Not a native speaker, so I hope I phrased it correctly. Let me explain. It happened to me at least twice.

Some years ago, I picked up the "Metro 2033" book by Dmitry Glukhovsky. I read part of it until I read about the Stalker, who was a badass wearing a black coat. It was so cliche, I was unable to continue. I wrote off the book as trash.

Then, some time later I played the video game under the same title, which is an adaptation of the novel and I liked it a lot. It had that eerie atmosphere and a unique Eastern European feel to it, unlike games like Fallout. I decided to give the book another go, but this time I knew the lore and I had images from the game in my mind and everything changed. I really liked that book, it was a good mix of horror, action and sociopolitical commentary disguised as a postapo novel. It may not be great, but it's a very pleasant read. By now, I've read all three books and played all three video games (btw if you plan to play Metro Exodus I'd advise you to read "Metro 2035" first, as the game is a direct continuation of that story and both were written by the author) and I consider myself a fan of the series.

Another, more recent example is "Harry Potter and the Philosopher's Stone". I am not a Potterhead, I never read any HP books, I even despised them for the most part. By the time J.K. Rowling's stories were published in my country I was already 20 or so. I was familiar with Jordan, Tolkien, Sapkowski, Williams and many more authors writing fantasy. I was into the tolkienesque depiction of wizards, so something like Hogwart with robed men and children riding brooms and waving wands is both weird and strongly off-putting to me. Also, I considered myself already too old for what I saw as children's books.

I'm 42 now and those words of C.S. Lewis resonate with me ever so more:

When I was ten, I read fairy tales in secret and would have been ashamed if I had been found doing so. Now that I am fifty I read them openly. When I became a man I put away childish things, including the fear of childishness and the desire to be very grown up.

So I decided to give Harry Potter a chance. I first tried watching the first movie. I didn't like it much and dropped it somewhere in the middle. Then a couple moths ago I loaded a free sample of the first book from Kobo Store and it was... alright. I dropped it as well. I thought it was well written, but was definitely a kids book for which I was too old.

I started playing Hogwart's Legacy a week ago or so. I'm now positively hooked on that game, it's beautiful, it has characters I like, it has a good combat system and it's been my doorway to Hogwarts. So when I couldn't play, I was thinking about it and picked up that book which I dropped earlier. But this time I had a better understanding of the lore, had images of certain places in my mind and it clicked! I am still an old fart and it is still a kids book, but I have found new appreciation for it. I think it's well written on the literary level, it has a lot of situational and verbal humor (I think it has a distinct British flavor to it, like a very toned down version of Pratchett) -- I actually often chuckle when reading it. I bought the whole set (books 1-7) and maybe I'll even read them. Here's hoping that they mature with the readers, that's what I've been told. I'm sure that if I were 12 when reading them for the first time, I'd love them.

As you can see, in my case it's usually that good video games drive me to give another chance to some books that I initially didn't like and because of the great experience with video game adaptations, I start liking the source material. Do you have similar experiences?

(btw this is my first post on Tildes)

In general, I found a lot of real gems this year! The indie scene is thriving like never before, and smaller teams are being enabled by the likes of Unreal Engine to create really beautiful games on a budget. So I had a lot of free time today and yesterday, and decided to go through my discovery queue and check out a few demos. That quickly ballooned into sitting down and playing right through over a dozen demos, two of which (The Lies of P and Wizard with a Gun) I didn't get far enough into to give any coherent thoughts on. How many demos did you check out? Are there any games you're looking forward to on that basis?

The Cosmic Wheel Sisterhood: 5/5
From Deconstructeam, a Valencian studio with a strong emphasis on narrative, choice, and empowering the player to create their own art, this demo was one of the big winners for me. Gameplay revolves around conversations, VN style, but those conversations often happen in the context of you performing, essentially, tarot readings where the cards are all designed by you. I had a lovely, relaxing time making my own cards, and the challenge of interpreting them to the people around me in a way that felt… true, I guess, was memorable. There is an impressive level of responsiveness to your choices on display here, both on a micro level and, it seems, on a macro level, so I have to think that the game will be pretty replayable. My one gripe was that the dialogue felt a bit stiff and unnatural at times. The game isn’t voice-acted, and the lack of rhythm or cadence in a lot of conversations kept them from flowing well. But that said, even if individual lines of dialogue fell a bit short, placed in context, the conversations felt meaningful, engrossing, and interesting. I will be buying this on release.

