secret_online's recent activity
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Comment on To celebrate Minecraft turning fifteen, gaze upon the glory of new paintings by old friend Kristoffer Zetterstrand – artist is behind classics such as “Skull on Fire” and “Pigscene” in ~games
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Comment on The "Great Games"- AAA titles, easy brand recognition- are what everyone pushes. But sometimes you need a "just average" game. in ~games
secret_online Link ParentI feel this so hard. I recently finished Avatar: Frontiers of Pandora, and it took me so much effort to actually finish. At the start I was able to play the game for a few hours at a time, but by...As much hate as the "Ubisoft" formula gets online, there's a very addictive, rewarding, and easy gameplay loop.
I feel this so hard. I recently finished Avatar: Frontiers of Pandora, and it took me so much effort to actually finish. At the start I was able to play the game for a few hours at a time, but by the end the amount of time I wanted to be actually playing just kept shrinking and shrinking. Yet somehow, despite loathing being in the game (the word "loathing" simultaneously being too strong and not strong enough at the same time), I kept wanting to get back into it.
It's not all bad. The world is beautiful, the art serene, the music great, and the story serviceable. The gameplay itself it pretty simple, having a few movement options (running and sliding is fun, even though it's not the fastest way of getting around) and some variation in weaponry when it comes to combat. The mini-challenge of clearing facilities without being spotted made me engage with the stealth mechanic more, the Batman vision is very helpful, and the gear crafting ties into the resource collection with an encyclopaedia that has fun little lore and world building details right alongside the gameplay info you need. It's good, but at the same time I just can't bring myself to recommend it.
I loved Assassin's Creed: Mirage more than any other modern AC game for one reason: it was 30 hours instead of 100. I haven't had a similar feeling in games from other publishers, it's just Ubisoft. I still haven't quite pinned down why I keep coming back to this style of open-world game when I clearly have objections to it.
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Comment on Transport for London’s AI Tube station experiment in ~transport
secret_online LinkAll things considered, it looks like TfL's (Transport for London) use of image recognition in this trial is pretty reasonable. The signal of aggression being raising your arms was an interesting...All things considered, it looks like TfL's (Transport for London) use of image recognition in this trial is pretty reasonable. The signal of aggression being raising your arms was an interesting find. The article acknowledges the potential use-case of staff raising their hands to call for help as a quick action, rather than having to futz about on a tablet in a dangerous situation. That's a cool unintended side effect that possibly has applications elsewhere too.
I do wonder what the other use-cases that were discarded were, especially the others in the shortlist that were in the high/medium category. Also the fact that some protected characteristics were being used by the system initially set off alarm bells, but upon thinking for 2 seconds it became clear that accessible needs (of all kinds) are a no-brainer. I do think having an explicit list of which characteristics are being processed would be good for transparency, rather than just a "the list includes these two but we're not actually going to tell you what else in in there". And finally facial recognition was being used for fare evasion in later parts of the trial, which makes me a little iffy. I acknowledge that for what they were trialing it's necessary, but hope its use stays limited. I'm not necessarily against its use, but I'd rather see more clarity and controls around how its used.
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Comment on What was your first computer game? (Soundcheck question 2023) in ~games
secret_online (edited )LinkCivilization: Call to Power. My grandfather had a copy, and between that and his train set I'd always be entertained when I visited. Being young, I quickly found the cheats menu, gave myself...My grandfather had a copy, and between that and his train set I'd always be entertained when I visited. Being young, I quickly found the cheats menu, gave myself near-infinite resources, and set about just building an empire. I'd spend my time placing a terrible network of roads/rails and working every possible tile I could to extract the maximum amount of stuff. My cheated technological superiority dissuaded my neighbours from being aggressive, but if they ever got brave enough they'd be dealt with quickly. With my infinite resources I'd reshape the terrain to my liking, though I'd usually just flatten everything because is had no creativity. I especially loved sending resources and units up to space, because there's an entire other layer of tiles up there. I'd actually love to see space gameplay like the Call to Power games in mainline Civ.
Having a turn-based strategy game as my first real gaming experience was great. It gave me an opportunity to be strategic with my
cheatingchoices, and gave me the opportunity to learn that style of storytelling that comes with the genre. My grandfather also had this A1 or A2 sized poster with the tech tree on one side and unit summaries on the other. I loved looking at those and thinking about human progress through this simplified and gamified lens.When he passed, my mum asked if I wanted the disc. It's sitting in my drawer, since I don't have a disc drive in my current PC, and I don't think it even runs. Last time I tried to play it I could only open the tutorial, couldn't save, and cutscenes wouldn't play so eventually the game would lock itself. I suppose I could try running it in a VM running Windows 98 for the nostalgia factor and see if that works.
