CaptainMeme's recent activity
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Comment on What games have you been playing, and what's your opinion on them? in ~games
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Comment on What games have you been playing, and what's your opinion on them? in ~games
CaptainMeme LinkI've been playing Overcooked 2 on an Archipelago randomiser; a multiplayer multi-game challenge where everyone's items are scattered across the various games. It's been a challenge! I started out...I've been playing Overcooked 2 on an Archipelago randomiser; a multiplayer multi-game challenge where everyone's items are scattered across the various games.
It's been a challenge! I started out just about scraping one star ratings, and even now that we're getting to the end of it I'm struggling to manage two stars on most levels. I was wondering if the game had always been that hard - I hadn't played a ton of it before - but then discovered that the archipelago mod gives you blunt knives to start, which is why everything was taking forever. And my sharp knives haven't yet been found, so I think 3 star ratings will stay out of reach for the time being.
It's been a tad frustrating at times, but overall a great excuse to hang out with friends online and play a fun game I hadn't touched in years.
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Comment on Do you play games in a play by email format, and if so what are you favorite games? in ~games
CaptainMeme LinkDiplomacy (the 1959 board game) is a game that was mostly PBEM for a very long time - I got into it just as that was tailing off and everything moved to purpose-built websites, though. It's really...Diplomacy (the 1959 board game) is a game that was mostly PBEM for a very long time - I got into it just as that was tailing off and everything moved to purpose-built websites, though. It's really the perfect game for PBEM, since most of the gameplay is correspondence and the orders are all simultaneous, so there's no waiting for your turn to come around.
I've heard of a PBEM game of it that lasted a decade. I think that's mostly because it had very lax deadlines though :D
Before the internet it used to be Played By Mail a lot, which is something I find fascinating and want to try someday!
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Comment on What games have you been playing, and what's your opinion on them? in ~games
CaptainMeme Link ParentI think the idea of the story was to build them up as terrible people to make the eventual redemption arc hit harder, but they did such a good job making the characters awful that they didn't have...I think the idea of the story was to build them up as terrible people to make the eventual redemption arc hit harder, but they did such a good job making the characters awful that they didn't have enough game left to make their transformation believable. So at some point they suddenly start acting completely differently and you're left wondering whether you missed a full act of the story.
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Comment on YouTube’s new ads will ruin the best part of a video on purpose in ~tech
CaptainMeme LinkThis has been really annoying to fight with on the creator side, too. I record super longform video and have always placed the ad slots to be every 30 minutes, because that's what I'm comfortable...This has been really annoying to fight with on the creator side, too. I record super longform video and have always placed the ad slots to be every 30 minutes, because that's what I'm comfortable with.
Initially YT sent an email out saying that they were optimising ad placements in old videos, and if you didn't click the link in that email by a certain date then all old videos would be updated to this system. I did click the link, so avoided this.
And now in new videos, there's a small checkbox saying that you allow YT to add its own ad slots which is always automatically checked - even if you add your own ad slots. I have to disable that every time now. More recently they added little tags to the ad slots telling you how likely they are to work, and for manual ones it pretty much exclusively says they're bad and you'd earn more if you use auto ones.
I suspect at some point they're going to just enforce it. For now though it seems like they're going with the approach of trying to make it annoying to turn off.
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Comment on <deleted topic> in ~tech
CaptainMeme Link ParentYou can turn off these sponsored links and news stories in your settings tab: Settings -> Home -> Deselect 'Sponsored Shortcuts' and 'Sponsored Stories' Not defending Firefox at all for this, I...You can turn off these sponsored links and news stories in your settings tab:
Settings -> Home -> Deselect 'Sponsored Shortcuts' and 'Sponsored Stories'
Not defending Firefox at all for this, I hate that it's the default and these settings clearly aren't made to be found easily. But a couple clicks and they're gone forever.