Death Must Die: 4/5
I’m a sucker for the “Survivors” genre. My first experience with it preceded Vampire Survivors, the little $3 game that swept the world last year and popularized the new gameplay style; I started with the mobile game that inspired VS: Magic Survival. I had tens of hours in that game. And each subsequent entry into the genre; VS, HoloCure, 20 Minutes Til Dawn, etc., etc. have only worn me out more. These games are all the same: more enemies fill the screen; you get more autofire weapons to deal with them and dodge around to avoid contact damage. Fun for half an hour, but don’t really leave you wanting more. Death Must Die is different. Isometric rather than top-down, the combat here is all manual. You click to fire off an attack that needs to be well aimed; enemies don’t deal contact damage but instead have telegraphed attacks that you have to dodge. It feels very ARPG, actually; a bit Diablo. And the level-up system, which sees you selecting boons from different gods, is clearly inspired by Hades and offers considerably more interesting choices (so far, at least) than the usual Survivors game. Feels a lot more skill based, and a bit more build-craft-y, than usual. And I even caught a whiff of a story, though how well it’ll be executed remains to be seen. I look forward to the full release. Just wish there were more defensive options – maybe a parry?

El Paso, Elsewhere: 4/5
This is cute. A Max Payne-style third person shooter that’s well written in a surreal, noir sort of way; corny enough to be delightful; dark enough to maintain the tension. Visually, it’s a low res, low poly callback to the PS1 era. The gameplay is pretty tough; I didn’t finish the demo, but I imagine it would be a lot of fun to master. I’m keeping my eye on this one, even if it’s not my usual type of game. A special callout: there are biblically accurate angel enemies in this game, which makes me a very happy woman.

Escape from Mystwood Mansion: 3/5
I like escape rooms, and this demo is just a well-constructed escape room – actually, it skews very closely to the types of puzzles and mechanics I’ve come to expect from physical escape rooms. I’m not sure if that’s a good thing or a bad thing; I do wish the game used its medium to get a little more wild with it. But the puzzles were generally pretty well constructed and offered a few fun “aha!” moments when I solved them, and I didn’t need to look at a walkthrough or lean on hints to get through. That said, the hints that I did use were pretty lackluster, and in one case, actually wrong, so that system needs some revision. Some of the sound design got a bit grating, too. I don’t know. Were this a co-op experience I’d probably like it a bit more. The appeal of an escape room is the excitement of solving it with a friend, and there are certainly enough self-contained puzzle sequences here to support that. But no; Mystwood Mansion is a solo experience, and I’m not sure if it’ll be that fun to solve multiple predictable escape rooms alone, staring at a computer screen.

The Invincible: 3/5
I am of two minds about The Invincible. This game is an atompunk sci-fi walking sim adapted from a novel (my roommate tells me) by Stanislaw Lem, and so, suitably, what we have in this demo is a slice of high-concept sci-fi steeped in personal stakes. I have a hard time thinking of anything bad to say about this game. It looks good, runs well, has an interesting story that left me wanting more. And yet, one day after playing it, I just do not want to pick the game up again. I suppose part of it was the pace. Some of the best walking sims – What Remains of Edith Finch – tell incredible stories in the space of two hours. Meanwhile this demo was 40 minutes long and felt like only a small piece of some grand, sprawling story. Environments are huge and your walking speed is pretty slow, so there’s a lot of time between set pieces where your character is just having headaches or struggling to breathe, which really wore me down. I can’t imagine playing this game for 10 hours; 5 might be pushing it. It’s not super tempting when I could just read the book.

