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Joined 2 years ago
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Cake day: July 5th, 2023

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  • And a big problem in this game is that it’s a pain to switch echoes all the time

    It really really is. It’s one of the things I noticed in the trailer and just hoped they would have a solution for once I got to play the game.

    The game has a hundred or so echoes, and you can solve puzzles in different ways, but some require a very specific echo and some require any, so you basically just use the same half dozen echoes. When you have to switch, it sucks, and so when you don’t have to switch you just spam water block or whatever.

    It seems like the devs just implemented the echo switching as is and assumed they’d fix it later… But they never did.

    It’s a fun game but the chances of me replaying it are near zero. Skyward Sword had a similar problem with Fi, although I understand they’ve mostly fix that in the remaster.








  • Keep in mind his birth was live. They said by random chance in the film, but I suspect they induced labor and this was something like a post-Superbowl event that was hyped up.

    So even if the show got boring, everyone would have been aware. So maybe you are just flipping through the channels (as was the style at the time), if the baby shows up you might watch for a few minutes just to see what it’s up to.

    Remember Reddit had that hotdog in gelatin? I’d want to check in on that every few months.

    The first few years were probably inexpensive and eventually things would get interesting.



  • Re turning off bot accounts, keep in mind labeled bots probably serve a specific purpose. So turning off bots can result in a poorer user experience.

    For example I have bot accounts that post weekly discussion threads for TV shows or discussion threads for films.

    If you turn off all bots then you’ll never see these discussion threads. (I’ve seen this happen, users starting a duplicate discussion thread because they hid all bot accounts.)

    I would recommend blocking bot accounts you find annoying vs blocking all bots.



  • free from the Bond baggage

    Is there Bond baggage? Prior to Daniel Craig I don’t think we knew anything about James Bond and his personal life. For a given Bond actor we might get a little bit of backstory or a maybe film connection, but it was all within the films for that actor.

    Sure Desmond Llewelyn played Q for the majority of Bond films, and Judi Dench played M in two Bond series, but they never talked about the “other” Bond.

    Also James Bond doesn’t have a canonical backstory like Batman. There is no “his parents died after the theater show” origin.

    As long as he’s “British” he can be James Bond.


  • I know that’s a direct quote from the developer, but I disagree that is what actually happened.

    The Animal Well journey began in two phases, Basso says: a quick stab at a Metroidvania-styled prototype in 2012, and a bespoke engine project that he took more seriously, which he began coding alone in 2014 during his day job’s off hours.

    It was 2017, and some of the design ideas from his 2012 Metroidvania lark had continued pulling on him, so Basso “wrote off” his 3D engine as “a learning experience” and started anew with 2D search action as a priority.

    It seems clear to me the prototype did more heavy lifting than he’s giving credit. He clearly had an established vision beginning with the prototype. He spent three years thinking 3D was the best way to achieve that goal, but that goal was clearly based on the prototype. At some point it was clear that 3D was drifting away from the core, so the switch to 2D and a renewed focus was the answer.

    It’s also clear that they had a distinct art style in mind from the start.

    For his new game, he wanted pixels to scale perfectly to a variety of common screen resolutions, along with visual effects that meshed well with his integer-scaled pixel art.

    And that existing engines couldn’t meet that distinct art style.

    That home-brew engine is what gives the game its unique look and can allow for unique game elements, but that initial prototype was clearly the guide.