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Comment on What games have you been playing, and what's your opinion on them? in ~games
CaptainMeme Link ParentThe very best ones have been the ones everyone knows, I think: Return of the Obra Dinn Case of the Golden Idol (and its sequel) Lorelei and the Laser Eyes The Roottrees are Dead Some less well...The very best ones have been the ones everyone knows, I think:
Return of the Obra Dinn
Case of the Golden Idol (and its sequel)
Lorelei and the Laser Eyes
The Roottrees are DeadSome less well known ones that we really liked:
Hypnospace Outlaw
Immortality + Her Story
The Painscreek Killings (YMMV with this one, it's much heavier on the notetaking than others and a lot of the fun was bouncing theories between us)
Botany Manor (although it's very short)Ones that were interesting but didn't land as well with us for one reason or another:
Lingo (I think this one would be incredible if we were a little better at it, but it was so hard as to be frustrating)
Scene Investigators
Strange Horticulture
Do Not Feed The Monkeys
Contradiction: Spot The Liar (we really enjoyed this, but it doesn't really fit into the same detective category as the others) -
Comment on What games have you been playing, and what's your opinion on them? in ~games
CaptainMeme Link ParentHmm, I think it does depend a lot on what lost your interest on Golden Idol. I'd liken Roottrees much more to Her Story than GI, but being a deduction game the gameplay still feels similar. It...Hmm, I think it does depend a lot on what lost your interest on Golden Idol. I'd liken Roottrees much more to Her Story than GI, but being a deduction game the gameplay still feels similar.
It lacks the presentation of Obra Dinn - where in OD you're being wowed by all these sights and sounds of sailors and monsters, Roottrees will have a character sprite talk a bit and then leave you to go back to searching the internet. I guess it's still immersive in the sense that you do feel like a person googling stuff, but obviously that's less compelling. I think it's feasible someone who doesn't generally like deductive games can get pulled into OD's world and enjoy it as a result - that's not the case for Roottrees, it lives and dies by its core gameplay.
If it was the independent scenes that were the issue in Golden Idol though I don't think that's an issue in Roottrees. The whole investigation feels pretty interconnected, even the extra investigation you unlock after completing the main game.
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Comment on What games have you been playing, and what's your opinion on them? in ~games
CaptainMeme LinkThe Roottrees Are Dead A group of friends and I play detective style games on Mondays, so have nicknamed them Monday Games. The latest Monday Game is Roottrees and boy oh boy has it been living up...The Roottrees Are Dead
A group of friends and I play detective style games on Mondays, so have nicknamed them Monday Games. The latest Monday Game is Roottrees and boy oh boy has it been living up to the hype.
You have to piece together a large family tree using a starting dossier of information, and the game's in-game internet and library systems. You get the information in a similar way to Her Story, by searching key phrases - phrases that you'll notice in other documents as you go. You'll begin by using the internet for everything, because it's an easy way to find details about notable family members.
Very quickly you discover, though, that the internet isn't perfect - and that's where the game starts becoming this incredible maze of cross-referencing. Maybe a person's name is too common to Google search, but you found out from their grandson's website that they lived in a certain city, so you delve into that local newspaper's archive - and find an advertisement for a company run by that person, which gives you enough to bounce back to the internet again and search the company name, and find out it has an 'our history' page with some of the details you're looking for.
The whole is a really great deductive experience and scratches the same itch that Obra Dinn did - very high praise as that's one of my favourite games.
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Comment on Have you ever witnessed the Butterfly Effect? in ~life
CaptainMeme Link ParentIt was a teacher for me! My high school maths teacher brought a bunch of board games on a school trip, and during one of them told me that I seem like the kind of person who would like a game...It was a teacher for me! My high school maths teacher brought a bunch of board games on a school trip, and during one of them told me that I seem like the kind of person who would like a game called Diplomacy. I was interested so she set up a board game evening after school and brought the game (which everyone except me ended up hating but which I immediately fell in love with).
I started playing online very shortly after that, and went to some in-person tournaments too. Cut to fifteen years later - I've met most of my friends through Diplomacy, I met my fiancé through one of those Diplomacy friends, my bachelors dissertation was on Diplomacy, and I worked at Facebook on Diplomacy AI for a year. And I eventually started making videos about it which has sort of half-become my job now.
