Saw this today and thought it was interesting.

Most surprising was ESRB claiming 78% of parents regularly use ESRB ratings and 86% use parental controls on their kid's console.

Maybe it's just that parents have gotten more technical and aware of bad content but it felt like every single child was playing mature games like GTA V back in the early 2010s. Nobody cared what kids were playing.

Another shocking stat was Dragon Ball Sparking Zero being the #5 top grossing PC/Console game in 2024. I know that series is popular but... How? There's been very little buzz around it.

cross-posted from: https://programming.dev/post/37310154

Patch Notes:

• Fixed situation where players could remain cloakless after Slab escape sequence.

• Fixed wish Infestation Operation often not being completable during the late game.

• Fixed wish Beast in the Bells not being completable when Bell Beast is summoned at the Bilewater Bellway during the late game.

• Fixed getting stuck floating after down-bouncing on certain projectiles.

• Fixed courier deliveries sometimes being inaccessible in the late game.

• Fixed craft bind behaving incorrectly when in memories.

• Fixed Lace tool deflect soft-lock at start of battle in Deep Docks.

• Fixed Silk Snippers in Chapel of the Reaper sometimes getting stuck out of bounds.

• Fixed Claw Mirrors leaving Hornet inverted if taking damage during a specific moment while binding.

• Fixed Snitch Pick not giving rosaries and shell shards as intended.

• Fixed Swamp Squits becoming invincible if hit under water.

• Fixed instance where Lugoli could leave the arena and not return.

• Removed float override input (down + jump, after player has Faydown Cloak).

• Slight difficulty reduction in early game bosses Moorwing and Sister Splinter.

• Reduction in damage from Sandcarvers.

• Slight increase in pea pod collider scale.

• Slight reduction in mid-game Bellway and Bell Bench prices.

• Slight increase in rosary rewards from relics and psalm cylinders.

• Increase in rosary rewards for courier deliveries.

• Various additional fixes and tweaks.

Not mentioned in the patch notes is that they apparently made many environmental hazards deal 1 damage instead of 2, including the worms at Blasted Steps and the cogs in act 2. In classic Team Cherry communication, they just didn't include it in the patch notes!

programming.dev has been having some server issues lately. I've also occasionally been getting REALLY slow response times, waiting 5+ seconds to refresh the page.

This RC2 fixes the last of the critical regressions that we are aware of. Unless someone reports a new regression coming from the changes made in RC1 or RC2, we should be on track to release 4.5 stable soon.

Fiiiinally. Hopefully everything is patched up because 4.5 has been in feature freeze for a while now.

4.5 release is imminent!

I've been researching programming languages to find a good, high level language that compiles to a single binary that is preferably pretty small. After tons of research, I landed on Nim and used it to make a quick txt parser for a project I'm doing.

Nim seems absolutely fantastic. Despite being sold as a systems programming language, it feels like Python without any of its drawbacks (it's fast, statically typed, etc.) - and the text parser I made is only a 50kb binary!

Has anyone here tried Nim? What's your experience with it? Are there any hidden downsides aside from being kinda unpopular?

Bonus: I want to give a shoutout to how easy it is to open a text file and parse it line-by-line in this language. Look at how simple and elegant this syntax is:

import os

if paramCount() == 0:
  quit("No file given as argument", 1)

let filepath = paramStr(1)

if not fileExists(filepath):
  quit("File not found: " & filepath, 1)

for line in lines(filepath):
  echo line

I never got around to playing the DS Castlevania games since I never owned a DS, and the emulators aren't the best experience because of its awkward portrait mode and touch controls. Recently though, I picked up the Castlevania Dominus Collection on my Switch and wanted to gush about it a little.

Order of Ecclesia is fantastic. Almost 20 years later, it aged incredibly well even compared to modern Metroidvanias. You could say the same for any RPG Castlevania game, but still. It's a great take on the Castlevania formula but manages to be unique enough to feel fresh.

For one, this doesn't take place in one big map. It's split up into multiple smaller areas connected with a world map, which is pretty different compared to entirely taking place in one castle. Areas can still be massive and have a lot to explore though, and there's a lot of side-quests you can finish to help the villagers across many areas.

Also, Shanoa's playstyle is heavily magic-based. At the start you can conjure up weapons to attack normally, but over the course of the game you'll be exclusively using spells and exploiting elemental weaknesses on enemies. Similar to Dawn of Sorrow and the newer Bloodstained, you gain new spells from enemies you kill which is a great mechanic.

Side note, I'm in love with Shanoa's design in this game. It's a shame it had to be a DS game because it doesn't quite show in the pixel art, but she's probably the coolest MC in any Castlevania game. Very different to your typical "Die Monster!" protagonist.

Order of Ecclesia is also notably really tough. I was having a much harder time compared to Symphony of the Night or Dawn of Sorrow. Checkpoints are few and far between, and bosses can be such a pain in the ass with really high HP and enough damage to kill you in 3 hits. The game is also very stingy on money so you can't just keep buying potions to use in hard fights, I was constantly broke and had to manage my resources well.

Overall, fantastic game. Highly recommended if you're into Metroidvanias or never got around to playing it. It's an S tier Castlevania game.

I also want to give a shoutout to Konami. I hate their business practices and pachinko machines, but I have to give credit where due, this is the best retro collection of games I've ever bought. It has everything. Built-in achievements, a music player for each track in every game, hundreds of high quality concept arts, scanned user manuals for each language, high quality versions of covers and promotional material... You can even switch each game's region between US and EU for its subtle differences.

Like, you can even choose tracks you like in the main menu and place them in a playlist, then shuffle it. They put so much effort into this and it really shows. It's a game preservation miracle. Serious props to the creators.

I hope they got all the regressions now, this has been the longest beta period of any version yet. I really want 4.5 to release so I can upgrade my project already!