Love your write up. I feel similarly, and many many randomizer runs (Archipelago.gg is great for it), speedruns, and classic playthroughs later I still find the atmosphere and music incredible

So I’m ~5 hours into the story so far. I was super worried it’d be a bad followup to the first game, which I loved.

It’s pretty different, without getting into any spoilers, but I’m really enjoying it at this point. It’s well done, the atmosphere and decisions are on point, and the micro management seems lesser.

A few UI complaints, I found a tiny bug, but all in all it seems like a good and long single player immersive story city builder. Exactly what I want from the series.

I’d give it a preliminary 8.5/10 because I’m biased and love the first one.

Yup, I have a Litter Robot 4 and we love it. It saves a ton on little costs, but was a massive upfront cost.

Easier to travel and the litter stay clean, it’s always clean for the cats and they love it. We’re big fans.

Subscribe to plant facts

Great video, per usual from James. I like the takeaway of “be wary of simple mechanisms decisively affecting complex situations” both in this context and in general

🤡 when silksong

Are you playing on an emulator? There’s a plethora of cool Pokemon roms based on fire red

I agree in the same way there is Nazi paraphernalia/propaganda in museums today. If we don’t teach about and denounce traitors we’ll be sure to see more. These statues were used a century later to brainwash people into advocating for terrorism.

That’s a cool read. I would much rather play a smaller passion-project of a game than a AAA one anyway, but it’s cool to see markets shifting that way on the large

I started one quick Pokerogue run on Friday and now it’s Sunday and I haven’t put it down

I didn’t even know that “BioShock Infinite good” was a hot take. I loved the story, and it’s somewhat open ended nature. That’s most of my friends’ takes as well

Can you drink decaf? There’s quite a few good ones out there, and you can play with preparation to make it how you like it

I just can’t put Hades II down! It’s not finished, and I’m running up against that more and more. But the polish is incredible!

Holy hype batman. I’m so stoked!

Done! Thanks for making this visible. It wasn’t too hard at all. Hopefully this will help everyone be able to continue spot passing

These all sound like emulator-ideal criteria to me!

There’s a lot of non-free versions of that which are super reasonable and meet all of your other criteria nicely. Stardew Valley, Slay the Spire. Games that are full games for a one time low cost.

That’d be pretty interesting if they could pull it off

Yeah, a few “natural disasters” or random whatever’s would add to the mid/late game. Once water is stable, it’s easy to thrive anytime. Bad water is a nice mix up for that for sure.

And yeah, big time machine energy.

I have about a hundred hours in it. Here’s some scattered thoughts:

–The devs clearly care a lot and it’s a labor of love. They communicate well, provide updates, listen to feedback, engage with the community. They’re lovely.

–the game has a fun series of mechanics, good visuals, good music, fun vibes. It’s a bit… Sandboxy, towards later in most runs. I don’t know what to do with my settlement come cycle 12-15 (cycle is 12-20 days or so). I wish there was a little more of a goal for it, like scenarios

–good mod support and map making. People have made some dope maps for it

I’m gonna continue to revisit it as campaign/scenarios evolve, as mechanics are added, and as I want to get my beaver vibe on

I love numberphile but especially love when James gets excited about something (which to be fair is most math)