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Joined 1 year ago
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Cake day: June 18th, 2023

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    1. I’m so fucking tired of pixel art games. And I’ve noticed recently that going back and playing actual 16 bit games with real pixels feels so much better. It’s hard to say for sure what it is, but I have a few theories.

    First, in old games that actually use pixels, everything has to snap to the grid. For these pixel art games running at 1080p or maybe higher, what is supposed to look like a pixel is actually a square made up of multiple pixels. In 16-bit games, a sprite can only move distances the same size as a pixel, but in these modern ones the “pixels” can move by fractions of their own size. It loses all the neat, discreet, visual appeal and becomes messy looking in my opinion.

    Second, the color pallet is too large. Old games had a limited selection of colors, and often in order to make the most of them the colors used would be significantly different from each other, while still all being part of a cohesive pallet. We are used to millions of colors, but consoles like the GameBoy Color and SNES only had ~32,000 to pick from total. The GameBoy Color also has a software limitation to only have 56 colors on-screen at once. Using a full, modern color pallet without those limitations allows for colors that are close to each other to be used. That’s great for 3D models where we are thing to mimic reality, but for pixel art it just makes everything look messy and sloppy. There needs to be a sharp, distinct contrast for pixels to be satisfying.

    Third, there’s just too much stuff happening. This I could probably adapt to, but I just have this expectation that pixel games should just be a few moving sprites and maybe a couple of background layers.

    1. The name “Arco” tells me absolutely nothing. It’s not memorable. It’s a complete blank slate that gets washed away. I’m not even certain if that’s just a proper noun from the game or if that’s just a different language word.

    2. A hybrid turn-based/real time strategy game? My instinct is that sounds like the worst of both worlds. It has been successful before- Transistor and Paper Mario come to mind. But in general, if in playing a turn-based game it’s because I want the chill, low-pressure experience. I probably want to be less than sober. And introducing real-time elements means that those games get pushed into the real-time category when I choose what I want to play and when. And if in playing a tacts game, 99% of the time in going to choose a turn-based one and get lit.

    3. As many others here have said, I’ve never heard of this game. I think this is a legitimate problem facing a lot industries, especially digital products. Doing some quick searching I found someone estimating that Spotify sees about 55 days worth of new audio uploaded every day. Everyone is creating and we don’t have enough to line to consume.

    Personally, I suspect that if I went through the exercise of looking at my Steam library and trying to project when I would be able to play through all of the games I currently own, it would probably exceed my life expectancy. Definitely if you add in all of my console game collection.

    There’s not a great solution. Corporations try to punch through the noise with marketing. One of the most important pieces of Steam as a platform is their ability to promote games. There are whole networks of influencers- streamers, video creators, podcasters, bloggers, magazine writers, etc all trying to help sort out the games worth playing.

    But the problem persists - there are too many games being made. And I don’t want to just say to put up more barriers to entry, because indie development is important for getting fresh new talent and ideas into the industry. Some of the best experiences I’ve had have been indie games, and some of the worst offenders for cranking out banal, mediocre time sucks have been huge corporations with giant marketing budgets.

    The only solution I can think of is more “platforms” rather than games. Minecraft, GTA V, Skyrim. Especially with mods, you can get a unique and interesting experience without having to invest into learning and understanding a whole new game.





  • As a black person she’ll alienate the racists in the DNC. There aren’t as many as the DNC, but it would be naive to think there aren’t any. As much as I don’t want to cater to racists, beating Trump is more important right now.

    As a woman she will alienate misogynists. Same thing.

    As a cop she’s going to alienate a ton of voters. She’s recently changed her positions on a lot of crime-related issues like marijuana, but idk how much that’s going to help her win the BLM crowd.

    I’ll vote for her if she’s the pick, no question. Heck, there are very few people the DNC could nominate at this point that I wouldn’t vote for. I suppose as Biden’s VP she was kind of nominated in the primary if you squint. But yeah… DNC elites appointing a cop at the last minute doesn’t strike me as the best way to fight fascism.

    Identity politics aside, I like a lot of what she claims to support, but that’s assuming that she’s truly no longer the prosecutor she used to be. She has good records on reproductive rights, economics, LGBTQ+ support. My biggest gripe with her would be she’s still just as pro-Israel as Biden and most of the DNC seems to be.


  • Victor Gruen is widely considered the inventory of the modern shopping mall. He was an Austrian Jew who immigrated to the US when the Nazi’s annexed Austria.

    I can’t find much specific on his political views, but I’ve seen him described by historians as “far-left” and “socialist”.

    Shopping was originally a small part of his vision. He wanted to make an indoor, air-conditioned version of European pedestrian areas. Residences, schools, libraries, hospitals, parks, etc. He hated how the mall he envisioned became the shopping mall. He was influenced by Disney Land - trying to make a planned neighborhood that optimized the human experience. In turn, Disney took a lot of influence from him to make EPCOT.

    So I don’t know that he was a Marxist, but he denounced the capitalist hellscape that his malls eventually became.