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Comment on What is a classical music piece you like? And why? in ~music
secret_online LinkSymphony No. 1 by Vasily Kalinnikov is something that will always stick with me ever since the band I was in played the finale. Beautiful melodies, strong development of its ideas, incredible...Symphony No. 1 by Vasily Kalinnikov is something that will always stick with me ever since the band I was in played the finale. Beautiful melodies, strong development of its ideas, incredible orchestration, it's just an amazing work. I truly believe that this is something that should be more widely known. If you already know it, great. Have another listen. If it's your first time, give yourself an hour in a spot you love and enjoy.
Also the entirely of Camille Saint-Saëns' The Carnival of the Animals. Personal highlights include:
- Aquarium, because it's the perfect musical representation of shallow water and you can practically hear the caustics of the light source dancing across the floor
- Fossils, for first up being an absolute banger (because it's based on his own Danse Macabre and that's also one of my all-time favourite pieces of music ever) and then straight up playing Twinkle Twinkle Little Star (or the alphabet song if you prefer) like an absolute madlad
- Tortioses, because it's the Can-can and never before or since has the entirety of tortoisekind been lovingly insulted so much as the time this one guy decided that the best/funniest way to depict tortioses was to play the Can-can but slowly. It's musical genius
- The cuckoo, because all the darknesses of the forest are no match for just two notes
Honestly I could talk about all of the movements. It's such a good introduction to music's ability to paint entire scenes without a single word.
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Comment on Monaspace in ~design
secret_online Link ParentI'm not going to discuss ligatures, I personally like them, but instead focus on other aspects of the fonts. Imagine if everything (everything) was typeset in Times New Roman. It'd suck. Times...I'm not going to discuss ligatures, I personally like them, but instead focus on other aspects of the fonts.
Imagine if everything (everything) was typeset in Times New Roman. It'd suck. Times isn't bad, but different typefaces have different stylistic choices. Wide vs. thin, ink traps vs. not, low x-height vs. high x-height, geometric vs. ... not geometric? I don't know the actual term for that. Those differences affect the reading experience, I'd say far more than the classical classifications of "Serif", "Sans", and "Mono". In fact I think our way of classifying typefaces needs to change, but I know I'm not the right person for that.
I'm currently using Jetbrains Mono because its uniform-ish shapes and lack of serifs make it really easy to scan text vertically. After using it for a while, I found my eye wasn't being caught on certain characters as I scanned through a file. It did actually make a difference to my day-to-day experience in the editor. Since I read a lot more than I write, finding a typeface that gives a cleaner reading experience helps, even if it's just a little bit.
It doesn't stop me from being able to read on someone else's screen, but it is something that I notice now.
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Comment on XML is better than YAML. Hear me out... in ~comp
secret_online Link ParentNote that the Norway problem was addressed in YAML 1.2, released in 2009. The core schema (the recommended mode to parse a document) defines a boolean to be true|True|TRUE|false|False|FALSE,...Note that the Norway problem was addressed in YAML 1.2, released in 2009. The core schema (the recommended mode to parse a document) defines a boolean to be
true|True|TRUE|false|False|FALSE, instead of YAML 1.1'sy|Y|yes|Yes|YES|n|N|no|No|NO|true|True|TRUE|false|False|FALSE|on|On|ON|off|Off|OFF. But without any versioning in the spec† there's no way to tell whether an application uses a YAML 1.1 or 1.2 parser, so it's always safer to just.. use YAML 1.1 and deal with the quoting all the time.For me the worst thing is that a YAML file that has been chopped in half (whether due to errors in transmission or writing to disk) is still a valid YAML file. While writing braces for your JSON gets a bit tedious, at least you can do a bracket balancing check to ensure you have the whole document.
†: That's probably a good thing. Let's not have another DOCTYPE situation on our hands.
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Comment on What is your most important game? in ~games
secret_online Link ParentI honestly don't think it matters in which order you play them. My point was more about the shock of going from one philosophy of combat design to another (is it a puzzle or a challenge?). I think...I honestly don't think it matters in which order you play them. My point was more about the shock of going from one philosophy of combat design to another (is it a puzzle or a challenge?).
