I change the font and size, it snaps my brain out of “I already know this text has no errors, I’ve been looking at it while writing it” mode and allows it to more easily read it anew

Yeah. It’s weird, almost all of these have some level of controversy. Starfield. Hogwarts Legacy and Rowling’s transphobia controversies. There were attempted boycotts of Atomic Heart by Ukraine sympathizers for a variety of alleged reasons. Some lifelong fans of The Last of Us were reneging of the franchise after learning that its creator Neil Druckmann was inspired by Israel-Palestina to create TLOU and recently posted an Israel flag in his Instagram. There was controversy about Dave the Diver being considered an indie game by most casual people (and being nominated as such for awards) and further discussion about what’s an indie. SIFU was criticized by journalists for negative portrayal of a foreign culture and briefly became a bit of a darling for online right-wingers that hate video game journalists. Even Baldur’s Gate 3 was milked a bit as a darling by people that generally dislike current video game devs and accuse them of being lazy. I also even saw someone using solo-developed Lethal Company as a bludgeon against other developers. Only ones I don’t remember seeing controversies about are Labyrinthine and Red Dead Redemption 2.

It almost feels like the classic coordinated troll-voting campaign by 4chan or whatever but those tend to have a right-wing bend and I don’t know if they would’ve voted for Atomic Heart (I don’t know if the would have voted BG3 either but I assume that one’s kinda unstoppable). It’s kind of weird because a couple years ago when Trump was praising Russia right-wing gamers might have voted for the Russia game to piss off liberals. But with the current wars there’s a lot of right-wingers supporting Ukraine and Israel. So I don’t know.

I’ve never had this problem in English nor Spanish but you made me realize those two words are very similar in Spanish too (reenumerar, remunerar)

1) Hybrid visual novels (ie visual novels with some gameplay element, be it some basic adventure/exploration/mystery mechanics like the Ace Attorney series, RPG or Tactical RPG elements, management, deckbuilding or whatever) that have very good writing (think something like Roadwarden or Citizen Sleeper) and/or a loveable cast of characters (like Ace Attorney).

2) Sci-fi and/or fantasy books that have good writing (by which I mean not that hollow, mass-produced, repetitive, overly simple YA-style prose —don’t want to offend YA lovers, I’m just tired of it). Bonus points if they have some elements of social criticism, and even more bonus points if they have very compelling worldbuilding and characters. I’m thinking of stuff like Ursula K. Le Guin’s The Dispossessed, The Left Hand of Darkness and Rocannon’s World, Susanna Clarke’s Jonathan Strange & Mr Norrell, Ted Chiang’s short story “Story of Your Life”, most of Jorge Luis Borges’ short stories, Angélica Gorodischer’s Kalpa Imperial, Ann Leckie’s Ancillary Justice, Dino Buzzati’s short story “The Seven Messengers”, Ursula Vernon’s webcomic Digger, Winston Rowntree’s webcomic Watching, Italo Calvino’s If on a Winter’s Night a Traveler, etc.

3) Logical puzzle games that have the same quality of atmosphere and setting as Return of the Obra Dinn.

4) Turn-based videogames (they can be RPGs, roguelites, management games, visual novels, text adventures or whatever else as long as it’s not action-focused, based on reflexes or time-sensitive without pause) that have very strong setting, atmosphere and writing (if they don’t have a traditional story, at least good writing in the occasional dialogue lines). Some preferred settings are:

• Decadent worlds (like Darkest Dungeon, Dredge, Fallen London, Sunless Sea, Cultist Simulator, Book of Hours, The Shrouded Isle)

• 18th to 20th century history/alternate history (like The Great Ace Attorney, The Lion’s Song, The Last Door, Amnesia: Rebirth, Return of the Obra Dinn)

• Sci-fi in general —can be cyberpunk but not necessary— (like Citizen Sleeper, Tacoma, Soma, The Talos Principle, The Red Strings Club, Chrono Trigger, 2064: Read Only Memories, Subnautica, Stellaris)

• Very current (as in 2020s or close) focused settings (like Unpacking, Orwell: Keeping an Eye on You, one night hot springs, missed messages., What Remains of Edith Finch)

• Traditional and/or generic fantasy but well written (like Roadwarden, Wildermyth, Final Fantasy Tactics, Legend of Mana, The Banner Saga, Suikoden II, Terranigma, Grandia, Lunar: Silver Star Story Complete, Alundra… many of these I played young so their writing might not be as good as I remember)

• Other historical/alternate history settings previous to 18th century as long as they’re well written (like King of Dragon Pass, Landnama)

But I’m also open to anything I’m not used to in videogames as long as it has those elements (strong writing, setting, atmosphere), like urban fantasy/new weird/fantastic realism type of stuff like Disco Elysium, whimsical settings a la Undertale/Deltarune or ambiguous mindscapes like in Celeste and Gris.

5) Mechanically speaking, something that reaches the same heights as Slay the Spire. I don’t know what it is, I’ve played many other deckbuilding roguelites and/or roguelites with a tree-style map chasing that same high. And some were better than others (I guess shout-out to Monster Train, FTL, Pirates Outlaws, Griftlands, Roguebook, Iris and the Giant, Dicey Dungeons, Star Renegades). But none have absorbed me like it did despite it having uninteresting (to me) writing and visuals. Maybe it was just because it was my first with those ideas.