It's insane to think how different my life would have been if that teacher hadn't shared their niche interest with me.
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Comment on The golden age of US reality TV might be changing, possibly declining in ~tv
CaptainMeme Link ParentI realise re-reading your comment that if you've been on a binge you've almost certainly watched Genius already :D But I'll leave the comment up for others and just in case you haven'tI realise re-reading your comment that if you've been on a binge you've almost certainly watched Genius already :D But I'll leave the comment up for others and just in case you haven't
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Comment on The golden age of US reality TV might be changing, possibly declining in ~tv
CaptainMeme Link ParentIf you like the Devil's Plan, 'The Genius' is another gameshow along similar lines and is absolutely incredible imo. It's a bit tough to find but if you can, the Korean version is well worth a watch!If you like the Devil's Plan, 'The Genius' is another gameshow along similar lines and is absolutely incredible imo. It's a bit tough to find but if you can, the Korean version is well worth a watch!
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Comment on What video games have had you taking real-life notes? in ~games
CaptainMeme LinkThe Painscreek Killings was one some friends and I were playing where we were leaving notes about characters, motives, story events etc in a discord channel and ended up with a mountain of info to...The Painscreek Killings was one some friends and I were playing where we were leaving notes about characters, motives, story events etc in a discord channel and ended up with a mountain of info to comb through. That was a very different experience to other detective games I played, I really enjoyed it.
More recently we've been playing Lorelei and the Laser Eyes, which is more keeping notes about puzzles and suchlike, but also very enjoyable so far.
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Comment on What games have you been playing, and what's your opinion on them? in ~games
CaptainMeme Link ParentYep, those are the ones! And yes, I'd recommend doing them after unlocking everything else. I started on them a little earlier than that but they are very much endgame content.Yep, those are the ones! And yes, I'd recommend doing them after unlocking everything else. I started on them a little earlier than that but they are very much endgame content.
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Comment on What games have you been playing, and what's your opinion on them? in ~games
CaptainMeme Link ParentThis is the first time I've seen someone else talking about this game! I played through it and it's a really tough experience to describe, but I think you've done so better than I could. I was...This is the first time I've seen someone else talking about this game! I played through it and it's a really tough experience to describe, but I think you've done so better than I could. I was initially a bit worried that all the puzzles would be very simple and they'd gone quantity over quality, but that turned out not to be the case at all.
Things I liked about the game:
- The tile puzzles in particular had really great variety, and ramped up in difficulty at a nice pace. There were also scattered puzzles that had much higher difficulties that you could attempt much earlier if you wanted to.
- I think the way the game introduces mechanics with chains of puzzles works very well. I don't think there was ever a jump where I felt like I hadn't been prepared for a puzzle, which is a bit different to my experience with the Witness!
- The exploration I was a bit dubious, but two things I really enjoy about it are that you can stumble across plenty of puzzles on your way to another location (and choose whether to attempt them or not), and that you can fly to islands you technically haven't unlocked yet to attempt things early if you want to - the game calls you out on it but allows you to keep going, and I really love that.
- There's a certain type of puzzle in the endgame (orbs that you unlock with riddles attached) that were some of the most satisfying solves I've ever done in a puzzle game. A lot of them are tough but really, really clever and figuring them out makes you feel like a beast.
My problems with the game:
- As you mention, the story really just shouldn't exist. I usually read dialogue in games but this felt incredibly disjointed and meandering with no real purpose, so I ended up skipping a good amount of it.
- The game has performance issues - particularly in tile puzzles, which is really odd because they should be the easiest thing to render. My PC was really struggling with the game even on medium settings on a 3060ti.
- The multiplayer just... doesn't impact anything. It's so weird to make it a live service and not have any puzzles that require interacting with another player at all.
