I suppose it happened because from a mainstream perspective handhelds like the DS and PSP were far behind dedicated systems in terms of graphics, and so the expectation was never there to have “triple A” visuals - neither from consumers nor industry.

Made for very fertile ground in terms of games that had budget, but still had a long leash to go and get wacky.

The coffee story is quite a long way in, but it was an interesting read, thanks.

I guess the message is, things aren’t always good because they are objectively good. Sometimes things are good because of when we had them, and who we enjoyed them with. And that’s definitely true.

I’m two ways about this.

In recent years I’ve become quite a coffee lover. I’ve experimented with a lot of brewing methods, and got into small batch beans from independent roasters, with interesting qualities like being aged in whisky barrels (that one tastes and smells sooo good)

At the same time though I grew up in a family where the only coffee my parents ever drank was instant - a teaspoon of granules with some hot water and milk and maybe sugar. When I go over there to visit that’s what I’ll get, and I’m not going to turn my nose up at it. In some ways it’s got that taste of nostalgia lol.

Wow yeah. That must have been a really infuriating gameplay issue, no wonder players were upset with it.

A shame the game was so rushed or I’m sure the dev would have fixed that in code.

What was the bug and workaround? :)

Matrix org isn’t obligated to run a public instance at all - they could stick to developing the spec, and let other people run instances.

And honestly maybe they should, because then we wouldn’t have this huge consolidation problem on matrix.org in the first place.

Promoting that the nunber exists as a actual thing people should use is good, yeah. :)

The actual number isn’t so important, though. If ever needed to call the non-emergency number I’d search it up, which fortunately I can do given I’ve got loads of time because it’s not an emergency.

For sure.

If they’ve got a problem with non-emergency callers dialing 911, surely it would be best to try and reduce that problem through other means (such as fining persistent inappropriate use of 911)

I don’t want to talk to a robot when I’m on the floor dying.

The exact same trends go round and round in web design too (and now apps).

At first things were square (because that was all the technology could do) then in the 2000s CSS exploded and everything went colour gradients and rounded corners, just because people could, then that became old-hat and everything went flat and square again, and then rounded came back (but without so many gradients)

Everything is cyclical.

The ship was one of the best parts for sure. Once you are competent it feels super liberating how nimbly you can zip around a planet.

The other good parts of that game were progression, and death.

I love that knowledge is the only thing retained between loops - the only currency of value. And I loved the feeling of making new discoveries.

And with death as an expected mechanic, the game doesn’t have to put up any guiderails to save you from it. There are no training wheels. You want to go outside without a spacesuit? Bad idea but we’ll let you. You want to literally lose your ship so you can never get it back? Sure, go for it. You want to fall into a space anomaly and see what happens? Be our guest.

Masterpiece game honestly.

The classic example we already have of this is when you are stopped at a side road about to enter the main road, and a car coming towards you on the main road signals to turn in.

Many people take the fact the other car has their turn signal on as a guarantee that it’s safe to emerge, but any good driving instructor will tell you to wait until the car actually begins to turn before you yourself emerge.

They had their signal on but that doesn’t mean they’re actually going to DO what the signal said they would.

Same with the front brake light. It would be like “Well their front brake light came on, so I assumed it was safe to step into the crosswalk” NO. They could have just tapped the brake a second, doesn’t mean they saw you, or they will actually stop.

I’m dumbfounded there are people out there who will tolerate spending upwards of $1,000 on a phone which then pushes ads at you on your lock screen.