As much as I do like the default Lemmy interface, I miss old.reddit.com's layout sometimes, and I appreciate that I can go back to it here with old.lemmy.zip.

(old.reddit limits: https://www.reddit.com/r/modnews/comments/1wubgvt/continuing_our_infrastructure_updates_whats/)

Keeping Old Reddit accessible for mods and recent users

As u/spez mentioned, we’re still working on the future of Old Reddit. Earlier this year, we required people to log in to use Old Reddit, addressing its largest source of abusive scraping and automated traffic: unauthenticated access. That change helped reduce scraping and automated abuse, but still allowed any logged-in account to access Old Reddit, including accounts with no prior Old Reddit use.

To close this gap, in the next few months, we'll further limit access for logged-in users to only those who have used Old Reddit in the last six months (which covers the vast majority of all Old Reddit users). This change does not impact logged-in mods, who can continue to access Old Reddit without any recent usage requirement. This helps keep Old Reddit available for the people who rely on it while reducing automated abuse.

!videogamesuggestions@lemmy.zip, which I admit I mod; but I figure because Fedi is so small, cross-promo across it is fine? Please feel free to delete my post if the self-promo is inappropriate here.

Especially because one of the rules is

If you’re making a post that is suggesting games, it should be a list of games.

Posts where OP asks for games to be suggested to them get replied to with comments that basically list games. Some comments only list one game; but you could just click the post and read the comments to basically get a list of games that fulfill the suggestion.

So either you have a post where the post is a list of games; or a post where the list of games is found by reading the comments. Looking at the community and seeing the list of threads gives you a list of lists!

cross-posted from: https://lemmy.zip/post/30746206

(if you can't get into tumblr)

i think the near-extinction of people making fun, deep and/or unique interactive text-based browser games, projects and stories is catastrophic to the internet. i'm talking pre-itch.io era, nothing against it.

there are a lot of fun ones listed here and here but for the most part, they were made years ago and are now a dying breed. i get why. there's no money in it. factoring in the cost of web hosting and servers, it probably costs money. it's just sad that it's a dying art form.

anyway, here's some of my favorite browser-based interactive projects and games, if you're into that kind of thing. 90% of them are on the lists that i linked above.

A Better World - create an alternate history timeline
Alter Ego - abandonware birth-to-death life simulator game
Seedship - text-based game about colonizing a new planet
Sandboxels or ThisIsSand - free-falling sand physics games
Little Alchemy 2 - combine various elements to make new ones
Infinite Craft - kind of the same as Little Alchemy
ZenGM - simulate sports
Tamajoji - browser-based tamagotchi
IFDB - interactive fiction database (text adventure games)
Written Realms - more text adventure games with a user interface
The Cafe & Diner - mystery game
The New Campaign Trail - US presidential campaign game
Money Simulator - simulate financial decisions
Genesis - text-based adventure/fantasy game
Level 13 - text-based science fiction adventure game
Miniconomy - player driven economy game
Checkbox Olympics - games involving clicking checkboxes
BrantSteele.net - game show and Hunger Games simulators
Murder Games - fight to the death simulator by Orteil
Cookie Clicker - different but felt weird not including it. by Orteil.

if you're ever thinking about making a niche project that only a select number of individuals will be nerdy enough to enjoy, keep in mind i've been playing some of these games off and on for 20~ years (Alter Ego, for example). quite literally a lifetime of replayability.

It is an unusual premise for a shooter: a pilot whose whole mission is to make barren ground fertile again.

It's already out on other platforms, check your local listings if you're interested!

Saw this game on Steam, thought this community would like it. Dug up a review to have something to post

Well, I finally went and played the demo. The nostalgic interface is cool. It's all about making PowerPoint slides, and the grounds for your factory look a lot like a slide deck. The big slide you are editing has a grid with which to place factory stuff on, and places to send inputs or outputs to other slides. And that seems unique, at least to me, having such a limited space to build factory components but that you are allowed to connect inputs and outputs to deal with it. Sort of a forced one-purpose thing. It happened in Shenzhen I/O but that is also more of a programming puzzle game to me, though it probably qualifies for being an automation game. Does this happen in many other automation games?

