I forgot cash registers, that one is up there for sure.

1. Babies crying.
2. Children shouting/chattering/being noisy
3. Screeching of cutlery against a plate.
4. Screeching of chalk against a blackboard.
5. The dull throbbing sound of friction when something semi-moist rubs against glass, like when cleaning windows under certain conditions for example.
6. Certain people’s chewing noises (it is very person-dependant, some I don’t even think about and some almost send me into meltdown).
7. Most phone alerts.
8. Irregular snoring.

Do we really need more Baldur’s Gates? The story was finished in Throne of Bhaal, then Larian dug the corpse up and put a mindflayer brainworm in it, and now it’s finished again. Just tap into the oodles of other Dungeons and Dragons settings for the next game. Why not adapt the Dragonlance novels into games? Or call it something else if you stay in Forgotten Realms, let this franchise rest.

Ah, I’m sorry I’m just shouting at clouds. Who wants a new IP when you can cash in on a successful established brand and squeeze some wallets until they bleed. That’s my bad, I forgot myself and the current state of things for a second. And I mean, it already worked for BG3 so fuck it, run it back I guess.

I already own it, still haven’t finished it though. If you love parrying and Soulslike Metroidvanias and don’t hate backtracking and platforming this is for you. Really cool graphics and art direction, too. World building is interesting. It’s a good game. Maybe one day I’ll finish it.

I too am coffee-bear curious.

Ocean Air sounds really interesting from looking into it. Does it gain any funky flavours from the process? I’m not opposed to that, I even enjoy Sumatra Mandheling a lot even though some really don’t. Hell, the aged Mandheling I had once is one of my favourites - tasted like leather, pipe tobacco, black pepper and damp jungle earth. I loved it but, probably not everyone’s cup hah.

Yes, or a video game maybe? I can’t say for sure either but it does look familiar - in a good way. I like it too!

Yeah, I have noticed that too. I don’t think DS2 is a terrible game, despite itself. But it does amaze me that you’re more likely to get an essay about how ADP or the level design is actually good instead of a more balanced take that appreciates the good and acknowledges the flaws. Though to be honest, fans like that exist everywhere and in all sorts of fandoms. Ninja Gaiden 2 faces the same problem. It’s a beautiful mess of a game, but its diehard fans just can’t admit that parts of it are unfinished, untested and unbalanced. You can still love the game for its amazing highs even as you acknowledge that some parts are absolute toss.

And the claim about surrealism would be stronger if it would be included in other parts besides only the stitched togetherness of non fitting maps. Inside the maps they are all coherent, which weakens that argument a lot.

Well, yes. That’s the thing. Tanimura basically had to salvage the project halfway through after its very troubled development, and said himself he would have preferred to start over from scratch but didn’t have the time. So yes, it was quite literally stitched together.

Four years ago, fucking hell.

I haven’t looked at them all but most of the large brand coffee is robusta, it’s actually pretty rare to find 100% arabica like Oro. A quality robusta can be okay, especially for a latte or something (although I rarely ever drink that, only cold brew latte over ice in the summer). But they can get kind of samey and bland, even when they’re not suffering from being overly bitter or having unpleasant undertones.

What’s your current specialty coffee? Hatch looks like a great place, I guess I’ll keep it in mind if I’m ever in Ontario. I’ll probably make my next order from a Swedish micro roaster called Tadah. They have a great rotating selection so you can usually pick up something oddball there, like aged Mandheling, funky fermented coffees or Indian monsoon coffee. They even sell pure Jamaican Blue Mountain from time to time.

Lavazza Qualita Oro is pretty solid for just non single origin regular brand coffee. I drink it quite often, I can’t really afford to make every cup fancy specialty coffee.

A beloved element of Dark Souls is that the map all fits together perfectly. If you see something in the distance, it is very likely there in some capacity. The Dark Souls map is a marvel, a maze of circuitous and beautiful shortcuts. (…)

Dark Souls II does not do this. If looked at in a strictly top-down, literal way, the world fits together in bizarre and nonsensical ways with many areas overlapping. I will admit that this complaint is not entirely meritless.

