Started another run of Monster Sanctuary - one of my all time favorites. It’s a mix of Metroidvania and monster tamer and both parts work really well. Monster combat is teams of 3v3 and is pretty deep with individual skill trees for each monster and tons of synergies. Metroidvania elements also work really well - there is defo quite a bit openness to which area to explore first and there are also some optional and post game areas to find.

They also included some cool features for replayability - randomizer, permadeath for monsters, and a “bravery mode” giving you 1 random monster per area only for a cool challenge to come up with a build. I have over 10 playthroughs of it :D

There is also online pvp - not sure if the scene is still active, but there was an interesting tournament scene. I’m more about the single player though

Cool sounds good!

Facebook content is already posted mostly by bots. I guess question is if those bot owners are willing to pay up ans then FB could cash in a bit on all the AI shite, Russian disinformation, scams, etc.

Not sure if it’s part of Winter Sale, but I’ll get Mandragora Whisper of the Witch Tree (I’ll get it on Switch though where it’s also on sale). A work colleague heartily recommended it to me and it looks like a cool game; 2d platformer with hard “soulslike” combat, but doesn’t look like it’s going too hard on the “soulslike”. Supposedly very good exploration.

Tfw I don’t know enough about cookies to get it

These prosecutions are not consistent with the current prosecutorial priorities of the United States, which direct the Department of Justice’s resources into Making America Safe Again.

So charges are dropped not because he seems innocent, but because of political direction of justice now which must be focused on deporting innocent immigrants and building Reich 4.0

Not even the most crab president ever

Zelda Link’s Awakening … this one somehow has both the most Nostalgia and replayability for me even though I have also played the N64 Zeldas when growing up

Factorio - of course can’t go without Cracktorio

Caves of Qud - really good mix of roguelike and open world RPG. Lot’s of replayability as well.

Diablo 2 Resurrected - one of my favrotie games of all time. Got back into it recently on Switch and it’s just soo good. Also big Nostalgia for me

Mario Kart Double Dash - need to have something I can play with my wife and Mario Kart is just the Couch Multiplayer game. Double Dash is my favorite entry of the series as well

I’d say I hit a solid ish genre mix as well with it. Pity I couldn’t fit an FPS though

It’s funny how these “patriots” are best buddies with countries like Russia (we are currently at war with essentially), China (generally adversarial superpower) and US (we are currently engaged in trade war with). Surely they can just have the best interests for Germany with such a great portfolio of allies.

Tbh has like any American politician ever been held accountable for their war crimes? Henry Kissinger? Obama with his drone strikes? All that shit that happened in Irak under Bush and Dick Cheney?

The US just leaves any international body that would want to hold one of theirs accountable.

Mhm I just contribute to the Wikipedia… that one I feel is super worthwhile - it actually has been under heavy criticism by the US right lately, because they only want their version of “truth” to be the only one represented. Obv inconvenient for the powers that be, if there is freely available information that they can’t control. I’m not contributing on any hot topic though (mainly music/bands) - but I still feel like everything that you can find on Wikipedia strengthens its position as a tool that people go to for info.

A local wiki also sounds cool, but I have no idea what I would contribute there.

It wasn’t “solarpunk” at the time, but I am vegetarian now for 15 years ish (since my early 20s). I do think better would be to go vegan and I have been trying to reduce dairy, but it’s a bit tricky since a) we also have a small daughter and nutrition is such a complex topic for her as well and b) my wife while having gone veggie due to meeting me is not on board with giving up cheese. It is something I want to tackle more in the future though. I’ve been mostly motivated by animal suffering and factory farming initially, but ecologically it just makes so much sense as well for climate impact, space usage, water usage, etc.

A small solarpunk thing that I am doing now is choosing regional insect friendly plants for my garden and also learning more about ecological aspects there.

Also while kinda ineffectual, I started editing Wikipedia. IMO shared knowledge building like that is also very solarpunk. It’s also some “direct action” that is suitable for a lazy couch sitter like me who struggles to do “practice” otherwise.

Also very much just a point of privilege on my side, but we did manage to build a house and I have literal solar panels on my roof. Not very punk, but very solar wow.

This text is just indistinguishable from satire

It’s a government of crooks and grifters, so looking like a grifter site does make it look authentic

Gem of a game! I kinda 100%ed it. I like how the difficulty is fair, but can be extremely punishing - one wrong move can fck you up big time. Like “ohhh I did not consider that this attack also pushes the monster D:”

And of course it is a cost cutting measure. In the UK centuries of academic tradition are sacrificed on the altar of neoliberalism

Doesn’t sound like he will be too sad

Musk, an antagonist to various figures in the worlds of business and politics, has a close relationship with Ellison – who is often described as a mentor to the South Africa-born tech entrepreneur.

Ellison sat on the board of Tesla between 2018 and 2022 and put $1bn into Musk’s purchase of Twitter – since rebranded as X. According to Walter Isaacson’s biography of Musk, when the Tesla CEO asked Ellison to invest in Twitter, Ellison said he would put in a billion dollars or “whatever you recommend”. Musk is a frequent visitor to Ellison’s Hawaiian island, Lanai, according to the book.

They announced some upcoming expansions, I wonder if one of those would address the “story always the same” part, since that does seem to be a common criticism

I got really deep into Caves of Qud (classic rogue like) after initially dropping it for being too difficult. It has a bit of a learning curve, but beyond that, it is really fun. Very engaging sci-fi fantasy world, lots of interesting things to do or see, some fun random quirks/jank, and very diverse character customization. I think what I love the most is that it’s a knowledge game, where you excel by learning some bits and tricks here and there, like the effects of cooking with certain ingredients or getting some special items with an important effect (aka cheesing stuff).

Also besides being a very hard roguelike, it is really chill in a way (also helpt by the music).

If you do have struggles with it, I can recommend giving roleplaying mode a spin, where you don’t have permadeath, or there is a website called qudzoo with some seriously good advice.

“Small state” somehow often includes huge military and policing apparatus.