I think the decision of which to play first should more depend on whether you want to go straight from Kingmaker to Wrath of the Righteous, or have a little break in-between. (Side note: I haven't played Wrath of the Righteous yet, but one of my RPG-loving friends really enjoyed it and I'll be picking it up when I find room in my games schedule. This has been a good year for games)
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Comment on What is your most important game? in ~games
secret_online LinkFirst up, Minecraft. At the time, everyone around me was playing different Call of Duties (mostly Modern Warfare 2 and BlOps) which really wasn't my style. Then one day someone brought in...First up, Minecraft. At the time, everyone around me was playing different Call of Duties (mostly Modern Warfare 2 and BlOps) which really wasn't my style. Then one day someone brought in Minecraft and it redefined what games meant to me. The enjoyment I got out of even just watching people play it almost forced me to reinvent how I approached social interactions during a pretty formative time in my own life. Then getting my own account and playing online gave me a space to try being more social in a space where I could just dip out at any point and join a new server if I messed up. I also wouldn't have realised I could go into software if Redstone didn't make that kind of thinking useful and practical.
And secondly Divinity: Original Sin II. This game single-handedly carried me through my Honours year. At the time I was pretty much done with playthrough number I-forgot-how-many of Skyrim and playthrough 3 of The Witcher 3 (which I nearly 100%ed, all quests and locations except mutually exclusive quests and the boat symbols in Skellige). I'd seen everything those games had to offer, and there was no real point in playing them again. Then I picked up D:OS2 and my experience with RPGs was never the same again. The thing I like to focus on when telling people about it is that the combat never gets boring. In other isometric CRPGs the combat can get very same-y very quickly. Playing Pathfinder: Kingmaker after a D:OS2 playthrough makes this painfully obvious. No two fights in the game have the same composition of enemies. When they are similar, then the area you're fighting in makes them play out completely differently. I can talk with the friends I've done co-op with and just mention "that Blackpits fight", The S****w Man, the Fort Joy frogs, the gatehouse to Arx, or any others to instantly be on the same page. The game is memorable because its core loop of exploration, dialogue, and combat never gets old. Exploration always has something new around the corner, the writing and world-building keeps up right to the very end where it wavers but you're at the end of the game so it's not that bad, and the combat stays fresh because you're always put in new situations where you have to be tactical about your decisions. I am glad this game exists, and that it existed when I needed it. I am so excited for Baldur's Gate 3, being developed by the same company.
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Comment on What games have you been playing, and what's your opinion on them? in ~games
secret_online LinkI've mostly being playing a Minecraft modpack called Cottage Witch with a friend and their partner. We usually do a rush to build farms to get tonnes of resources, but this time we decided to slow...I've mostly being playing a Minecraft modpack called Cottage Witch with a friend and their partner. We usually do a rush to build farms to get tonnes of resources, but this time we decided to slow down and take it easy. It's been a welcome change of pace. I've mostly been focusing on Ars Nouveau, a magic mod that allows you to build your own spells out of parts, and it's been fun. I've finally got my building groove on, so now I'm moving my messes inside and decorating with the wide variety of decoration mods that are in the pack.
There's also the new Deep Rock Galactic update, which has been fun so far. The new enemies perfectly counter two bad habits (the Septic Spreader ensures you keep moving and don't just stand still, and the Stingtail means I can't just go off and scale a wall without backup). The sound design is as good as ever, and I love the squeaky toy sound as the Stingtail is about to pounce. Also I think there are more bugs spawning when clearing lithophage spikes, which means I can no longer solo them on Haz 4. That's ultimately a good change for the game as it means actual teamwork again, and you actually have to stop midway through to clear out bugs so you can continue.
Other than that I'm in a bit of a lul. There are a few singleplayer games I'm interested in on the horizon so I am waiting for those.
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Comment on What games have you been playing, and what's your opinion on them? in ~games
secret_online (edited )Link ParentJust a small clarification for people who don't know the series: make sure you search for Divinity: Original Sin 2. Divinity 2 (released 2009, sometimes called Ego Draconis) is a classic isometric...Divinity 2 (by the same studio)
Just a small clarification for people who don't know the series: make sure you search for Divinity: Original Sin 2. Divinity 2 (released 2009, sometimes called Ego Draconis) is a classic isometric CRPG and the third game in the original series. Divinity: Original Sin 2 (released 2017) is the sequel to the reboot of the series, and is usually the game people talk about.
