Quoting: coolitic"Shouldn't need a calculator" as if the conversion ratio wasn't absolutely trivial.

And from that point alone, they stretch it out into buzz-words about "Companies manipulating children to spend money", as if having a (trivial) conversion step was the root of the issue.

The conversion itself may be trivial, but I can relate to the psychological impact, and that there is some level of obfuscation here.

Let's say I unlock an episode on Webtoons.com. From memory, I know that a fast pass ticket is 7 coins. I know that I usually buy coins in batches of 100+8. But I don't know from memory what they cost. Upon looking it up it is 9.99 USD for the 100+8 package. So, how much will that be in Euro again, and will there be a VAT added? Only when actually trying to purchase I see the "11.99 EUR" figure.

So... a fast pass episode costs about one Euro. If it would be stated like that, I would definitely be less inclined to buy, and more inclined to wait for the free unlock. I simply don't do the calculation every time I unlock a episode, just unconsciously. And I'm not some child for whom multiplication / quick guesstimates are new.

Plus, once you've already converted realmmone into platform bound virtual currency, you're effectively encouraged to actually spend it. Same like that regret purchase at duty free just because there was some foreign currency left.

So, if I as an adult with math heavy academic education can say that the obfuscating and spending-encouraging effects work on me upon reflection of my spending behavior, how should it affect children?

View this comment - View article - View full comments

Did anyone else here immediately thing of Castle Heterodyne when reading the title of the post?

View this comment - View article - View full comments

Quoting: HermesIt's about the pals being pokémon copies.

My thought too. Googling for "Palworld screenshots" shows me some pals that look like carbon copies of

- Eevee (ger. Evoli)
- Meowth (ger. Maunzi)
- Electabuzz (ger. Elektek)

I thought at first that the "flamethrower" Pal looks like a Pokemon too, but it ends up just being most vaguely similar to something in between the fire version of Eevee (Flareon, ger. Flamara) and Vulpix. So on that one I am conflicted. "Fluffy canine-like fire breather" is generic in the grand theme of monster-catching games, and the "orange to red" for fire monsters too. The fluffy sheep-like ones vaguely remind me of something, but I'm not sure its even Pokemon.

But the three listed above are too close for Nintendo not to sue. Not about the gameplay, but about the specific designs.

On the plus side, that's an issue that can be fixed without taking down the game entirely.

View this comment - View article - View full comments

Being a small indie team we've opted to do PC and Mac for now, and we've verified that the game runs well on Steam Deck using Proton, so we're hoping the Linux community can enjoy the game that way for the time being.

For what it's worth, actually supporting Proton is almost equivalent to natively supporting Linux at this point, from what I'm reading. If it is anything like my experience with other commercial software, the experience will be superior to what any native support would have been.

View this comment - View article - View full comments

Eventually though, Proton hopefully get to a stage where things like this aren't needed.

Implausible. As time goes on, there will be new features on the Windows side which again need to be accounted for in time for some big release depending on them.

100% compatibility is hard enough for a fixed reference target.

Just like graphics cards drivers keep getting updates specifically because something makes the latest AAA hit run slower than it should, or show glitches. If NVidia or AMD had a defacto monopoly for gaming, they'd probably tell devs "your game is doing it wrong, fix it yourself". But not even a duopoly allows that, never mind a more niche platform like Proton.

View this comment - View article - View full comments

Quoting: robvvPurchased this a couple of days ago and have been having fun with it! The only minor irritation so far is a limited number of checkpoints on each level. Replaying a section six times can get annoying... but maybe I should just Git Gud? :-)

No,with modern games that's a design issue and nothing else.

Adult gamers especially often lack the time to "gid gud", so a game that has difficulty spikes that would be bearable with more checkpoints are very awkward. Nothing against difficult games, but nowadays having difficulty settings should be a thing. And maybe achievements for the higher settings.

Wings of Vi annoyed me in that regard. You had the choice between a hard mode with a severe lack of checkpoints, and an easy mode, that added both more checkpoints and additional platforms. Instead of also having and intermediate mode, where ONLY more checkpoints would be added...

View this comment - View article - View full comments

I like the consistency of the art. Low-poly objects with pixel-art textures.

Over time I've learnt that, more important than fidelity of graphics is consistency. Mix low-poly geometry with HD realistic textures, and things start feeling off. Low-poly geometry and comic-like textures can work out well.

Quoting: fagnerlnIt looks so good! I loved the idea of using a frog as a gun.

How about Dad Quest [External Link]? :)

View this comment - View article - View full comments

I cry every time I see those cramped cursor keys, but this at least is the first example I've seen, where forcing the keyboard into a strict rectangle actually made sense.

View this comment - View article - View full comments

Quoting: Eike

What file system format does the microSD card use on Steam Deck?

Steam Deck microSD cards use ext4 with casefolding - Steam Deck formats SD cards to the proper format.

There's a compatibility problem lurking here for all who are running case sensitive filesystems - which should be about everybody.

Probably better for Windows games though?

View this comment - View article - View full comments

Quoting: s8as8a

Quoting: Purple Library Guy

Quoting: s8as8aIf you don't need macro compatibility, perhaps you would also like ONLYOFFICE?

Maybe. Looking at those links, it seems potentially decent. But I like LibreOffice fairly well, and I have confidence that it will continue to exist and see updates, and it's open source--does ONLYOFFICE get me anything LibreOffice doesn't?

I meant to use it in addition to LibreOffice, not instead of it. In fact, I too prefer LibreOffice overall; what ONLYOFFICE offers is superior Microsoft Office format compatibility (supposedly because its native format(s) is/are Microsoft's proprietary format(s), and it therefore doesn't have to convert from Microsoft's format(s) to its own open one(s), like LibreOffice does), and, as can be seen on the Flathub page, ONLYOFFICE is also free as in freedom. (I should probably have said that last time. ;P)

Also, for what it's worth, in my case, using ONLYOFFICE on the cloud also allows me to have a free-as-in-money office suite that is more free as in freedom, has better compatibility with Microsoft Office and is less likely to spy on me than Google Docs (or Office 365!).

I gave OnlyOffice a try. For basic office use it is fine and breaks Microsoft documents less than OpenOffice, but for my use it turned out too incomplete.

For instance, when editing Powerpoint slides some bullet point symbols would be encoded and decoded incorrectly, and there is no method for editing the slide master yet.

The equation editor has some weird bugs and omissions, that affect productivity worse than running Microsoft Office in a VM.

Overall it leaves the feeling of "why would I use this, when I already have an MS Office license?" At home I don't, and I don't need the extended features, so there I use LibreOffice and OnlyOffice. At work, I use OnlyOffice only as a viewer for MS Office documents, so I don't have to switch to the VM.

View this comment - View article - View full comments