Loodlenaut: 2/5
Oh boy, Loodlenaut. Where to begin. Okay, so, I actually like this game. It’s pretty, and relaxing; an ocean exploration game where your job is to clean up trash, rescue wildlife, and climb the tech tree. I have played through the entire demo, done everything there is to do, which took about an hour. And I will absolutely not be playing the full game. If you’ve played Powerwash Simulator, you know how satisfying it can be to get rid of muck and watch a meter climb up to 100% clean, and Loodlenaut scratches a similar itch. The problem here is that the game feels so clunky and limited that the frustration often outweighs the satisfaction. For example, you have a cleaning gun that picks up trash, destroys goop, and breaks boxes. But you don’t aim the gun, the game does, and it’s not really based on where you're facing or what you're closest to so much as it is on the game’s capricious moods. Say you’re trying to pick up a glass bottle, but there’s a crate nearby that you can’t break yet because you don’t have the right upgrade. Well, Loodlenaut will snap the gun to the crate and repeatedly try to break it, until you wiggle around enough to get it to change its mind and pick up the bottle. Wielding the gun is a constant frustration, as is sluggishly moving through the ocean. Your swim speed is slow, and your boost recharges slowly, so going back and forth between central base and the area you’re cleaning – something you have to do pretty frequently – takes what feels like an eternity until you sink lots of resources into infrastructure. None of this is a bad idea – incentivising players to craft boost rings to improve traversal is a good idea; auto-targeting is more comfortable than aiming on a controller – it’s just these systems are poorly implemented, which leads to frustration.

Luna Abyss: 5/5
Luna Abyss is a fucking wild demo. I downloaded it because the game’s description used they/them pronouns for its protagonist. I had no idea what I was getting into. So, okay, the best comparison I have for this game is to Returnal. Like that game, Luna Abyss is a high-production value 3D shooter where hitting your shots is easy, and the difficulty comes from avoiding the attacks of bullet-hell style enemies. And like Returnal, it has a strange, unsettling atmosphere, tight movement, and punchy, satisfying guns. Of course, Luna Abyss isn’t a roguelike, and it appears much more straightforward with its story beats so far. I don’t know, I’m having a hard time capturing what makes this game so great. Let’s start with the world, which is bleak and dark and oppressive. You run through cavernous metal structures, all black and grey, lit in harsh red. Enormous metal pipes twist and curl and embrace each other like enormous, mechanical intestines, and you run across them to get to your next objective. This place was not designed for you, and you feel that so clearly as you traverse it. You jump off the pipes and enter into combat, where a generous aim assist ensures that all your shots will hit. But there are a couple of enemy types to prioritize. You fire your shieldbreaker at a flying enemy, killing it, and time slows to a crawl, increasing the impact of the shot and giving you a tiny moment of respite to see what bullets you’ll have to dodge and decide what enemy you should prioritize next. A miniboss spawns in, grinning facelessly, and releases a flower of projectiles. You sprint and jump and dodge and you keep firing until she’s dead. The room is clear, and the demo is over, and your screen is awash with the bright, striking red of the UI. “Thanks for playing,” it says. I felt like I should be thanking it, instead.
It’s impossible to say, at this juncture, whether the game will be good. The crumbs of story were certainly engrossing; the combat fun; the world, striking. At the very least, Luna Abyss looks like it will be one of the most interesting and unique games of the year, whenever it comes out. I can’t wait.

Sea of Stars: 3/5
This one is alright. The world is beautiful, the music peppy, the character designs good. I just honestly have not played enough turn-based isometric RPGs to compare it to anything. I did have two big disappointments: I thought the writing was a little… on-the-nose, I guess? Characters just stated their objectives and everything was pretty surface-level. Dialogue wasn’t attacking or defending, only conveying information. And while the combat was fun and had a challenging timing element, it ended with a boss who I spent like ten minutes fighting for a single attempt, used all my items, did everything I could, and still lost to in dramatic fashion with no indication I had done any real damage. My suspicion is that the boss is simply meant to be an organic end to the demo, a scripted loss, but I don’t know; if not, it probably indicates that this type of game isn’t for me, since I found it to be quite a slog.

