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    12. Weekly US politics news and updates thread - week of March 23

      ~society Text 73 words
      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...

      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.

      This is an inherently political thread; please try to avoid antagonistic arguments and bickering matches. Comment threads that devolve into unproductive arguments may be removed so that the overall topic is able to continue.

      16 votes

    18. Any beginners advice or resources on developing a 2D RPG/Puzzle video game?

      ~comp Ask (advice)
      Hey guys, I hope this is the right place to post. So my adhd hyperfixation has recently shifted towards an idea for a game and I want to indulge my ADHD by learning all I can about game...

      Hey guys, I hope this is the right place to post.

      So my adhd hyperfixation has recently shifted towards an idea for a game and I want to indulge my ADHD by learning all I can about game development to see if I can achieve this idea to the point that maybe I can put it in "Early Access" to fund even more resources on it.

      But I'm not sure where to start. I'm looking into Godot because it's free and open source and has a lot of community resources, but also wanted to see if anyone had any ideas here.

      I have some coding experience, a lot of technical experience and pick things up extremely quickly.

      The basic idea is that it's a 2D Sidescrolling RPG, but with Match-3 "Candy Crush"-esque mechanics for battles and fighting.

      Extra details If you've played "You Must Build A Boat" or "10000000", it's a LOT kind of like that, in fact those games kind of inspired me, but more refined with a lot more in depth RPG elements and it's a bit more forgiving focusing on keeping a "flow" going, since one of my biggest pet peeves is YMBAB's RNG being very unforgiving and you'll randomly just sit there staring at the board with no moves until you die.

      So the systems/mechanics I'd need to combine to work together are the following:

      • A Match-3 type board where you match tiles, make special tiles by combining 4 or more tiles, all the features of a typical match-3 type game, just tied to outcomes outside of the board-interface.
      • An RPG element, with character attributes, leveling, items, spells, weapons, gear, potions, etc. These elements effect what tiles are on the board during gameplay, effect the chances of certain tiles, and effect health, speed, mana, or grants special in-game abilities like "Precognition"(gives a hint for a move), or "Scroll of Revival"(You can continue without starting over), etc. Attributes also effect things like tile chances, so a higher strength will get you more combat/physical tiles, or a high intelligence will get you more magic tiles.
      • Visual Elements include an auto-running sidescrolling viewport while Dungeon Running. Character auto-runs until encountering enemies, running is not controlled by player. Match-3 board will be beneath that. Time between enemy encounters can be used to clean up the board and match unneccesary tiles, make special moves to line up for next battle, or to replenish health.
        • During Battles, it'd be an over-the-shoulder battle view, similar to Pokemon style battles. Character will have health, enemy will attack character at regular intervals, player will have to balance matching combat/weapon tiles to attack enemy, and matching health/mana potion tiles to replenish health or mana(if they have potions equipped). Enemy can cause environmental effects like poison(some tiles will be poisoned so you lose health if matching them), or being frozen with ice(You need to break tiles next to the ice tiles to break them), or confusion(switches the colors of tiles). Will be block/parry mechanics, occassionally for a few seconds before the enemy strikes, you're required to match a designated tile to either block or parry that attack.
        • In a saferoom it'd be like an isometric kind of "inside a building" format like in Pokemon, just more detailed. I'd like to have saferoom customization and the ability to upgrade your character or gear too.

      Anyways, I'd love any advice or resources. Or if you'd like to help out or discuss the game idea more I'm up for that too.

      16 votes

    21. Tildes Book Club discussion - March 2026 - The Metamorphosis by Kafka

      ~books Ask
      Warning: this post may contain spoilers

      This is the third Tildes Book Club Discussion for 2026 and the twenty-third overall. We are discussing The Metamorphosis by Kafka. At the end of April we will discuss The Tea Girl of Hummingbird Lane by Lisa See.

      I don't have a particular format in mind for this discussion, but I will post some prompts and questions as comments to get things started. You're not obligated to respond to them or vote on them though. So feel free to make your own top-level comment for whatever you wish to discuss, questions you have of others, or even just to post a review of the book you have written yourself.

      For latecomers, don't worry if you didn't read the book in time for this Discussion topic. You can always join in once you finish it. Tildes Activity sort, and "Collapse old comments" feature should keep the topic going for as long as people are still replying.

      And for anyone uninterested in this topic please use the Ignore Topic feature on this so it doesn't keep popping up in your Activity sort, since it's likely to keep doing that while I set this discussion up, and once people start joining in.

      13 votes

    22. Three Cheers for Tildes: App updates and feedback (March 2026) — Version 1.5 can search for posts

      ~tildes Text 459 words
      This topic is for the Three Cheers for Tildes mobile app. I'll summarize the major updates at the start of each similar topic, so people can read the updates and then hit Ignore if they don't care...

      This topic is for the Three Cheers for Tildes mobile app.

      I'll summarize the major updates at the start of each similar topic, so people can read the updates and then hit Ignore if they don't care about more frequent updates and user feedback.

      Recently:

      [Android] Version 1.5.2 (Apr 8, 2026): Fixed username display bugs in inbox, fixed "Tildes" user display bug in topic OP such as in the April Fools megathread

      [iOS] Version 1.5.1 (Apr 8, 2026): Fixed pagination in main feed, fixed "Tildes" user display bug in topic OP

      Version 1.5.0 (Mar 21, 2026):

      • Search for posts
      • [Android] Fixed touch ripple on inbox conversation rows
      • [Android] Fixed support for high-RAM devices
      • [Android] (1.5.1) Fixed comment reply sheet on Android 11-14
      • [iOS] Fixed blur on Sort button on iOS 26
      • [iOS] Fixed ugly shadow between panes on iPadOS 26
      • [iOS] Fixed overly large vote label on own comments

      Edit: Currently on TestFlight only on iOS for the next week or so.

