It helped that there were used and rental markets for relatively “modern” titles that are now almost entirely non-existent.

You worked places with style guides? Did… Did you have a real testing environment that wasn’t prod too?

I got taken off a project recently for being too direct about how the rest of the team was just spray and praying entirely AI generated code with no standards or review whatsoever, and they were charging ahead like it was a race to implement features we hadn’t even discussed if we wanted/needed.

If you can’t tell me how it works, you can’t confirm that we actually need it, you can’t tell me the upstream and downstream effects (or confirm they don’t exist), and you can’t even confirm that we even want it to do the thing it only supposedly does, then we have better things to do than go on a wild goose chase trying to debug it when there’s a looming deadline for things that legitimately do not work that we need. Stop vibe coding and actually review the existing shit for fucks sake. If the requirements have never been clear, solve that instead of generating more slop. Maybe update some of the existing documentation instead of having AI wholesale hallucinate entirely new not quite right ones over and over.

Anyway, please tell me more happy development bedtime stories. I need to chase away the nightmares.

Trump’s too dumb to even consider wearing a mask to hide his racism, and his real face is far more grotesque than this drawing.

I struggle to even understand the point of this as an image, let alone as a meme. Just feels like pointless “preaching to the choir” shit to me.

Updoots on the left I guess? You’re so brave?

Shattered Pixel Dungeon. The dev is even active on Lemmy! !pixeldungeon@lemmy.world

Depending on the legality and safety of doing so, you may also want to look into tech for avoiding censorship and oppresive regimes.

Things like TOR, running your own DNS server, etc.

Edit: I didn’t want to just leave this vague, so I looked up the Electronic Frontier Foundation’s Surveillance Self-Defense guide hoping for some better specifics, but unfortunately it looks like it’s mainly about making security plans, understanding your risk profile, using secure settings on your personal devices, using signal, using TOR, and selecting “the VPN that’s right for you”.

Like you really have a choice of “the VPN right for you” when they shut down things to only approved in/out IPs.

There might be useful info there, but it wasn’t quite what I was hoping to point you at, sorry.

Considering the risks involved with hosting something like this, I would probably start with research on how you could host this safely/anonymously. That would be my first priority. Can’t help people if they take you out.

Next step would be looking at piefed/Lemmy or whatever systems you’re thinking about hosting and identifying what features/logs/etc you would need to disable, modify, or set up to clear themselves automatically so that you wouldn’t have information worth going after in the first place.

Pfeces, purine, and ptoilet ptissue

Does the blue haired one just… not have a name?

A big part of the game is slowly figuring out what combination of weapon and boons suit you best, and what combos you can struggle through but don’t really prefer. Then you start making the best of what you get.

I definitely wasn’t winning runs in a week. You’re trying to escape the afterlife, it’s going to be hard and grueling. I have over 100 runs and the last “zone” with the Satyrs still does me in more than I’d like. Of course, I also almost always take the risks for more rewards. The trick is that I still have fun each run regardless.

At some point I did some runs focused on specific types of meta currency to grind out certain tavern upgrades, or to push through specific character’s storylines by gifting them nectar. Don’t sleep on the meta-progression and all the “side stories”. It helps break up the repetition.

As you die, and die, and die some more you’ll build your own skills, unlock some more tools through meta-progression mechanics, and unlock more of the story (and stories) almost every run whether you win or lose.

As you gift characters nectar it can effect dialog in other places and even unlock some entirely new mechnics and options during your runs.

It might not be the game for you, but it’s also not made to be blazed through and then put down. Take your time with it. Go for the challenges rather than trying to just get to the end, because the real ending is a lot farther away than you realize. You do a run or two, unlock some new story. Unlock more story a few times and you unlock a new mechanic or a hint towards a bigger thing.

So take your time. Enjoy the journey. It’s more rewarding if you take the time to engage with things on your way, even if this whole escape thing might be temporary until you get out. You’re dying enough anyway, may as well make some friends. Chat up Sisyphus, and don’t forget Bouldy either. He’s a good listener. Take on Chaos’s challenges. Did you know she’s Nyx’s mom? Why don’t they talk about each other and why have you never seen Chaos come to visit? Try to mend the bad blood between Orpheus and Eurydice. Do you want a canon bi polycule? You can do that. Want to try and teach the nearly non-verbal fury your name? You can do that too. Best to make the best of this trying to escape and ending up back at the start thing.

So you beat Hades. Now what? He’ll be back before long, just like you are when you die. What do you think he’s going to do then? Just let you go because you killed him? You didn’t let your death stop you, why would he for his?

Beating the final boss multiple times is needed to get the ending, but it’s just another step in the path. It takes multiple wins and doing side stuff (that you’re hopefully getting through naturally just as you play) to get to “the epilogue”, and you unlock one new god for and entire new “tree” of boons after your first win.

And when it gets too annoying throwing yourself at it another time, take a break and come back to it later.

I’ve been interested for many years, but I keep ending up holding off because I want something that does a better job at emulation than my phone.

I’m not sure that “dedicated device with potentially better control scheme” beats out “the one to two generations old semi-flagship android I already have with an xbone controller clipped to it and wired in through an adapter”. When I do find something that has better performance, the price point usually puts me off, which is silly because I pay more for my phone whenever I upgrade… and then the cycle perpetuates.

So I guess it comes down to that I don’t want to pay again for something my phone can already do. Just wish there were more phones with microsd card slots for expandable storage, and a quality controller with the same relative form factor as the dedicated devices. Console controllers are big for a work bag. Thick. Especially with the clip to attach a phone to it well.

Right now I’ve been tidying up an old Game Boy Color (cleaned and reshelled, thinking about rechargable usb-c battery modding it) and saving for an Everdrive for it. If that ends up scratching an itch by being a dedicated device, it might push me over towards buying a dedicated emulation handheld.

Speaking of hacks, there are ones to turn off the limited ammo mechanic of the light and dark guns. A lot of people seem to think that improves 2 a lot.

Edit: And using primehack to play it with mouse and keyboard would definitely go a long way towards making it feel more generic by giving it a more generic control scheme.

The Nointro group seems to be the most prolific/trustworthy for cartridge based retro stuff, as far as I can tell.