Stray Gods: 2/5
I really wanted to like Stray Gods: The Roleplaying Musical. It is, essentially, a choice-based VN in the style of a broadway musical about ancient Greek gods struggling to live in modern society. A tantalizing premise, if a bit theatre-kid-y. But my degree is literally in theatre criticism, so I have a lot of tolerance for the genre’s usual excesses. I can’t think of another musical video game, but Stray Gods’ demo did not convince me that the idea could work. The performances aren’t the problem here; Laura Bailey is a charismatic lead with pipes good enough to carry the show, and the supporting cast of big names (Troy Baker, Felicia Day, Khary Paton) are no slouches either. But so much about this game is just not working for me. Let’s start with the sound design. This is one of those games where it feels like all the actors are recording in totally separate rooms. There’s a lot of dead air, not a lot of dynamism or one person bouncing off the other during conversation. It robs scenes of a lot of momentum and impact. And when I say “dead air,” I mean dead air. Bafflingly, the game seemingly has no room noise, no background audio, so when people aren’t talking, or music isn’t playing, everything is completely, uncannily silent. It’s genuinely weird.
The musical numbers alleviate this weirdness by filling the soundscape but do little else to pull me in. We get to see four songs in the demo; two from the opening act, two picked from later in the game. All of these songs are very similar – fugues or duets, where one character has one perspective and another character (or chorus) has another perspective, and their conflict is expressed and then resolved through song. Which is a fine structure for a song in a musical, don’t get me wrong, but it is not a fine structure for every song. Even our main character Grace’s “I Want” song, the song that establishes her, her desires, and internal landscape and should absolutely be a solo, is a duet with a woman she’s just met. It does not work. And when the game has you making dialog choices during songs, it robs them of a natural arc; there’s no organic progression from the characters’ starting points to their ending points. Some part of me hopes that this game will be good, but I’m not optimistic. Stray Gods is no Hadestown.

Vampire Hunters: 3/5
In the Death Must Die blurb, I praised that game for refining the “Survivors” genre by making tweaks that allow for more skill and expression. But fuck that. Vampire Hunters is a braver game than Death Must Die will ever be, because it dares to ask, “What if Vampire Survivors was a boomer shooter where all your guns were on screen at the same time?” The result is absolutely wild; by the end of a run, more screen space is devoted to your guns than the entire rest of the game. It feels pretty weird to play, too; all of your guns have different ammo counts and may or may not be automatic, but all fire with the same button, so it can be tough to manage all of their separate ammo pools. And XP drops have a tiny pickup radius, so you really have to move to get them all. The neatest trick the game pulls is that it increases enemy spawn rate when you sprint, so moving at a high speed carries a lot of risk. But apart from that, this game is maybe too audacious to be enjoyable.

Viewfinder: 4/5
I am not a frequent puzzle game player, but I, like most every PC gamer, have a soft spot for the kind of reality-warping sci-fi-y puzzle genre originated by Portal and carried forward by the likes of Superliminal and, now, Viewfinder. First: this game is a technical marvel. You are able to, in essence, carry around entire environments, often with a wildly different art style from the rest of the game, and place them seamlessly and instantaneously in the world. I played this at 1440p, >100 FPS with nary a stutter on my midrange system. The ability to place photos and enter them is genuinely incredible on all levels other than technical, too; it feels magical, like stepping into a painting that you yourself made. My only question, one that the demo did not answer, is whether Viewfinder will be able to construct interesting puzzles out of this mechanic. This was something that I think Superliminal often failed to do, too; when the central mechanic of your puzzles is so unique and novel and powerful, how can you limit it in such a way that players actually have to think and put in effort to solve problems? For me, at least, every puzzle in Viewfinder was solved pretty much instantly, with no “aha!” moments, and that does worry me a bit.