6) I was exposed to a lot of anime/manga when I was a teen and even if I never feel like I want to watch/read most of them these years, I still have some lingering weakness for some of its tropes and aesthetics when applied to videogames. I’m talking about trainwreck-style games that are awful and strangely compelling at the same time, like Danganronpa and Zero Escape. Or, to speak of one that feels much higher quality while still having some puzzling choices, 13 Sentinels: Aegis Rim. It’s hard to describe this vibe (maybe “anime aesthetics, very ambitious in some ways but messy and still beholden to certain clichés, occasionally managing to be deep but usually just coasting on pseudo-philosophical anime bullshit”) and I really never feel like actually playing these games but once a year or so when there comes a day I just don’t feel like doing anything I don’t mind laying in my bed watching full no-commentary gameplays of these kinds of games. So if you know of something similar to those I’d like to bookmark that for the future.

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They are killing the murder industry

Not proud nor ashamed, and you seem to imply LLMs are needed in all human fields

Huh, I felt the 12/20 was a bit low but I guess not so much. As someone that has never used an image generator (or an LLM for that matter, chatGPT not even once baby) nor has actually worked at tech (though I have been learning programming on my own) and doesn’t even know how to draw… I guess I didn’t do too bad.

I’m playing Stellaris right now and one of the things I miss the most about Sid Meier 's games is it being 100% turn-based vs real time with pause (over long sessions it tires my hand a lot for some reason)

I don’t care about Reddit (or about growing Lemmy) as much as the average post I see in Lemmy, but if you wanted to migrate people from the former to the latter this is one of the easier ways to help do it. It’s one of those small quality of life things that are asked for periodically. If Lemmy had it it’d be mentioned in Reddit every time people are pissed with the site (which is every day for most sites, including Reddit). It’d be free mouth to mouth word of mouth (being ESL is funny sometimes) publicity for Lemmy

I’m over 2000 books read (a mix of classics, literary and genre fiction) and the more I read the more fantasy and sci-fi feel similar. Despite one having a reputation for escapism and the other for (indirect) social commentary, in my experience any given book of either can fall anywhere between those two poles. Any sufficiently advanced technology, etc.

I don’t agree with “every waking second” of their lives (it’s just paralyzing to live like that, wouldn’t be productive to help solve the current situation) and maybe other details of your wording but I do agree with the general gist. Once you start critically reading history and looking at the present it’s hard not to do that math.

At the very least I would love if I hadn’t to periodically suffer some online European conservative (particularly common seem to be the Spaniard and British ones) gloating about their perceived superiority, wealth, civility, etc. Or parroting their learned Official Histories.

I’m totally with you. But to add to that there’s something that I quite don’t understand why it’s popular both in America and in Latin America (dunno about other regions). Drug dealers, Mafia, violent criminals, narcos, capos, etc in media, be it documentary-style or fiction. Even in shows where they are meant as the bad guy protagonist lots of people tend to idolize them

I mean, nowadays I assume almost all C-suite execs (which make these decisiones) to be conservative (or “apoliticals”/“insert other tag” that act like conservatives)

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Yes, I am. Why? Curiosity. You always see this question regarding what do Europeans find unusual about Americans and vice versa. I am curious to know about the opinions of my non-American, non-Europeans fellows. Our perspectives are not so common to find in websites like Lemmy.

Though a few minutes in I’m already seeing the post in the negatives so I’m assuming this one is sadly already dead.

It’s somewhat common for me to read in my dreams but I can barely see the text for a second (it is decipherable though): My perspective instantly shifts “inside” the book, or rather the story it’s telling becomes the new focus of my dream and I can visualize it just fine (sometimes I don’t even come back to the previous world, my dream is now about this new story). Same thing if i’m playing a game: for a second I see the frame of the monitor on the borders of my vision but quickly it disappears and all I see is the content of the screen. Sometimes it keeps looking like the game (like, Civ always looks like Civ) and others it becomes more flexible and cinematographic I guess, a new story that can go anywhere.

Sadly I have never felt any effect drinking coffee, so I haven’t drank much all my life. I recently tried it again too after reading so many people with ADHD swear by it. Once again, felt nothing during or after, and I was pretty attentive to its possible effects that whole day.

I used to do that but as I get older it’s harder to stay awake and just brute force it. I started using a sleep routine I found online that’s basically: 1 hour before the time I want to fall asleep at I’ll turn off all screens (computer, cellphone). Have a warm, relaxing bath. Optionally write in a paper whatever is in my head (like stuff to do tomorrow) so that I can take it out of my mind. Dim the lights if you can. Optionally meditate. Then read a book until it’s the time I want to fall asleep at. Go to bed, if I didn’t fall asleep in 20 mins then read for 30 min more and try again until eventually you fall asleep. Works pretty well and fixes my sleep schedule in a couple of nights (something unthinkable for me for most of my life).

But having that fixed doesn’t magically help everything else. I find out that when I wake up at morning it’s still dreadfully difficult to do whatever I’m supposed to do. That’s why I’m looking for morning routines to help me just start doing it without getting distracted. And reset routines in case I do become unfocused so that I don’t just straight up lose the rest of the day if possible.

What’s your reset routine?

I don’t have one either but the place where I saw this gives this example: “meditation, exercise, journaling, playing music and making some tea”