You don't need to have played any of the previous games to know what's going on. In fact you don't even need to have played Divinity: Original Sin as a lot of the world building was redone (and for the better, IMO). If there was anything that would contextualise anything between games, it would be the minor spoiler I'll leave in the next block.
Minor spoilers for the Divinity universe
The king mentioned a lot in the first area of Divinity: Original Sin 2 is a bad guy from Original Sin 1 who keeps cropping up. The fleshing out of his evil deeds that happens on the isle is a nice bit of fan service.
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Comment on Share your recent Platinum, 100% or 1000G you have achieved in ~games
secret_online Link ParentAn update to the game allows you to fight them if you attack rather than entering "dialogue". Saves having to go through the first 2/3 of the game just for that one achievement. Funnily enough,...An update to the game allows you to fight them if you attack rather than entering "dialogue". Saves having to go through the first 2/3 of the game just for that one achievement. Funnily enough, according to Steam's statistics, more people have gotten the good ending than the bad.
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Comment on Do you do anything with eye-opening/thought-provoking text content? in ~life
secret_online LinkIt's more for links than for general text content, but I wrote a website to store links I find interesting and search for them by tag later. It's turned out pretty handy at times when I talk to...It's more for links than for general text content, but I wrote a website to store links I find interesting and search for them by tag later. It's turned out pretty handy at times when I talk to people about a topic and can quickly find references and articles. I also make a quick browser extension which will pre-fill the form with the current page, and it also handles the URL query parameters that get used when sharing to a website on mobile.
I have wondered about using some form of journaling or a more text-based approach, but I have very perfectionist tendencies and I know if I try to wrote a summary of why I found something interesting I'd just struggle getting the words right. I've managed to find/make a balance that works for me by limiting what I can store to just a link, a description (autofilled to the page's title), and a set of tags. I don't find myself saving everything in it, but if I get the inkling I'll be coming back to it then I'll save it. The tag search is pretty quick to use (with some rules about lifting up matches with multiple tags), and I sort of just know what tags to use when looking for something.
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Comment on Thoughts on making Tildes groups more independent in ~tildes.official
secret_online LinkI'll preface that I'm a recent migrant from Reddit, and so my biases are definitely towards what is familiar to me. My instinct, largely informed by Reddit of course, is something akin to /r/all,...I'll preface that I'm a recent migrant from Reddit, and so my biases are definitely towards what is familiar to me.
- What should logged-out users see on the homepage?
My instinct, largely informed by Reddit of course, is something akin to /r/all, where you get everything (except ~test). I also think this view should be available to logged in users too.
I used Reddit for three separate, but related, purposes: discussion on things I cared about (i.e. subs I subbed to), discovery of new things (/r/all, but with some heavy filtering to remove things I just didn't want to see), and doomscrolling (also fulfilled by /r/all). Tildes as it stands does #1 pretty well, doesn't do #2 if you actually unsubscribe from the defaults (hello, I'm one of the people who unsubbed from ~anime as soon as they figured out how), and #3 is a function of activity on the site (the more activity, the more doom to scroll).
- Should logged-in users still have a homepage made up of all their subscribed groups mixed together, or should we lean further into the separation by requiring groups to be viewed individually?
I'd rather see all groups I subscribe to in one place. This was something I really appreciated from when I first joined Reddit, as it reflected my reality much more closely: I am not a set of siloed topics in their own areas, I am a messy human being whose interests all mix and meld together to form whatever I am.
- How should we transition existing users over to the opt-in approach?
Is a migration for existing users necessary? This change isn't adding any new groups as it stands, yet, so existing users' subscriptions can be left as-is. I feel there are two other questions that jump out:
- What groups do you give new users?
- What users get subscribed to new groups?
Reddit's answer to those new questions are "a set of defaults", and "nobody as people must discover it themselves (either in other discussions, offsite, or through /r/all)".
What do I think would help Tildes? I don't think I'm qualified to answer, given my newness and inexperience with the culture of the site. But if I had a go, it'd be something like:
- While the numbers of groups is small, just give them everything. This has the added bonus of keeping the initial work small in scope, and buys time until this one actually needs to be solved. Once the number of top-level groups grows, then some form of discovery would be useful. What that looks like, idk.
- Something heirarchical, at least for subgroups? Say there's ~foo and ~foo.bar and we're about to add ~foo.baz. A user subscribed to ~foo would get automatically subbed to the new ~foo.baz, but a user subbed only to ~foo.bar isn't interested in all of ~foo so wouldn't.