I'm looking to buy a new device and have started to look at chromebooks to see if it would be a suitable option. My use cases are pretty mundane:

• Online banking and other similar services
• Emailing
• As a tool for GMing RPG campaigns (probably managed through some online service)
• Stream video while traveling (eg Netflix, YouTube)
• Note taking & drawing (possibly with a stylus)
• Occasionally ssh to remote machines

Arguably the heaviest of these would be streaming, but I guess most devices can handle that decently. Since I won't be doing any gaming or heavy dev work (on the actual machine) I figured I don't really have very high hardware requirements. As such perhaps a chromebook would be a good option. There are some downsides, mainly for me that it is heavily tied to the Google ecosystem. Can chromebooks be easily jailbroken and run a lightweight window manager on Linux? If so does the device retain its battery life okish? Could I still use a stylus with the device? Would I be better off buying a cheap laptop and install linux on that?

Finally I've read that Google cancled their Pixelbook 2 last year. Has there been any updates or rumors of it coming back (I tend to like Google's hardware)?

I came from the generation that played obsessively through middle and high school, and there’s a part of me that really misses when I’d be able to absorb myself into a video game for weeks at a time.

Now that I’m a working adult, it’s a bit more difficult to convince myself that spending all day playing a video game is worth it as opposed to doing chores, practicing some more “productive” hobbies (art, exercise, cooking) or socializing. Part of it also seems to do with the fact that when I do get fully immersed into another video game and spend hours and hours playing at a time (thank you elden ring), my standard for dopamine seems to increase, and I’m not as interested in reading or playing music when I could get that instant dopamine hit from playing a video game, if that makes sense. The games I tend to play now lean towards relaxing/cozy games, generally offline games I can play at my own leisure, where I used to be very into the Overwatch/CSGO/Call of Duty scene.

I’d really love to hear how other people have experienced this, if at all, or what your experiences have been. Have you noticed a shift in the types of games you play? Do you specifically try not to play games to keep a healthier balance with your other obligations and hobbies too?

I am curious to see what other peoples experience has been with all of their apps?

I made the decision to switch to proton for mail, drive, calendar and vpn 7 months ago. I wanted to get away from having all my stuff tied to apple/google/microsoft. While it has been pretty solid for the most part, especially with android. The same cannot be said for their iOS/iPadOS apps at all. This will be my personal observation from my experience with iOS/iPadOS apps.

Mail - Pretty solid all around experience, timely notifications on incoming mail. I have 4 email addresses setup based on the type of account I used for them. I only get bothered by the emails that I would need to see and the rest get checked around once a day. Recently the whole app on both iPad and iPhone has just slowed down so much. Opening the app is frustratingly slow, while everything loads in. I will get a new email and click on the notification and the app will sometimes load the last email I viewed and not the one from the notification. I have cleared the cache and signed out and then back in and it still has this behavior.

Drive - This one is the biggest pain point for me. On iPhone the app crashes when you try to watch a video in landscape mode. This is a pretty basic feature in 2023 if you ask me. I did report the bug, to which they said they are aware and have no timeline for when it will be fixed. The next biggest issue with drive on iOS/iPadOS is that you can only upload 1 file at a time. If you do multiple files if not all, almost all of them will fail to upload. You have to do it 1 file at a time. Reported this and was told the same thing I was about the landscape mode. Seems odd to not want to fix a core function of a cloud storage app as soon as possible.

VPN - I really enjoy this vpn and have paid for just the vpn in past. Now it constantly disconnects or gets stuck in connecting. I can’t use quick connect unless I manually pick a country connect then disconnect. After that I can use quick connect with out any issues. This happens without having secure core toggle on. This is happening on both my iPad and iPhone. Waiting on them to actually help trouble shoot this after sending them a bug report.

Calendar - Is the most useless app they have every put out. I was so excited to finally dial this calendar app in when I got my iPad. Only to find out that they don’t have an iPad version of their calendar. Which makes no sense because that is an app that can really shine on an iPad when do well. This whole app just feels like an after thought and they only have it just to say we have a calendar app too.