       

      [iOS] Version 1.4.5 (Jan 2026): Fixed UI bugs on iOS 26

      [Android] Version 1.4.5 (Apr 2025): Fixed YouTube bugs, voting bugs on Android 11 and earlier

       

      Search has been near the top of my to-do list for a long time, so it feels good to finally release this feature.

      I did some custom UI this time and I'm pretty happy with how it came out. Despite its basic appearance, it required a decent amount of detailed UI programming on both Android and iOS, to avoid breaking the adjacent Sort feature. I also had to redo the search results screen a few times, due to navigation quirks on each platform.

      There are a couple related features that didn't make it this time: Searching for posts and comments within your own profile is not possible yet. Also "find in page" for comment text is not here yet either. These are both pretty high priority to me, and as usual it's a matter of making time and finding motivation to work on it.

      Also on Android, expect a hotfix v1.5.1 coming out soon, to fix the comment reply sheet on Android 11-14. Big thanks to the user who reported this bug! The hotfix is already available to sideload, and under review on Google Play, as of this writing.

       

      Previous topic: April 2025

       

      Where to get it

      Android version on Google Play Store: https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.talklittle.android.tildes

      Or sideloadable APK at https://www.talklittle.com/three-cheers/

      iOS version on the App Store: https://apps.apple.com/app/three-cheers-for-tildes/id6470950557

      Join TestFlight for iOS beta testing: https://testflight.apple.com/join/mpVk1qIy

      85 votes

    29. Dentist prank advice

      ~life Ask (advice)
      I have a dentist appointment coming up. It's on April 1st, which in the US is sometimes known as April Fool's Day. Last year when I made the appointment, I was joking with them that I was going to...

      I have a dentist appointment coming up. It's on April 1st, which in the US is sometimes known as April Fool's Day. Last year when I made the appointment, I was joking with them that I was going to have to play some kind of a prank since it's going to be April 1st. So I feel like I need to follow through on that, but I'm coming up short on ideas. I did some looking online, but most of the pranks are the dentist playing pranks on the patients, not the other way around. There is this one, but I'm not sure that I can pull that off. I thought I'd see if any of you Tilderitos have any ideas.

      29 votes

    35. Save Point: A game deal roundup for the week of March 22

      ~games Text 93 words
      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...

      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.

      All previous Save Point topics

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

      9 votes

    38. I'm glad Hideo Kojima went into games instead of directing movies

      ~games Ask
      I'm currently 20 hours and 4 "episodes" deep into Death Stranding 2 on PC and I don't have the patience to wait til the Monday megathread rolls around again to voice my thoughts. This isn't my...

      I'm currently 20 hours and 4 "episodes" deep into Death Stranding 2 on PC and I don't have the patience to wait til the Monday megathread rolls around again to voice my thoughts. This isn't my first time playing a Kojima game; I've got over 100 hours in the first Death Stranding and I've also finished multiple entries in the Metal Gear series, I've even played Boktai 2 on the GBA (though I didn't know that was a Kojima game til much later). I enjoy the vision, wackiness, flexibility in gameplay, and emphasis on little details that are fairly characteristic of a Kojima game, and those things are definitely very present in this one as well. That said though, there is one thing that only becomes more and more clear as I progress:

      Hideo Kojima is terrible at writing dialogue. By that, I don't mean characters fail to express themselves or convey ideas well through a lack of words; rather, they're entirely too reliant on words. In an era of cinema that loves "show, don't tell", Kojima leans more towards "tell, tell, tell some more, and then maybe have a bit more tell as a treat". Any character with a backstory that Kojima wants you to know about will spend a good 10 minutes unloading their life story almost as soon as they meet the main character. Any time there's a new piece of information being revealed, someone will explain it to you in textbook-level depth. I'm not sure if Kojima thinks that it's ok to have so many incredibly long exposition-dumping cutscenes in his game because the ratio of cutscene to game is still fairly low but all I can say is these cutscenes and talking sequences are not good cinema. I don't care which movie star is getting a cameo when the script itself is this absurdly poor, my immersion is shattered and watching has now become a chore.

      That said though, it's not like the game is devoid of cinematic moments, they just happen to be entirely outside of the cutscenes themselves. By far the most memorable and impactful moments in this game and the original are those times of solitude during a delivery where you're just quietly traversing through a zone, luggage in tow, and a Low Roar track starts playing. It's during these moments of calm, of pure show and no tell at all, where the player gets truly immersed in the role of the main character and has time to contemplate their journey while taking in the beauty of the nature around them. These aren't accidental or purely player-driven moments, those songs are set to play at a particular place during certain missions and knowing Kojima, he definitely had a major role in directing these as well. So it's not like he doesn't know how to create absolute cinema, but at the same time it's limited purely to gameplay moments where you're not forced to listen to someone deliver a 10 minute monologue in a way that no actual human being talks.

      So yeah, thanks for not becoming a movie director, Kojima. Your script writing's terrible but your gameplay ideas are great. I'd suggest you hire an editorial team but you probably already have and ignore them.

      29 votes