As for the addition of new top-level groups, that's an entirely different matter, but that might warrant a site-wide announcement which would bring visibility to that area.
Reading through other threads, I do agree that caution needs to be taken as to what gets added as a group. I, ultimately, would not be a good judge of that, but I'll be following along in those threads to get more of a feel for how this place works.
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Comment on What games have you been playing, and what's your opinion on them? in ~games
secret_online LinkA friend dragged me back to modded Minecraft (it didn't take much convincing) to play the Cottage Witch modpack. We've been taking it a bit more laid back than our usual tech-fueled race to...A friend dragged me back to modded Minecraft (it didn't take much convincing) to play the Cottage Witch modpack. We've been taking it a bit more laid back than our usual tech-fueled race to automate everything, and there's lots of good options for decoration. I've been enjoying Ars Nouveau, which is reminiscent of the old Ars Magica mod but with lots of differences.
My main group's staple of Deep Rock Galactic is currently on hold so we don't burn ourselves out, but that will likely change soon with the new season coming out later this week. They really do seasons properly. No paid pass, and progressing through the levels is pretty achievable. It really is the best co-op multiplayer shooter out there.
I recently 100%ed TUNIC on a second playthrough, with the help of a guide for the final couple of secrets (I didn't really want to translate the book, though from reading the guide I did understand how the language was constructed). I think it's the best reconstruction of what a 2D Zelda game feels like, with some challenging boss fights and some well-placed secrets.
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Comment on What games have you been playing, and what's your opinion on them? in ~games
secret_online Link ParentSupergiant's games have always had impeccable art direction. I remember playing Bastion when it first came out and being utterly enthralled by it, and it's probably the most similar to Hades. If...Supergiant's games have always had impeccable art direction. I remember playing Bastion when it first came out and being utterly enthralled by it, and it's probably the most similar to Hades. If you're interested in seeing where the studio started from, it'd be an interesting one to play (it looks like they've even brought it to the Switch). Transistor and Pyre and definitely more experimental in their gameplay, but still amazing in terms of art and world building.
One small thing, since I've seen it happen on the Hades subreddit: the game is not over when you defeat the final boss. Keep going, the game's main story will let you know when it's done. Oh, and then there's the epilogue after that.
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Comment on Mysterious, thoughtful games? A genre I can't define in ~games
secret_online LinkThe Turing Test is a short-ish first-person puzzler, and it has one of those mid-game re-contextualisations I think you're looking for. The puzzles are definitely on the more logical side, with...The Turing Test is a short-ish first-person puzzler, and it has one of those mid-game re-contextualisations I think you're looking for. The puzzles are definitely on the more logical side, with most rooms allowing you to see all of the elements right away and leaving you to puzzle it out.
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Comment on Mysterious, thoughtful games? A genre I can't define in ~games
secret_online Link ParentThe Witness is fantastic, and while the thing doesn't really re-contextualise the gameplay, it's definitely a defining moment for your experience in the game (and maybe even outside of it). Some...The Witness is fantastic, and while the thing doesn't really re-contextualise the gameplay, it's definitely a defining moment for your experience in the game (and maybe even outside of it). Some first-person puzzlers are more explorations of philosophy that almost use puzzles as a way of slowing you down and making you think about them (The Talos Principle has been mentioned throughout this topic, for good reason), and maybe The Witness falls in with those?
I know it's not quite what OP is asking for, but more recently in the screen-based puzzle-games-that-make-you-figure-out-their-mechanics-without-telling-you (genre name pending) there's been Taiji, which is very clearly inspired by The Witness, but manges to get a few ideas of its own in there. I'm not sold on the difficulty progression, as some puzzles I perceived as difficult were intermixed with ones that were definitely more achievable.
There is also a parody of The Witness, The Looker, which does a pretty good job of poking fun at the serious nature of The Witness while not going overboard. It still manages to fit some fantastic puzzles in there too (a highlight was figuring out Snék).
I'm really glad they brought Kristoffer Zetterstrand back to make the new paintings. There's definitely a mood and feeling they bring to the game, similarly to how the original soundtrack pulled the game away from the stereotypical pixel art game style. I'd be interested to see what paintings didn't make the cut, since the article mentions some were discarded due to not working at the size/scale.
The main thing here is new painting sizes! Paintings with 3 blocks width mean that paintings can be more easily used in odd width builds. That's huge.