I feel that compared to when I started using all of their apps back in December. The quality and stability of the apps has really taken a hit. I understand that they probably have a focus on building their brand with an app suite based on privacy. I feel like the quality is really taking a hit especially with iOS/iPadOS versions of the apps. The obvious answer is to just switch back to android and save myself the headache of apple. The reason for apple is a whole post in its own and I want to keep this one on topic.

For clarification, I have been using the iOS versions since December. I was switching between pixel 7 pro and 14 pro max every few weeks. Having an eco system of apps not based on either platform was also why I chose proton everything.

Hello ladies and gentlegamers, welcome to a new kind of weekly thread. Unlike more reputable threads around here which get their games from places like Steam and the Nintendo e-shop we are here to explore the some thing much more raw made by deranged indie developers running on too little sleep. That’s right we are here to talk about video games that come from game jams

Whats a game jam you may ask. Well imagine if you locked a group of game developers in a box for box for some quantity of time ranging from a few days to a few week and told them to compete with each other by building something around a theme and then judging whatever each other came up with, that's a game jam. Its voluntary crunch time and people are crazy enough to actually sign up for these things for some reason. There are more games submitted for various game jams than anyone could ever play and that is where I come in.

I select a double feature of two games each week on Saturday. I make no assurances related to quality or sanity. If you have issues with these picks leave a comment I will try and accommodate your feedback next week. Now without further ado, welcome one and all to the Saturday Game Jam thread(Its still Saturday somewhere in the world right?)

Anger Foot

Platforms: Windows, macOS, Linux
Genres: Shooter, Action

Do you dream of battling a sewer dwelling cabal of lizard people, are you mad that Gunpoint only let you have the gatecrasher upgrade on the last level, do you like hurting other people?

Anger Foot is a Hotline Miami inspired first people shooter born from the 7day fps game jam. Its got a thumping hardbass soundtrack and nonstop action to keep your blood pumping. Its since moved on to greener pastures and has a stated release on Steam in 2024 so if you like the prototype make sure to wish list the game on Steam.

Interminal

Platforms: Windows, macOS
Genres: Walking Sim

After gunning people down why not stop and smell the roses or perfumes as the case may be. Interminal is a short experimental game also coming the 7day fps game jam about wandering around an infinite airport smelling various perfumes, watching the planes take off, and contemplating life. Its a shame that everyone here lacks the hardware to actually let you smell the perfumes but you guys are an imaginative bunch so I trust you. Let me know what your favorite perfume is in the comments.

That’s all for now. In true Tildes fashion I wanted to start slow and maybe grow later. Again leave feedback in the comments if you feel an improvement can be made

NEXT WEEK

Hello everyone. I am an avid gamer but I allocate my playtime very differently from most other players. I prefer to spend my time playing very short(typcially under 30 mins) games created for game jams(limited time themed game development events) on itch.io.

Here is example of what a set of game jam entries looks like.

Many of these games are only about 15 minutes long so it is possible to play and review many of them per week. My question to you guys is that given the short nature of most of these experiences, is there at least mild interest in posts about these games and if so would it be better to post a weekly thread where I focus on a specific gamejam and review some of the games and encourage other users to join in and review some more of the games or should I focus on posting direct links to the best games I find when I sifting through these collections.

I’m am excited to share this area of gaming that people don’t talk about much and I would love to hear peoples thoughts on the subject.

Edit: The first thread is up

Something that exemplify the mantra "don't judge a book by its cover".

For me it's the puzzle game SquishCraft. The mechanics is innovative and the puzzles are hard as hell. But looking at any videos of it and you might think it's a throwaway flash game from the 2000s or something. Here's a playthrough by a Youtuber in case you want to see the game in action.

^{Meta: Let me know how you feel about having a compilation of the comments included in the topic like this, first time trying so looking for feedback.}