Ah yes, the Timbuclear Triad.

@lastpositivist.bsky.social Bratan - have you played Disco Elysium? Because the first 2 minutes are EXTREMELY on brand for your "don't want to live" vibe and I feel like you'd dig the rest of it, too.

Egghead's portrait from the game Disco Elysium

Needs some anodic dance music.

I've taken to qualifying all of my video game recommendations with "if this sounds like the kind of thing you would enjoy." Outer Wilds and Disco Elysium were mind blowing for me, but if they're not someone's jam then it's not going to be a similar experience for them.

Every time you repost this I am sad that since I liked it the first time, I cannot like it again.

Bright ICE

Going to Maine is so good, I swear a full sixth of tMG songs are about infidelity, but I'm especially partial to Alibi, and an honorable mention to Goats-adjacent How I Left The Ministry

Literally the "transgender for everyone" talking point they demagogue.

That and Vetinari - Pterry developed him in so many little sections of a whole bunch of books, meeting and learning about him as a young man is more rewarding the more of him you've read prior..

Yeah, the younger versions of Watch members are good, but what really shines in my eyes is the flashback to what the CITY was like before it became the Ankh-Morpork we knew, and you get that from bits and pieces throughout many many books.

I suppose it IS a little prescriptive of me to think "You must enjoy this media in the same way I enjoyed it." Maybe framing it like "it's very good but you'll get even more out of it if you're familiar with the world and characters" is better. If it's your first, you'll want to reread it later, too

The only frustrating thing about it is when people who want to get into Discworld ask me "what's your favorite?" I have to say "Night Watch, but you need to read all the Watch books before it, and it's even better if you've read these 3-5 other ones beforehand as well."

Reminds me of Asimov's "The Gods Themselves", where some guys create 'free' energy by doing some kind of atomic arbitrage between our world and a parallel dimension where physics work a little different.

Glad you shared this so I finally have something interesting to point to for "a human artist using AI as a tool/medium" when I have this conversation now. I'm surprised it's taken this long, but I feel like most artists with actual things to say are (understandably)avoiding AI entirely.

The Mountain Goats - Counting Song For Bitter Children YouTube video by HiCommaJoel

May I suggest "Counting Song for Bitter Children", an early Mountain Goats track before he decided he didn't want to be pigeon-holed into someone who writes funny songs.

Wish I could heart this more than once.

I found a second playthrough years later to be really worthwhile. I had expectations when I played it the first time and was preoccupied with what was going to happen, where it was going to go. But when you get into it knowing what it is, I think you can appreciate the story it's telling better.

Why, "Christmas Card from a Hooker in Minneapolis" is even topical!

Do you want Reavers? Because that's how you get Reavers.

Like I'll find myself starting to get annoyed at sinking hours into a new Stardew or Satisfactory save when I could be experiencing something new instead, but I counter that with "well was I having fun though, and isn't that the point?"

Eventually it'll reach the point where that anticipation of letdown will sneak into the fun you're having theorycrafting, but until that point, time spent having fun puzzling it out is still time spent having fun. I sometimes have to remind myself that not all game time has to have "progress".

I don't play Fallout 76, but this reminds me of how I decided to quit playing WoW when I realized I was having more fun reading the patch notes than I was playing the actual game.

Would make an excellent double-feature with Laws of Attraction (2004), which is essentially this but with divorce instead.

"It's right behind me, isn't it?"

Just think about how Kim would want you to get out of bed in the morning. He believes in you, Detective.

Supraland is great! My one regret about it is I went straight into the followup (Six Inches Under) after and managed to burn myself out. I'm hoping that by the time he finishes Supraworld that will have faded and I'll be good to go.

And yeah, Roadwarden's vibes are great. I struggle with an elevator pitch for it beyond "have you read Book of the New Sun? It's kind of like that but also a lot not" so it's great when it's on sale and I can just tell people to buy it if they don't mind reading their games.

It's in RenPy!? Wow, I had no idea, that's really cool. I only know the engine from a one-person studio I support (Fiction Factory Games, shameless plug for Penny Larceny: Gig Economy Supervillian), who do cool stuff with it, but their start point is more VN format.

Many bangers! Sir Brante there reminded me of Roadwarden, which is similarly excellent and on sale for less than $4 US (and I imagine also on steep sale in Canada) if you haven't hit that one up yet.