I never see Cultist Simulator recommended but it’s one of my favorites. It really captures the idea of studying the esoteric arts, and has a surprising amount of world building given how simple the presentation is.

It’s all fucked up heartwrenching bullshit and/or confusion through the main game, AND THEN you play the “plus” stories and they’re fucking incredibly empathetic and thoughtful with positive messaging about neurodivergence and also feel like they might fall into a lesbian porno at any minute

He’s actively anti-MAGA. Dude knows first-hand what fascism does to people.

Huh. Might be hardware and I got lucky. I do agree that hibernate on Linux is mostly terrible, though I have had plenty of issues with it in Windows too. I think hibernate mostly just sucks

Yes, this is my go to nowadays for all my family and friends. Atomic makes it harder for them to break it and everything just works out of the box.

I run Bazzite, which is Fedora Atomic, that hibernates just fine. In fact, so far it’s the only one that does. Arch and Mint both would never come back from sleep.

Most of this already exists and they haven’t taken that tack, though. SteamOS is just Arch and KDE, with access to anything Arch has access to. If you don’t like that, Valve made it trivial to put another OS on the Deck, like Bazzite.

Steam Play is already a streaming technology, which works great and is free to use and has been for like at least a decade.

Steam Store is already gigantic, despite having some well funded competition who has to resort to exclusives and free game giveaways to entice users. It’s already the de facto default game store for PC, and provides lots of extra features beyond just game delivery.

Most of the technology Steam uses (like Proton or GameScope or Arch) are open-source. We can (and do) fork their work for our own purposes regularly.

I don’t think Valve is perfect, but I do think they value their open approach to technology. I think as long as the company is never publicly traded, I would imagine anyone who currently works at Valve would share that attitude with GabeN, otherwise I imagine they wouldn’t work there long.

If they go public and have to report to shareholders, then I completely agree that the enshittification will be swift and merciless. I hope Gabe makes Valve an employee-owned co-op or something when he decides to retire. I can only imagine he has strong plans for the transition of power.

I’d work on my car and my computer/gamedev stuff, and teach others to do the same. Also more gardening.

It’s just the worst. I hate doing UI. A UX expert would be very high on my wish list of people to work with, lol.

As for reading list, right now it’s really just a big pile of things, not much order. There’s a lot of recommended reading in this book too that’ll get added I’m sure. You can look at my big mess of a github repo:

https://github.com/GrapeSodaGames/learn/

There’s a million issues in there with book suggestions, as well as my notes in the closed issues. I am planning to put up a little website to contain my knowledge for future reference. I’m really trying to create a habit to Learn In Public so I’m gonna put everything I do up there in that github org. Feedback and contributions of course welcome.

Yeah for sure. I’m about a third of the way through “The Art of Game Design: A Book Of Lenses” and it has proven to be a very useful book full of actionable tools to help get the creative juices flowing. The titular “Lenses” each consist of a few questions to ask yourself as you make decisions about your game. Some neat examples:

Lens 007: The Lens of Endogenous Value A game’s success hinges on the players’ willingness to pretend it is important. To use this lens, think about your players’ feelings about items, objects, and scoring in your game. Ask these questions:

1. What is valuable to the players in my game?
2. How can I make it more valuable to them?
3. What is the relationship between value in the game and the players’ motivations?

Remember, the value of the items and score in the game is a direct reflection of how much the players care about succeeding in your game. By thinking about what the players really care about and why, you can often get insights about how your game can improve.

LENS 009: The Lens of the Elemental Tetrad To use this lens, take stock of what your game is truly made of. Consider each element separately and then all of them together as a whole. Ask yourself these questions:

1. Is my game design using elements of all four types?
2. Could my design be improved by enhancing elements in one or more of the categories?
3. Are the four elements in harmony, reinforcing each other and working together toward a common theme?

LENS 015: The Lens of the Eight Filters To use this lens, you must consider the many constraints your design must satisfy. You can only call your design finished when it can pass through all eight filters without requiring a change. Ask yourself these key questions:

1. Artistic Impulse (“Does this feel right to me?”)
2. Demographics (“Will the intended audience like it?”)
3. Experience Design (“Is this well designed?”)
4. Innovation (“Is this novel?”)
5. Business and Marketing (“Will it be profitable?”)
6. Engineering(“Is it technically possible?”)
7. Social/Community (“Does it meet our social and community goals?”)
8. Playtesting (“Do the playtesters like it?”)

In some situations, there may be still more filters; for example, an educational game will also have to answer questions like “Does this game teach what it is supposed to?” If your design requires more filters, don’t neglect them.

The author has worked on a number of experiences for Disney that he relays as well, creating bespoke hardware and incredibly immersive short experiences. His emphasis on cross-domain knowledge and attention to detail in all aspects really appeals to me.

I’ve had to take a little break, got some life stuff going on, but I’m hoping to finish this book by the end of the month.

Oh here’s another fun one, I had a friend in high school whose mother was Taiwanese, and I wasn’t allowed to go into their house because I was Japanese. Like, I know the history, lady, but I’m 15 and both my parents were born in California. Luckily my buddy also agreed his mom was a racist.

I am white looking, but my parents are Jewish and Japanese. Basically every time I tell someone I’m Jewish (culturally, I am an atheist nowadays) it completely changes how people interact with me. The best I can hope for is being the “token Jewish friend” most of the time, but I’ve been treated to racial slurs and even physical violence. In middle school, the rich son of the local pastor called me a kike and I broke his nose for it. I was suspended from school and he was treated like a victim. Looking back on it, that might have been the beginning of my radicalization.

I bought a box of spoons at the Business Costco and now this is my whole life

When the corners are very, very tight, and there’s hardly any straights, it’s often beneficial to maintain entry speed and get the car rotated in the right direction quickly, assuming you’re capable of recovering the slide at the appropriate time. Look at how rally drivers take tight hairpins even on tarmac. Imo big showy drifts aren’t fast but they do serve as good practice for understanding the car at the limit and reacting in low-grip situations.

Bong rip

Check out Bazzite, it’s basically that. I’ve been using it on my desktop for gaming and development for a month or so now and it’s been great.

I have a PinePhone Pro and if the battery would last longer than a few hours, it would totally work as a daily driver. Fast enough and can do everything I need it to do, but 3-4 hour battery life. If someone can figure that part out, I think it’ll be good enough for at least early adopters.

It’s not bad. I haven’t dug too much into it but it’s got the pokemon feel and I’ve enjoyed what I played of it.

Getting my Pinephone Pro up and running, and getting away from Google forever, finally. Also I’m gonna make the jump from Arch to either Gentoo and/or Guix, I think.