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    1. If you had up to $55k to purchase an electric vehicle (new/used) with a range of a least 250 miles, what would you buy?

      I'm in the market for another EV. I have a Leaf currently and love it for in town driving. I want something with more range for longer trips. I've looked at Hyundai, Tesla, VW, and Ford vehicles....

      I'm in the market for another EV. I have a Leaf currently and love it for in town driving. I want something with more range for longer trips.

      I've looked at Hyundai, Tesla, VW, and Ford vehicles. No vehicle is perfect. I like the HUD of the Hyundai and the full self driving of the Tesla. I don't like the look of the Ford Mustang, and the Lightning is comfy but enormous. And since Tesla has been around for a while, there's the option of a used Model S compared to a new Model 3 (for instance).

      This doesn't necessarily have to be an advice thread - trying to find the best vehicle for me. I'm more looking for your personal pros/cons of vehicles in the EV market from your perspective.
      Like the title asks, what would you buy in today's market?

      29 votes
    2. What programming/technical projects have you been working on?

      This is a recurring post to discuss programming or other technical projects that we've been working on. Tell us about one of your recent projects, either at work or personal projects. What's...

      This is a recurring post to discuss programming or other technical projects that we've been working on. Tell us about one of your recent projects, either at work or personal projects. What's interesting about it? Are you having trouble with anything?

      16 votes
    3. Tildes Video Thread

      Find yourself watching tons of great videos on [insert chosen video sharing platform], but also find yourself reluctant to flood the Tildes front page with them? Then this thread is for you. It...

      Find yourself watching tons of great videos on [insert chosen video sharing platform], but also find yourself reluctant to flood the Tildes front page with them? Then this thread is for you.

      It could be one quirky video that you feel deserves some eyeballs on it, or perhaps you've got a curated list of videos that you'd love to talk us through...

      Share some of the best video content you've watched this past week/fortnight with us!

      18 votes
    4. T minus Zero, or releasing a game on Steam

      Well, a few minutes ago I finally pushed the button, the game is released. So I wanted to write a short write up of some things that I had to do to release the game. I won't really talk about...

      Well, a few minutes ago I finally pushed the button, the game is released. So I wanted to write a short write up of some things that I had to do to release the game. I won't really talk about making the game itself too much, more about the part of actually releasing the game, if you are interested in more of that you can see my posts from Timasomo (1, 2, 3, 4, showcase).

      Steam

      I have already created many games in the past, I've been making games for more than 5 years, but always as a hobbyist. So I never experienced releasing a game on a platform like Steam. I have to say working with Steam and Steamworks is very pleasant and streamlined, but it is still much more complex than for example releasing a game on itch.io, which is what I did before for all my other games. I'll try to summarize how the process looks like.

      First, before you can even get on Steam, you have to register, fill out a ton of paperwork, wait some time for it to be manually approved. Afterwards, you have to pay the 100 dollars for Steam Direct. At this point you finally get a Steam app id, which you can use to start integrating Steam features into your game. For example, having achievements, Steam cloud integration (so the saves get synced between devices), leaderboards and potentially more, especially if you are making a multiplayer game. To make my game I am using Godot, and I found a C# library called Facepunch.Steamworks which made this all quite easy, I'd definitely recommend it if you are using Unity or Godot with C# and want to release your game on Steam.

      Before releasing a game on Steam you also have to finish everything on a gigantic checklist, including things like: uploading 10 various header, capsule and other images which are used on the store page and Steam library. An icon for the game. What are the minimum requirements required to run the game, whether the game has adult content, whether it supports controllers, how much the game will cost, screenshots, a trailer, there are just so many things to do! And when you complete parts of this checklist you have to have your game go through manual reviews. Each review could take about 3 days to get done. I failed one review first so I had to resubmit it too and wait again. Let me tell you, if you plan to release a game on Steam, reserve at least a month to do it, and start going through the reviews as soon as possible -- actually I think there even is a minimum of a month before you can release the game from the day you get an app id.

