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    1. Please recommend me a video game

      I've never really been that into video games. When I was young, I played a lot of RPGs on the SNES and PS1. Within the last couple of years, I dipped my toes back in the water and tried a few out....

      I've never really been that into video games. When I was young, I played a lot of RPGs on the SNES and PS1. Within the last couple of years, I dipped my toes back in the water and tried a few out. I tried Skyrim on a friend's recommendation, but it was just a little too involved and open-world for me. I got Cities:Skylines, which I love because I love city builder sims, but that game just does not run well on any of my underpowered computers. And I loved Ori and the Blind Forest, a beautiful platformer, and I'd play it again right now if it wasn't Windows-only.

      Here are my requirements. First, it needs to run well on a low-powered machine without making the fan go insane. I've got a MacBook Air 2012 and a ThinkPad x250 (Linux). Neither of these are the ideal gaming experience, I know, but I'm not looking for amazing graphics or bleeding edge technology or something super immersive. Pixel graphics are fine with me. It reminds me of my youth, anyway. I played both Skylines and Ori on my Intel NUC 4th Gen and while it worked, they both really taxed that little machine. I was able to finish Ori, but once a city reaches a certain size in Skylines, it gets unplayable.

      I'm not looking for stress. I like RPGs and sims. But it doesn't have to be really hard or frustrating. I don't want to feel chased in a game. I prefer to feel that I'm driving the action and I can go at my pace. I want to feel like if I look away for a moment, I'm not going to lose everything. I'm a casual. I also don't mind if there's no defined ending of a game. For me, I'm more looking for a diversion and a slow build over some kind of constant progression/achievement type scenario.

      If it has full controller support, that would be ideal. I've got a Steam controller, and I prefer using a controller to play a game. I've never liked using the keyboard to play. I'm not totally against it, but I guess I just never got into computer gaming. I pretty much always played on consoles in the past.

      Linux or macOS only, please. I did have Windows installed once so that I could play games, but I'm not bothering with that anymore. I don't want to have to boot into another operating system just to play a game. I want to be able to hop in and out of a game while using my daily driver computer.

      So in my research, I've looked into Terraria and Stardew Valley. These might be what I'm looking for. But I really don't know. Do either of these scratch my itch? Is there another game that I would enjoy based on what I've told you? Thanks in advance for any advice you can offer.

      EDIT: Thank you everybody for your awesome suggestions. I'm still happy to hear more, as I plan to add the ones that really interest me to my wishlist and revisit later. I ended up getting Hollow Knight yesterday and I spent the whole day playing it. It's very engrossing, and it's the perfect game for me. It's so much like Ori, and that game blew me away. Chilled out, go at your own pace, exploring dungeons, challenging but not impossible (though the first Hornet fight was pretty tough for me). The game runs fine on my ThinkPad x250 (i5-5300U) in Pop!_OS Linux, apart from the initial movie scene stuttering--I just had to skip past it, unfortunately. It's such an awesome game, and I'm glad to see they've already announced a sequel. If you know of any other games that are like Ori and Hollow Knight, let me know.

      23 votes
    2. D&D our new campaign

      howdy all, been a few weeks since I posted about our last meet for the first campaign we ran. So one of the other players has stepped up as the DM so our first DM could actually play since it was...

      howdy all, been a few weeks since I posted about our last meet for the first campaign we ran.
      So one of the other players has stepped up as the DM so our first DM could actually play since it was his idea to get us altogether in the first place, the new game is running on milestone leveling and so far feels like it will move a bit faster. Our first meet we only just survived the night, all of us having to use the death save rolls at least once each, the new DM made a comment of "If I thought you lot would roll so horridly I would have toned it down way more" but hey it made things more fun and we had to work as a damn team.

      Last night we had our 2nd meet and our first PC death. It was the rogue that tried to steal everything nailed down including the nails, he tried to pick pocket the NPC that was with us and rolled a damn 1 the NPC rolled a nat 20 and it just went from there, this was also after dealing with the big bad of the evening so spell slots had been spent and half the party kinda said he had it coming. He is brand new to RPG games so went all out with the role playing side and doing what he wants, personally I thought it was amazing he also has taken some pride in being the first to go down.

      Anyone else have something fun or cool to share about their campaign?

      16 votes
    3. I Am Mother (2019)

      I Am Mother is a sci fi movie centered in a dystopian future with a novel twist. If you prefer neat, predictable endings, then this movie is probably not for you. What is particularly interesting,...

      I Am Mother is a sci fi movie centered in a dystopian future with a novel twist.

      If you prefer neat, predictable endings, then this movie is probably not for you.

      What is particularly interesting, is the movie is almost deliberately ambiguous, and it constantly challenges the usual assumptions you might make.

      The final reveal subtly explains away some of the elements that at first seemed a little jarring or confusing. Other aspects are not fully explained. This creates enough space to construct some very interesting back story theories, while ultimately leaving you guessing.

      9 votes
    4. How do you wake yourself up in the mornings?

      I often have a really hard time getting myself to wake up and get out of bed in the mornings in time to go to work or whatever else I need to do. I was hoping people might be willing to share any...

      I often have a really hard time getting myself to wake up and get out of bed in the mornings in time to go to work or whatever else I need to do. I was hoping people might be willing to share any good strategies they use to get themselves up and going every day.

      26 votes
    5. Where do you buy microSD cards from?

      Amazon appears to have a severe problem with "co-mingled" stock for some items. eBay is pretty scary for some things, but at least you know it's eBay. Where do you buy microSD cards for a...

      Amazon appears to have a severe problem with "co-mingled" stock for some items.

      eBay is pretty scary for some things, but at least you know it's eBay.

      Where do you buy microSD cards for a reasonable price and to ensure genuine product?

      10 votes
    6. What are good, modern right-wing values anyways?

      I'm in too much of a left-wing echo chamber, to the point where anything conservative or right wing appears to be 'evil' or not necessarily purely right-wing. For example, conservatives generally...

      I'm in too much of a left-wing echo chamber, to the point where anything conservative or right wing appears to be 'evil' or not necessarily purely right-wing. For example, conservatives generally promote family values and the family as the foundational unit of a society. But this too often gets grouped together with same/opposite sex marriage arguments. Another point is small government, but that often manifests in deregulation in areas where regulation is now necessary (e.g. environment).

      So, what does it mean to be an ethical right-winger today and in the next decade?

      40 votes
    7. Do generic CLI to GUI wrappers exist?

      So I've been messing around with the webp encoder cli tool and I really wish I could quickly achieve a workflow more similar to photoshop's previews. Is there a GUI tool out there where I can...

      So I've been messing around with the webp encoder cli tool and I really wish I could quickly achieve a workflow more similar to photoshop's previews. Is there a GUI tool out there where I can specify the arguments for an CLI executable then it lets me adjust the values and run the command. Ideally it would automatically let me view the output file, and define presets would be great.

      10 votes