Started thinking about it and turns out I have a few:

• Thomas Was Alone for the overall vibe, music and writing
• Celeste for the the story and gameplay
• Hollow Knight for the world, music and mechanics
• Metroid Prime for being generally incredible
• Overwatch for being my intro to online games and the friends I made playing it
• Halo 3 because a mate of mine and I played it so damn much

It looks incredible but, damn, they've really put every single game genre in there. Non-zero chance it's all very shallow but the customisation options look dope. Chances are modders will do some stuff that's so cool I'll really want to play this thing.

Also looks like it'll destroy my 1060 and I probably don't use my PC enough to justify an upgrade. So we'll see.

I dig it so far. The vibes are good and the people are cool. My one question, though, is how active things are once people here lose interest in talking about Reddit.

New platforms are always at their hottest when people are talking about what they've left or what the new platform could be. Will be interesting to see how Lemmy is once that dies down a bit.

This looks very cool and like it'll hit a lot of things I like in games. But, woof, the "will I buy it?" decision tree will be nuts: Will it run well on my 1060? Do I want to play it enough to upgrade? How much will I need to spend? Will I use my PC enough to justify spending?

It does look cool, though.

I haven’t heard of Veil of Maya so I’ll give them a bash today.

The metal I’ve listened to has narrowed over the years but I love Gojira and a bunch of instrumental metal bands (rediscovered Deathmole recently and the track “No thanks” goes hard. Also a massive fan of Genghis Tron – every track on their album Board up the house is incredible.

I started using Kagi recently and it’s fantastic. The results have been great, it’s pretty customisable and it uses all the same ! bangs as DuckDuckGo. Don’t feel like I have to use Google at all anymore (which wasn’t the case when I used DDG as my go-to). Plus, since it’s a paid service, there are no ads and no guff.

Oh snap, I hadn’t heard of Against the Storm but a roguelite city builder sounds so good

Generally, the best advice I’ve seen in a while is to – basically – start high level and add detail systematically.

For example:

Write an overarching goal or mission statement. What’s the gist? From there, list the chapters that go to support that goal. Then, for each chapter, dot-point out the key points. Those are you subheads. Then dot-point the key arguments for each subhead. Those are your paragraphs. Fill ‘em out.

Basically, you’re adding depth layer by layer. If you get stuck on anything, just slap filler text in there (e.g. whenever I sit down to write an article, I just use some keywords for the title and then write [INTRO]. Introductions are hard to write and, if I start right away, I’ll just get stuck.)

I can’t remember any non-fiction specific guides, unfortunately. My favourite overall story advice is Film Crit Hulk’s Screenwriting 101 (it’s relevant to more than just screenwriting).

Depends on the day, really, but I usually do some combination of the following. (I mostly write non-fiction.)

• Read a bunch of different books
• Take notes as I’m writing, writing down any thoughts I have or anything that captures my interest (I do this for both fiction and non-fiction)
• Look back over my notes every now and then, looking for recurring themes or interesting links
• Schedule some time for writing and, when I sit down, copy a random note into a doc
• Add any relevant notes and move things around until I have the basic skeleton of something

Basically, I do a bunch of little things too, (a), stoke my curiosity and, (b), do as much as possible before I need to write anything.

I’m also a copywriter by trade and I do similar things when I’m stuck on a project. They mostly boil down to “If I can’t think of one idea, think of 20.” It’s much easier to aim for volume instead of quality (and edit for quality later).

Amazing stuff! How do you find Pathfinder mechanically from a DM perspective? I played a bit of 1e as a player yeaaaaars ago but have only DM’d in D&D 5e (and this has reminded me I need to figure out the next session).

Nice one! I dapple with landscape painting every now and then – mostly following Angry Mikko’s tutorials on YouTube – and it’s super satisfying.

I started a newsletter called Unzen a little while ago. It’s about building loving relationships with yourself and others (through the lens of psychology + zen buddhism). Mostly working on new articles and a distribution plan that doesn’t feel too much like my day job.

Congrats on publishing! That's amazing. Dig the Substack newsletter, too.

Loop earplugs, mostly. They're a game changer.

Energy, presence and the performers just being totally locked in. My favourite gigs, off the top of my head, have been Cash Savage & the Last Drinks, Explosions in the Sky, and Too Many Zooz. Each act went on stage knowing exactly what kind of mood they wanted to create and the crowd was totally there for it too. It all coalesced into something intoxicating.

Combination of my local second-hand bookstore (which has a wildly good selection given that I live in a small country town), my two favourite "regular" bookstores, Libby, and the Kobo ebook store.

If I can't find something particularly niche or out of print, I'll use Abe Books but I try to avoid that since it's owned by Amazon.

Edit: I've started to favour print books most of the time, at least for poetry and non-fiction. I've started to write more again and I find physical books much easier to refer back to.

Don't really watch any gaming YouTubers anymore (mostly just click through Seagull's Twitch streams whenever I want to watch something gaming related) but I still check out Game Makers Toolkit occasionally. That and Cool Ghosts were the only gaming things I stuck with on YT.

Real Civil Engineer started popping up in my recs out of nowhere – he's fun! Made me want to download Mini Metro again (and do super not great at it again).

I've always liked the idea of fighting games (depth, strategy, persnickety nonsense) but they've never clicked. Street Fighter 6 has changed that, though. Falling into a reaaaal hole with it as I try and figure out how to play Chun-Li.