- XP grinding makes no sense for a game like this, and I hate that the puzzles on the mainland reset to allow for it. I'd much prefer what I've done to stay done, I'm glad the islands at least work that way.
- The fractal puzzles are just annoying and don't seem to work half the time; it feels like you can get an exact match and it won't accept it. It's doubly annoying because they're also one of the puzzle types that hints don't work on.
- Lastly, those riddle puzzles I mentioned earlier - some of them are the absolute best things in the game, and others are... not. I ended up following a walkthrough for a good half of them after getting frustrated enough with them to give up. I think my opinion on these are that the good ones give you relatively decent information on where in the world to be looking, whereas there are quite a few that require scouring the entire world looking for something that's been vaguely described to you and are all relatively easy to miss.
Overall it was very much a mixed bag. I'd still definitely recommend it to a puzzle fan, but probably with the caveat of not shying away from using a walkthrough for some of the riddle puzzles if they do want to experience the endgame content.
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Comment on In the AI era, is translation already dead? in ~humanities.languages
CaptainMeme Link ParentI remember re-reading the Asterix and Obelix comics and being incredibly impressed by the translation. It's not really something you think about as a child reading it, but the amount of language...I remember re-reading the Asterix and Obelix comics and being incredibly impressed by the translation. It's not really something you think about as a child reading it, but the amount of language jokes in it is amazing - presumably almost all of them had to be entirely reworked from the original. I really can't see AI sticking the landing with things like that anytime soon.
It's not entirely the same as your example but it hits the same notes I think - translation is partially recreating the work, but also partially adapting the work, and in fiction specifically translators have to work hard to hit that balance.
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Comment on 12 Word Searches: a printable puzzle book in ~games.tabletop
CaptainMeme Link ParentThe main thing I've done along these lines before are Puzzle Hunts, although they're generally designed for teams instead of individuals and are over a specified timeframe. The MIT Mystery Hunt is...The main thing I've done along these lines before are Puzzle Hunts, although they're generally designed for teams instead of individuals and are over a specified timeframe. The MIT Mystery Hunt is coming up on the 12th Jan - I usually find the first round puzzles of that to be doable and fun, they get a bit too difficult for me beyond that :D
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Comment on 12 Word Searches: a printable puzzle book in ~games.tabletop
CaptainMeme LinkThank you for linking this! It's the type of thing I really enjoy even though I'm not the best at it :D Have been working on it on and off throughout the day, am at the very last puzzle now.Thank you for linking this! It's the type of thing I really enjoy even though I'm not the best at it :D Have been working on it on and off throughout the day, am at the very last puzzle now.
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Comment on What games have you been playing, and what's your opinion on them? in ~games
CaptainMeme Link ParentI had (probably) the same Mirror's Edge retrospective pop up, and had been tempted to get it and give it a go, but from this and a couple of other posts I've seen about it I'm going to pass, I...I had (probably) the same Mirror's Edge retrospective pop up, and had been tempted to get it and give it a go, but from this and a couple of other posts I've seen about it I'm going to pass, I think.
From what I saw in the retrospective, I think Neon White does everything Mirror's Edge was trying to do around being a movement-based game, and does it much better. Would highly recommend that instead if you're looking for that kind of game.
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Comment on The longest game of Diplomacy ever in ~games.tabletop
CaptainMeme LinkJust went through and fixed a bunch of links that I assumed would work, but don't anymore. Guess that's a lesson in not just copy/pasting a 7 year old article! They should all be working now. I've...Just went through and fixed a bunch of links that I assumed would work, but don't anymore. Guess that's a lesson in not just copy/pasting a 7 year old article! They should all be working now.
I've also got a new quote to add to the ones at the bottom about Diplomacy:
"It's just hell, Diplomacy, in a wonderful way." - Matt Lees, Shut Up and Sit Down
I haven't seen many people talk about Paranormasight!
It's a super interesting game, although my feeling was that it was pretty frontloaded - it felt like the start of the game was made with a lot of good ideas and care, but the rest felt quite rushed. Might just have felt that way because the start set the bar so high, though.