      Trailer

      Creating a good trailer is super hard. I am not a video creator/editor at all, but luckily I at least own a solid program for creating videos -- Vegas 14 pro, that I got for super cheap in some Humble bundle about 8 or something years ago, so I at least had a good start there. I ended up with not that complex of a project and Vegas still kept crashing when rendering, so I am not sure if I'd recommend it though.

      The hardest thing for a trailer is deciding what to put in it for me. I know that a trailer should be super short, should showcase how the gameplay looks, what are the features and so on, but when I got to actually making it, it was still super hard to decide what to put there. How do I even start? I watched a ton of other indie game trailers to get some inspiration and that also didn't help that much. There are some trailers which are really just gameplay, some trailers which are actually just incredible with editing I could never do as a pleb... So I started with something that I know a bit more. I created a very short music track, and decided that I will just edit the trailer to fit the music.

      The music track basically splits the trailer into 4/5 very short sections:

      • Basic gameplay, how the game looks when you start playing it
      • Explaining the roguelite part of the game, selecting spells and items
      • More complex gameplay, how some combinations of spells and items can look later in a run
      • List of features
      • Special bonus ending section showing a "Legendary" spell, which should show how insane spells can get, followed by the logo of the game

      I think the trailer ended up being not too bad, but I still had some feedback that it isn't flashy enough. And it's true, but I am not really sure how to improve it easily. When watching the Vampire Survivors trailer for example I can see that they did a much better job: it's so much more dynamic, the music really pumps you up, it's overall better edited, it has cool transitions, camera movement and so on.

      End

      Releasing a game on Steam was a great experience. I learned so much! I basically made this game over weekends and evenings, since I also have a job. To try maintain my productivity I tried to do at least some work on the game every single day. I have to say that towards the end I started losing some steam (haha), some days scrambling to do at least something late in the evening before I went to sleep. But, if at least someone plays the game I think I want to keep updating it more, I still do really like the game!

      Thanks for reading! Feel free to ask me anything about the game, or the game dev process, or about anything basically haha.

      Here's the Steam store page, the game costs 5 dollars, I'd love it if you checked it out. If you want to play the game but can't afford it PM me and I'll send you a key for the game (at least once I get the keys I requested -- did you know that Steam has to approve the creation of keys manually? Edit: the keys are now ready)
      https://store.steampowered.com/app/2682910/The_Spellswapper/

      45 votes
    5. Midweek Movie Free Talk

      Have you watched any movies recently you want to discuss? Any films you want to recommend or are hyped about? Feel free to discuss anything here. Please just try to provide fair warning of...

      Have you watched any movies recently you want to discuss? Any films you want to recommend or are hyped about? Feel free to discuss anything here.

      Please just try to provide fair warning of spoilers if you can.

      7 votes
    6. Looking for games like wordle

      Recently on here someone recommended a game called travle, which is a lot of fun even though I suck at it, as do my friends who play. Can anyone recommend other similar "one puzzle per day" style...

      Recently on here someone recommended a game called travle, which is a lot of fun even though I suck at it, as do my friends who play. Can anyone recommend other similar "one puzzle per day" style games?

      47 votes
    7. Day 6: Wait For It

      Today's problem description: https://adventofcode.com/2023/day/6 Please post your solutions in your own top-level comment. Here's a template you can copy-paste into your comment to format it...

      Today's problem description: https://adventofcode.com/2023/day/6

      Please post your solutions in your own top-level comment. Here's a template you can copy-paste into your comment to format it nicely, with the code collapsed by default inside an expandable section with syntax highlighting (you can replace python with any of the "short names" listed in this page of supported languages):

      <details>
      <summary>Part 1</summary>
      
      ```python
      Your code here.
      ```
      
      </details>
      
      14 votes
    8. MangaLove, a series sharing thread: December 2023

      Choose one series that you love that you think deserves more love Tell us what it is, and why. Previous posts in the series Additional Details Why MangaLove? Finding new series is hard! The medium...

