically simpler F117 design we got.

[1] Lockheed Martin Teaser: https://theaviationist.com/wp-content/uploads/2023/07/LM-NGAD-story.jpg
[2] NGAD: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Next_Generation_Air_Dominance
[3] Testor F19: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Testor_Corporation#F-19
[4] Testor F19 Image: https://test803.files.wordpress.com/2018/10/img_6712-1.jpg
[5] Have Blue: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lockheed_Have_Blue

What are your thoughts on romance in RPGs? I'm using the word "romance" here because it's usually what the topic is called. But I think it's too specific and has unwanted connotations with cheeziness. I would prefer the term "attraction", which can also refer to more challenging relationships that might not include sex or even happy endings.

The recent news that Starfield will only feature 4 romance options has fans debating, and before Starfield it was Cyberpunk, Mass Effect, Dragon Age, Skyrim, etc. Each of these games took a slightly different approach to romance and each had their fans and critics. On the one hand, the Witcher 3 had a defined player-character and very few romance options, but the writing was excellent and the romances fairly believable. And then there was Skyrim, where you created your own character and had lots of romance options, but all you needed to do was a fetch quest for your belle/beau and then give them a necklace before living a happily married life of fighting bandits, adopting children and saying the same things to each other ad nauseam every day for eternity. But even Skyrim's romance had a certain charm to it. At least you got to live with your partner, build a house, have a family and go hunting together...

I fully understand the viewpoint that gamers would rather have fewer options if they are deep than more numerous janky options. We're yet to see what Starfield's execution will be like, but even if they have done a good job with it, I can't help feeling a little disappointed that there are so few options in such a massive game. I fully understand how difficult it would be to have more options and still make the romances compelling, but I think this should be strived for, rather than just given up as too hard.

Of all the big entertainment media (movies, TV, books, etc.), games are understandably way behind when it comes to romance. It's either rarely implemented or implemented poorly because technically it is very difficult. Yet it's often a major part of storytelling and virtually omnipresent in other media. Sometimes it's the main story; other times it's a side story within the main one. But it's quite rare for it never to feature at all in mass entertainment media. Of course, it's often shoehorned in because it's what the viewers/readers want and expect, but you can also argue that attraction to someone else is just a fundamental human emotion and maybe even unavoidable, especially in an epic or heroic scenario like an RPG. I'm sure someone with professional experience in this field could probably speak more to this point, but I'm thinking here of those intense emotional feelings you get from stressful situations, which could lead to crushes and attraction for those in the same situation, or to rescuers and caregivers (Nightingale syndrome), or even to abductors (Stockholm syndrome) and the opposite (Lima syndrome).

And the fact that it's a fundamental human trait that plays such a major role in our lives (for better or worse) is why I think gaming companies should not ignore romance and should strive to create truly compelling attraction stories. It's an area ripe for innovation and could really make a game stand out from the rest. It's time to move on from the stereotype that gaming is for teenage boys and all they want is to shoot things and maybe have sex with big-titted avatars. Gaming is now for everyone, for all ages and for all sexualities (including asexuals), and I'm sure there's a market for mature stories to reflect what drives many people's decisions and behaviours.

The RPG genre in particular seems to be the best fit for romance (outside of dating sims, which I know nothing about). The beauty of role-playing is that you get to be who you want to be, which includes exploring attraction and your sexuality. It's incredibly challenging and maybe even impossible to create a game that would please everyone, but I certainly don't think the idea of compelling attraction gameplay should be given up because previous attempts have felt so inauthentic.

Going back to Starfield, I'm really excited to go out exploring the stars, fighting space pirates, upgrading my ship, and acquiring cool abilities. I love all these things about RPGs. But I'm also a sucker for a great story and experiencing a genuine human journey. For me, this includes relationships, both platonic and sexual, because it would be unavoidable when spending so much time with people on my ship, and exploring the galaxy. The importance of attraction in games will vary between gamers, but as other mass entertainment media has shown us, it's massively popular when done well, probably because it speaks to something so fundamental within us as humans.

These are just some of my musings and ramblings. What are your thoughts?

• Is it a waste of dev time and resources because it's too hard to do well?
• Is it an aspect you particularly enjoy or hate in RPGs?
• Which game did it best?
• What would you like to see in RPGs of the future with AI possibly being used?

Hey there! Any web developers/designers out there that have resources on creating websites that are fully accessible? I am getting back into web development after a decade away and want to learn the correct way. Thanks for any tips!

I lurk here at work and don't watch YouTube in general. Often it's annoying to see something of potential interest and it's a YouTube video. Is there a way to filter youtube.com here or an extension enabling that functionality?

Thank you.

I have a PS VR2 and it's my first headset. I played call of the mountain, a bit of no man's sky, swordsman, tentacular, and beat saber. I was thinking I would buy Synapse tonight, but it has mediocre reviews. I want to start a new game, but am having trouble deciding which one. Here is my short list.

• Synapse - looks super fun, and I like that it's an exclusive, but mediocre reviews
• Song in the smoke - I enjoy survival games and in general prefer non shooter games, so this has an appeal to me.
• Red Matter 2 - this one has some pretty good reviews and I do enjoy sci-fi tv and movies, but don't go out of my way to play sci-fi games
• Moss - I know it's critically acclaimed, but I was really hoping for a first person experience
• the light brigade - I could see myself enjoying this.

Since I can't decide, I think I'll be happy with just about any of these. I'll play the most voted comment!

I chose to make this topic because I dont find other with the same goal, that is give recommendations of movies which dont have sex/kiss scenes and other things thats used to sell without any meaninful content.

This thread is posted weekly - please try to post all relevant US political content in here, such as news, updates, opinion articles, etc. Extremely significant events may warrant a separate topic, but almost all should be posted in here.

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Seen a post or two about ios apps being developed. However, as far as android goes, I haven't seen any apps being developed yet for tildes. Which is definitely contributing to my lack of visits here and making it seem more like a chore. Am I just missing some options? 🤞 Or is the user base for Android just that low these days? 😢 Please someone tell me it's the prior😅

My wife just went back to work and as the one who works from home, that means I'll be cooking a lot more. I'm not bad in the kitchen, but I'm not good at just making something up without a recipe -- I can alter and combine existing recipes once I'm used to them, but I need that starting point.

My wife and I are also both neurodivergent so it's very easy for us to get overwhelmed and not have the executive function for cooking -- which is why we eat way too much takeout currently. So I'm looking particularly for recipes that are easy and tasty. Ideally they should be reasonably healthy as well, but "healthier than takeout" isn't a high bar.

We live in Germany, so please keep that in mind if you want to recommend a specific brand of premade stuff. That said, I don't turn up my nose at premade things if they're tasty and worth it.

We do have a wok, the staple sauces for Chinese cooking , and access to okay Asian supermarkets. As an example, our current staple weeknight meal is "chop up some broccoli and stir-fry it in light soy sauce and black vinegar w/ aromatics and sichuan doubanjiang." I'm willing to go out and buy sauces and seasonings for specific cuisines if I can find them and they're useful enough, but for perishables like veggies and meats I'd prefer to stick to what's easy to find at a German grocery store, since those are in walking distance. But anyway just don't assume we only want European-style food.

Stuff that feels appropriate for summer is also a huge plus! I know a few great stew and risotto recipes but I can't bring myself to make something so heavy in this hot weather.