(…)

But people have taken this quirk of the game as some unforgivable betrayal, and I’m sorry but that’s the most pedantic, CinemaSins ass complaint I have ever heard in my life. For starters, video games are creative artifice and often employ tricks and illusions to achieve that impact. (…)

Dark Souls II is a game about not having firm ground under you, even if you assume you know better. It is a game about questioning your world down to the very geometry. This may not have been the reason for why the creators decided upon their locations, but it does function narratively.

“This is true and a valid argument, but I will dismiss it out of hand with an insult because while high on copium I created an interpretation where Tanimura is actually a surrealist genius and everything is a masterplan, despite admitting to being aware of the common knowledge that there was no such deliberate intent behind the world design”.

We get it, you love DS2. But I wish you’d focus more on highlighting the great parts instead of trying to justify even the stuff that gets fairly criticised.

I always did associate that quote with David Foster Wallace, but I guess the statement and insight is obvious enough that it makes sense that a lot of clever people have expressed it over the years.

But for anyone curious, someone on Tumblr posted the entire chapter “Things You Learn in Boston AA” from Infinite Jest (from which the quite is often credited). It’s an absolutely fantastic read.

It’s a great game. In some ways I might even prefer it to Human Revolution. Also, make sure you do the DLCs after. A Criminal Past is some of the best “new Deus Ex” they ever produced.

I also landed on Summit, only thing that comes close in my opinion and the best app for Lemmy/Piefed at the moment.

Hmm, I don’t know that anything really is sadder than Sif (and I haven’t played Lies of P) but I’ll say Artorias just to say something different. It’s not really a sad fight in the same way as Sif is, where he is limping and whining - especially if you get the post-DLC cutscene before the fight. But Artorias is still sad in another way, to see the great hero corrupted and fallen and lost. Though even more than his buddy Sif it’s a fight that is made all the more tragic by knowledge of the lore. The corrupted hero cliché might not hit for everyone perhaps but I guess there just aren’t all that many sad fights in Souls. I feel like there is someone else that I’m missing but it’s slipping my mind.

Actually as I was typing below it hit me (and I can’t believe it slipped my mind): I know it’s not technically a boss fight, but killing Solaire is absolutely fucking gutwrenchingly depressing. He’s with you the whole journey, he is the sole source of positivity and optimism - even friendliness (“jolly cooperation!”). Then you slowly watch his spirit and vibrancy fade as he slips into going hollow, losing sight of his sun deep underground until he’s mislead by a fucking oversized firefly and turned into a twisted and wrenched satirical caricature you have no choice but to put out of his misery.

“…My Sun, it’s setting…”

“…it’s dark, so dark…”

Yeah, fuck you Miyazaki.

Well, no Souls right now for me. Actually, I really haven’t been gaming much at all the past two months. I played another two chapters of The Drifter (it’s incredibly good) and another mission of Wanted: Dead (it’s wack).

I’ll probably play Hell Is Us soonish though, so maybe I’ll get into an actual Soulslike again soon and not continue to bring disrepute and disgrace over this community by constantly writing about off-genre games.

I don’t know in what way this yeast inoculation is supposed to be remarkable.

Maybe in its subtlety? It’s a controlled fermentation process after all. I’ve tried some very funky fermented coffees but this sounds much more restrained, so maybe that’s it?

I’m happy with my instance, with my admins and with my /local feed. And with Lemmy at large. It is not a feature that’s critical for me (I am unaffected as I only use my phone for Lemmy anyway).

But thank you anyway!

I mean, I know weird ass simulation games are an entire niche so this will probably sell some copies but it doesn’t look great to me to be honest. It tries really hard to be funny and that usually doesn’t end up with jokes that land. I don’t know, maybe it’s just the sizzle reel and doesn’t do the game justice.

Still, nice to see a new game that isn’t UE5.