site banner
naraburns  nihil supernum  1yr ago (text post)   3202 thread views

Friday Fun Thread for December 9, 2022

Be advised: this thread is not for serious in-depth discussion of weighty topics (we have a link for that), this thread is not for anything Culture War related. This thread is for Fun. You got jokes? Share 'em. You got silly questions? Ask 'em.

3
Top Bottom Old Controversial Comments
Jump in the discussion.

No email address required.

What video games are people playing?

I just finished the Outer Wilds after picking it up on sale, and wow, that game was incredible. The ending actually made me cry, something I haven't experienced in a video game in almost a decade.

I usually don't go for narrative driven/mystery type games, but Outer Wilds is truly in a class of it's own. I've heard Return of Obra Dinn is similar quality, as well as Disco Elysium, so I'm curious to check those out.

I haven't touched it in a while, admittedly, but I really enjoyed MudRunner. It's a simple(-ish) game about driving Russian(?) trucks off-road and delivering logs. There's something both mindful and mindless about it, you enter this state of awareness and flow where the act of driving is just as much about the travel as it is just getting from point A to point B. A lot of it is just figuring out when and where is the best time to activate AWD or the diff locks (or just turn on both and hold down W all the way), but it's moving all the pieces (or, rather, the trucks) around, planning the strategy for moving them around, and working towards the delivery that's the real meat of the game to me.

I also tried DX-Ball 2: 20th Anniversary Edition, which I gather to be a re-release of an Amiga-flavored brick-breaker game (think Arkanoid), and it really stands out for the oh-so-of-its-time visuals and music (and boy, do I mean music, it's pure 90's soundtracker techno/trance goodness).

Your MudRunner description makes me think of ΔV: Rings of Saturn. It's a fairly hard sci-fi game about...well, mining the rings. Outfit your ship with mass drivers and RCS thrusters. Dive into the rings and match velocity with some ringroids before swallowing them with your cargo bay. Don't turn too fast or reverse with the doors open; all that ore still has inertia. This core loop is kind of soothing and the music and visuals are well-done.

Also, the "demo" on Steam is actually the full game right now, so it's free. You might enjoy it.

I actually added that game to my library recently thanks to Yogscast's Jingle Jam bundle. For 35 GBP, you get like 80+ games, and that's among them.

What is this place?

This website is a place for people who want to move past shady thinking and test their ideas in a court of people who don't all share the same biases. Our goal is to optimize for light, not heat; this is a group effort, and all commentators are asked to do their part.

The weekly Culture War threads host the most controversial topics and are the most visible aspect of The Motte. However, many other topics are appropriate here. We encourage people to post anything related to science, politics, or philosophy; if in doubt, post!

Check out The Vault for an archive of old quality posts. You are encouraged to crosspost these elsewhere.


Why are you called The Motte?

A motte is a stone keep on a raised earthwork common in early medieval fortifications. More pertinently, it's an element in a rhetorical move called a "Motte-and-Bailey", originally identified by philosopher Nicholas Shackel. It describes the tendency in discourse for people to move from a controversial but high value claim to a defensible but less exciting one upon any resistance to the former. He likens this to the medieval fortification, where a desirable land (the bailey) is abandoned when in danger for the more easily defended motte. In Shackel's words, "The Motte represents the defensible but undesired propositions to which one retreats when hard pressed."

On The Motte, always attempt to remain inside your defensible territory, even if you are not being pressed.


New post guidelines

If you're posting something that isn't related to the culture war, we encourage you to post a thread for it. A submission statement is highly appreciated, but isn't necessary for text posts or links to largely-text posts such as blogs or news articles; if we're unsure of the value of your post, we might remove it until you add a submission statement. A submission statement is required for non-text sources (videos, podcasts, images).

Culture war posts go in the culture war thread; all links must either include a submission statement or significant commentary. Bare links without those will be removed.

If in doubt, please post it!


Rules


Recommended Posts And Communities

Recommended Realtime Chats