At first the tutorial sort of felt overwhelming but I got through it enough to play without trouble. I wonder if it really was overwhelming or if I'm just burnt out and getting dumber and older with a brain that is no longer a sponge for new information, and this is how learning new stuff will usually be.

The "lol work sucks/is nonsensical and corporate life is unrewarding" in the emails feels annoying, though, I admit. I see this type of complaining too much online to feel any catharsis instead of just annoyed. It is part of why I closed the demo early. I hadn't appropriately adjusted my expectations that there would probably be Work Sucks Snark, I was just expecting factory with nostalgia, and I'm not sure if that was my fault or not because the Steam preview images are not loading for me right now so I can't see if it was adequately advertised. It wasn't in the text, albeit the "PowerPoint factory" premise probably should have tipped me off. But hey, nothing and nobody is perfect, and I'm sure it resonates for other people!

I got as far as the next tool after the Merger. And the newly-unlocked tools reminded me of what I'm given in Shapez. I wonder if that is a genre-common thing, because after all, combining and splitting factory inputs seem like pretty basic functions. Like level-up systems and inventory management systems, and it would not mean one game copied/was heavily influenced by another just for having this. I admit I don't get to sit down and play too many all that often—I was just willing to step up and post about new games and get rid of spam. This is not a complaint, just a question!

I have a massive backlog to get through, less time than I'd like to do it, and a wishlist I'd like to decimate, so I can afford to be very picky. Enjoyable, but 50/50 on if I come back.

I've always wanted a Pokémon game that took a look at the Pokémon world from a lens other than the kid/teen battler prodigy we usually see it from. And just look at the screenshots! Adorable! It is a little different from the existing style but close enough it doesn't feel jarring. It feels, to me, just right for the genre/goal shift set in the same world. I am admittedly biased to cute and adorable things. Found out about this via my friends, immediately knew I had to post it here.

Play as Millie, a novice Pokemon Breeder who has a dream to help with Pokemon conservation. To do that however, she needs to pass a test given to her by Professor Elm; Pay attention to the personality of her Pokemon and the requests of the Trainers she meets to find the most suitable pairing! You can complete the entire game in around an hour. The game is not meant to be too difficult, so anyone can pick up and play!

Pokemon Homestead is inspired by various pieces of Pokemon media and games that depict the more slice of life, casual side of living alongside Pokemon, such as Pokemon Breeder Mini, My Pokemon Ranch, Pokemon Concierge, etc! There are no battles here, just you and your Pokemon as you raise them, keep them happy and focus on them as individuals.

My friend came over. I downloaded a game on Steam for us to play together on my Linux machine that ended up hitting the storage limit of my Linux computer. I had 8GB left, the game said it would take 7GB. I guess maybe downloading a Proton version killed it? I deleted a bunch of other files and restarted the computer to make it take. Instead I got the distro's emergency mode. I searched online for others with the problem and the answer was basically just to reflash it. So my friend and I found other activities to do, and we enjoyed our visit together.

Now that my friend went home, I decided to fix the computer issue and reinstall. It was pretty easy.

1. Downloaded the ISO from the website
2. Used https://github.com/Kruszoneq/macUSB to get it on a flash drive (my computer that was still working is a Mac)
3. When it finished going on the flashdrive, stick the flashdrive in the broken Linux machine
4. Start the broken Linux machine up again and select to boot from USB
5. Follow install instructions on screen
6. Success!

I can see how Linux might be intimidating for people given that I had that issue at all (but then again I've never filled up storage on any other computer, so maybe Mac and Windows also flip out when that happens), but the reinstall was pretty easy. It Just Works... at least well enough for me to find it easy enough to have ditched Windows.

Asked "sell me on your favorite game" to a group of friends, they said it made for a great discussion, so maybe copying it to here might make a nice discussion too.