He likens Arkane’s approach to studios like Larian and FromSoftware: “Those are people that have been doing, over and over, the thing they know exactly how to do, until it hits super hard. So to me, that’s what Arkane had to do.”

Damn, what a concept: doing the same kind of game multiple times, iterating on the design to perfect it. Obviously Bethesda gets releasing the same game over and over again, but this idea of “improving” the design is so alien to them. Wouldn’t adding thousands of microtransactions be an improvement?

Blame Camus

I visited Ecuador several years ago and got to chew on coca leaves, but they also had coca leaf candies! Both were excellent for helping with altitude sickness, and I really enjoyed the flavor. Had a gentle mood lifting effect too, like a nice cup of tea, but in the form of chewed cud, haha.

I’m not posting a Snopes link or whatever, but it was Mussolini who allegedly got the trains running on time, and he didn’t anyway. Improvements to the Italian rail system were begun under the previous government, and actually the trains weren’t particularly punctual under his regime anyway.

I figured you might have read it, as your comment had evoked it for me.

I really like the reading of Waluigi as a kind of perfect symbol for our post-modern times. I don’t think the article goes quite far enough. Mario is already a simulacra: a stereotype that doesn’t really exist, certainly not anymore and never really did. So Waluigi is the reflection of an inverse of a simulation without a base reality.

It’s very relatable, as you say, an apt metaphor for how our cultures treat the common person. Maybe the right Waluigi game isn’t one that fleshes him out and brings him closer to the audience. Maybe something like Krusty’s Fun House or Lemmings: burning through legions of Waluigis (1up mushroom clones? robots? one person somehow split into a multitude?) to accomplish trivial goals for Wario, the stand-in for the corporate overlords?

https://theemptypage.wordpress.com/2013/05/20/critical-perspectives-on-waluigi/

I, We, Waluigi: a Post-Modern analysis of Waluigi by Franck Ribery

Waluigi is the ultimate example of the individual shaped by the signifier. Waluigi is a man seen only in mirror images; lost in a hall of mirrors he is a reflection of a reflection of a reflection. You start with Mario – the wholesome all Italian plumbing superman, you reflect him to create Luigi – the same thing but slightly less. You invert Mario to create Wario – Mario turned septic and libertarian – then you reflect the inversion in the reflection: you create a being who can only exist in reference to others. Waluigi is the true nowhere man, without the other characters he reflects, inverts and parodies he has no reason to exist. Waluigi’s identity only comes from what and who he isn’t – without a wider frame of reference he is nothing. He is not his own man. In a world where our identities are shaped by our warped relationships to brands and commerce we are all Waluigi.

There is apparently a sequel post now as well.

Ah, a classic! For today’s lucky 10,000: http://www.longestjokeintheworld.com/

Found a few things:

A carved and polished table, shows color and cross section well.

A wiki for a minecraft clone that already has baobob wood.

Following another poster’s advice, here’s a cross section of one cut down.

In other depictions it often has little holes in it, which seems like a thing that happens to some baobob wood, otherwise it kind of just looks like medium color wood with some dark bands.

Bigger than Bieber, the old beaver brushed the broken lever while brandishing a bloody cleaver

Stephanie Stirling has been beating the drum on fake “quality” modes that give you RT at the expense of everything else. Think it was this one but it might also have been this one.

Going into physics was the biggest mistake of my life. I should’ve declared CS. I still wouldn’t have any women, but at least I’d be rolling in cash.

Honestly, there wasn’t all that much cash to roll in and there’s less all the time now. Plus, if you think busted equipment is bad, wait until I tell you about inheriting legacy code.

Feels like there will be an Analyzer in the future to finish this trilogy (until someone thinks of more probing puns).

“Yeah man, I’m fluent, says so on my CV!”

“But it just says ‘Fluent’. Fluent in what?”

“What do you got?”

I managed until university when I left calculus and entered “Linear Algebra” and man, I really don’t like matrices.

Several of these irritate me but ultimately evoke a solid

But fuck me playing with the person who came up with these would test my patience.

Pizza, V? I suppose cheese and meats are optional. One can. Some do. If we get into “It has minerals in it!” then we’ll have to argue about what atoms are, so fine, pass.

Guitar (!) Strings, A? I know about catgut, for violens in my mind, but let us wiki it. Huh neat, catgut is intestenal fiber from usually goat or sheep, sometimes cat-tle, but never actually cat. And, while still preferred for concert harps and classical instruments, guitars all mostly switched to steel in the 1900s (and nylon or mixed later). So when was this game printed, how old are you imagined-ghost-of-the-author?

Wouldn’t silk be Animal though? Are worm by-products vegetables? Were plant fiber parachutes a thing?

I was trying to think on the history of this feature, since i wouldn’t necessarily count something like AvP’s heatvision mode. That’s meant to simulate a real thing, even if it works a bit gamey, by highlighting active objects.

Assassin’s Creed is the game that, for me, codified the mechanic into it’s current form. Hawk Vision or whatever they called it specifically highlighted game objects. I think they even mention that the animus machine is projecting that view to help Desmond see the world how his ancestors would have understood it.

But… I’m going to call the origin as being way farther back. In flight sims, your targeting hud can highlight enemies and targets by drawing little boxes around them. That is the very first instance I can think of where a game highlighted objects of interest for the player’s benefit. Most flight sims (or adjacent genres like mech sims) would also label the box with the name of the thing, sometimes with health, ammo, weapon, or weakpoint indicators as well.

It’s because they ruined Linux! Damn Linux users!

Most people have the media literacy of cabbage and wouldn’t know a good story if it slapped them in the face with a huge pair of anime tits.

I’m light-years past caring what anons have to say about anything culture related.

My big brained billionaire coyote boyfriend wants to invite a roadrunner into the mix but I haven’t worked through my feelings about casual polyamory yet and also I am a ghost bigfoot