This might be the critic in me - but I absolutely abhor when people act like anything short of perfection makes something "bad" - I see it in gaming spaces, exercise spaces, diet spaces, art spaces, music spaces, you name a place people exist emotionally, creatively, or physically - and it's there.

Gen-AI is basically the information age's equivalent of what lead was to the industrial age...

So why am I only just now finding out about this game?

Feels good to be able to drink caffeine again (was living on decaf green "tea" during it)... had to stop because of pain med rotation the past few days (don't want ulcers kids). Hello coffee my old friend...

gotta love when the bag is ripped open on a delivery and what I ordered is missing... especially considering it was something to help with dental pain... fun fucking day.

I swear, year by year, people are getting dumber about streaming/videos... Used to be rare to see them, but I now almost daily see the "I'm new to streaming/videos, can I do this blatantly illegal or against ToS thing if I do [insert idea that would make a 7 year old call you a dumbass]"

Is it just me, or does "balancing your damn game" feel like it's a lost art in a lot of roguelites? (there's a ton of great, and even balanced, games out there - I just am a bit fatigued from the sheer number of "balanced solely to make the perfect RNG run challenging" games)

I swear, does no one who designs the studio UI's at youtube, actually use youtube as a creator? They're testing a new layout for the content tab (yet again)... removes likes/dislikes and shows revenue... I kind of need to see those likes/dislikes to gauge the reception of a video li'l buddies...

Is it just me, or has the common slop gone from piss filter to "piss filter + random texturing & sharpening filters"

I always find it weird when people put others (or even projects) above reproach... no one is perfect, not even people you like/agree with. I'm not saying hang people by their toes because of little mistakes, but we shouldn't let bad behaviour slide and form communities of sycophants.

I will never understand companies that don't use plain text crash files...

same for if the cover is ai, I'm not reading it - if the store art is ai I'm not playing it

Since I'm noticing a lot of slang 'alternatives' in recent years, just a reminder: Gatekeeping, regardless of what you call it, is still shitty behaviour - doesn't matter if you use a gamer name, a dudebro name, or a sugary sweet name. (and this is true whether it's outgroup or ingroup inspired)

I swear, the more I curate my feeds on social media - the lower my tolerance for "unhinged shit" has become...

... Why is it still bugging me that I got called lazy earlier for crushing olives for putting in my own salad, rather than hand slicing them with a knife...

I find it funny when people get upset that I savor games and mosey through them - not realizing that I've also done my fair share of speedrunning. The speed at which I play games, is fairly intentional ~99% of the time. Speedrunning/rushing footage sucks for most reviews/guides/etc.

A little note on my stance on ai-disclosure on Steam: I try to avoid covering games that use GenAI for a variety of ethical and economic reasons. If you disclose, I probably won't cover your game. BUT if you don't disclose, and I find out, I won't cover your future games, even if they're not ai.

Just a quick "Don't Do This" to #indiedevs : Don't use the ai disclosure tool to note that you "Do not use ai" - the ai disclosure is a flag, that several tools use, and can add your game to blocklists that block gen-ai games. Have this be a key note on your game description instead.

One of my favorite "people say it wrong so much, that it's become normal" things is the conflation of Neapolitan and Napoleon

Emails are getting wild these days, seriously if your email is about gambling, rmt, gen-ai, or hate - it is going straight in the bin. If the email is a buzzword salad asking for rates, and never mentions the game/product, it meets the same fate. I don't have time and energy for that nonsense.

As someone with disorders that have RSD as a symptom, I feel this deeply. "Am I annoying" - "are they ignoring me" - "is it just in my head?" - especially with nagging life experiences from my younger years (they don't define modern me, but they are permanent "what if" memories...)

Anyone else have the random urge to get a bluetooth speaker and play FF7 battle music as you approach a wafflehouse?

Send an email, send a follow up email, heck, even send a follow up email to your follow up email - this is fine. Please don't send me emails about your game from 4+ different email addresses to try to bypass filters I use for managing my email...

As a side note - and this is a general rule: I am not going to promote anyone's funding drives unless I know them personally - it's just too ripe for scams, so there's no point in tagging me on them to "spread the word". Most I'll do is try a vert-slice/demo on LPE or look at your pdf for ttrpgs.