      Choose one series
      that you love
      that you think deserves more love

      Tell us what it is, and why.


      Previous posts in the series


      Additional Details

      Why MangaLove?

      Finding new series is hard! The medium continues to become more mainstream and accessible, but that hasn't changed the fact that there's a lot of stuff to consume and few ways to find something you may like.

      MangaLove offers an opportunity to sift through series loved by others, including those who might have divergent tastes from you. Think of this as an opportunity to venture outside of your comfort zone, with a series that you know someone else adores, from a small pool of thoughtful hand-selected options.

      Is this just for Manga? Can I share Anime, or Manhwa, or...

      Feel free to share any Anime, Manga, Manhwa, or Manhua that you love!

      What do I post?

      Any series that you love and that you feel deserves more appreciation. There are no restrictions on genre, year, or anything else, and nothing is “too popular” or “too niche”. If you think it needs more love — for whatever reason — then it’s welcome in MangaLove.

      Please make sure to include:

      • The series name
      • The author
      • A short description of the premise
      • What you love about the series. It could be the story, the art, but it could also be your associations with it -- maybe the series reminds you of someone you love, or the period in your life when you first consume it.

      Also, commenting on others' recommendations is encouraged! If you love something that someone else shared, let them know!

      Do I have to watch/read to what everyone else posts?

      Nope. You don't have to consume anything you don't want to. This is about creating a menu of options that people can explore as they wish.

      Can I post more than one series in a month?

      Nope. Limit one! This helps us be more selective about what we choose, as well as preventing the threads from getting flooded with too many contributions to keep track of.

      7 votes
    9. Fortnightly Programming Q&A Thread

      General Programming Q&A thread! Ask any questions about programming, answer the questions of other users, or post suggestions for future threads. Don't forget to format your code using the triple...

      General Programming Q&A thread! Ask any questions about programming, answer the questions of other users, or post suggestions for future threads.

      Don't forget to format your code using the triple backticks or tildes:

      Here is my schema:
      
      ```sql
      CREATE TABLE article_to_warehouse (
        article_id   INTEGER
      , warehouse_id INTEGER
      )
      ;
      ```
      
      How do I add a `UNIQUE` constraint?
      
      4 votes
    10. TV Tuesdays Free Talk

      Have you watched any TV shows recently you want to discuss? Any shows you want to recommend or are hyped about? Feel free to discuss anything here. Please just try to provide fair warning of...

      Have you watched any TV shows recently you want to discuss? Any shows you want to recommend or are hyped about? Feel free to discuss anything here.

      Please just try to provide fair warning of spoilers if you can.

      5 votes
    11. Any Star Citizen folks here? I'm a new player with a barely passable rig, looking for tips to make play bearable...

      Howdy, citizens! So, after begging, borrowing and stealing, I've managed to piece together what I believe to be a barely capable rig so that I can get into playing this incredible looking game,...

      Howdy, citizens!

      So, after begging, borrowing and stealing, I've managed to piece together what I believe to be a barely capable rig so that I can get into playing this incredible looking game, but I'm running into a performance issue that makes it pretty unplayable.

      Here's my rig:
      AMD A-10 6800k @ 4.1 GHz
      32 GB Ram
      128 GB SanDisk SSD (for the game only, OS is on a similar size Kingston)
      GTX 960 for the graphics.

      Last night I tried running the game from my normal HD, which is a 1tb platter. This did not go well. Just moving my character around in the initial apartment was torture, and using anything in the room was an exercise in frustration to the point that the room ended up looking like a brawl had happened in it before I made it out, with coffee cups and water bottles all over the floor.

      So, after I read a few pointers online, I salvaged the SanDisk from a different PC and began reinstalling on that. Today I hope to be able to move around smoothly enough to actually play, but aside from setting every option to its lowest, are there any other little tricks I can use to get it more playable?

      17 votes