An important reminder: Condemn the Institution and the people making the decisions, not the people just trying to survive under it. Sometimes all you can do as an individual is malicious compliance, refuse unlawful/unethical requests, etc. (especially when open protest is prevented)

Also, in my fugue state - have learned a new phrase to add to my library: "We Don't Know - because the rocks don't want to tell us" - heard it on an Astrid Lundberg video

While I'm still sick, guess I'll posit a question - Why do YOU think that @steampowered.com hasn't released a direct Discord competitor? They have all the tools and resources for it. (my theories in the replies)

"Confucius once said, Stop Misquoting me on the Internet" - Abraham Lincoln, from the Stage Production of Star Trek: The Empire Strikes Back (2012, Written by Kong Qui, Portrayed by Edgar Allan Poe) Can you tell I'm still a bit tired and sick?

Just shy of 20,000 games released last year on steam, I wouldn't have to touch a Gen-ai game to have daily videos, if even 95% of the market on steam became slop.

If you're going to hate someone, at least do it based on that person's actions and words - not where they were born, not their gender, not their ancestors, not their appearance.

Judging the average citizen by the actions of their government is common, but ultimately just continues the usual cycle of hatred and stereotypes - and doing so is a decision of the individual. To me though it is no different than trying to blame a Russian friend for the crimes of Putin.

I'd feel it is reductive - games can be toys, much as books can be instructions, but neither are intrinsically or even consistently so.

In the same vein of the weird "games as a service" cults - I always find time-sink players in games, odd. "Oh it's easy, you just have to (600 hour mindless grind)" "Yea, I got a few hundred of those before moving on, I just ground (insert 0.002% drop chance from a 1 in 256 spawn chance enemy) "

Same goes for concurrent players or the playtime vs price equation people like using... Is McDonald's better than a restaurant burger because it sells more? Is gum better than ice cream because you chew longer? Is sitting in traffic on the way to work better than walking at a park on your day off?

I'd lichen it to symbiosis...

I sometimes wonder whose inboxes are worse - game developers or content creators... Both are filled with bot emails. Both are filled with spammers that found the email address. Both have people trying to scam them, phish, hijack accts, etc. Feels like it's half dozen of one, six of another...

In spite of my rants, I'd say 97% of the people I interact with online are actually interesting and intelligent folks... but bloody hell do those remaining 3% really test my faith in humanity...

We hear the concerns about feces. Our goal is to use this pile to give people greater control, not feces sandwiches. Shittie uses feces to help you create custom sandwiches without having to know how to drive a forklift.

let me be blunt here - if you're going to regulate social media, biometrics or sanitization of platforms is never the way. Want to regulate social media? Force the companies to give users regulation tools of a specific quality. Blocking tools, feed controls, data rights - not IDs and pg-shit.

Ever wonder what 3 dex in D&D looks like? *points to self* Pretty sure I just broke 2 toes getting out of the shower lol

I'm cursed to always have more chips than salsa...

As someone who has both dealt with mental health issues, and had to manage people having acute mental health episodes - It really is sad to watch someone having a persistent mental break, especially when they live in a state that offers free/subsidized mental health services.

Just a word of advice to new creators: You will deal with harassment, you will deal with idiots, they will be the most vocal and persistent pieces of crap too. Just take a moment and realize: You're likely entertaining and informing hundreds, thousands, or even more for every one person like that.

I'm a reviewer, and a guide maker - my job is to inform you and give my opinion, not make decisions for you. If you think you'll like something, then bloody buy it if you can afford it lol.

Seriously, has it ever worked out for a publisher/dev when they go - "Gamers didn't like something we did, let's be patronizing and make broad sweeping insults/attacks/etc. against 'Gamers' as a whole"? (an issue for 15+ years - but this was spurred by the "Man Up" by Ybbara about forced ai slop)

Totally stealing the "Hobbyless Behaviour" line - have a feeling it will find regular use next to "You're giving X energy"/"You've got the air of Y about you" and overly convoluted Southernisms ("You don't have the good sense god gave a half baked rancid turnip").

100% this - there is nothing wrong with simple games if you are still learning to code, there's nothing wrong with "programmer art" if you want to make something fun, there's nothing wrong with text boxes for your dialogue - don't slop up your creations, it's like shitting on a sandwich.

Incremental Games are an interesting thing to enjoy as a reviewer - will I play them? stream them? get satisfaction out of them? all are 'yes'... the only thing I won't do very often is 'review them' :/ Why? Because there's not really a meaningful discussion to be had about any individual one.

I hate that this made me laugh more than it should lol