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Small-Scale Question Sunday for March 24, 2024

Do you have a dumb question that you're kind of embarrassed to ask in the main thread? Is there something you're just not sure about?

This is your opportunity to ask questions. No question too simple or too silly.

Culture war topics are accepted, and proposals for a better intro post are appreciated.

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Tell me about your favorite mods or most interesting fan projects you know. A while back when I was prepping for a roadtrip, I looked into emulator options and games to play during in-between time. Pokemon, was of course, on that list, but since I hadn't played pokemon for over 10 years, and wasn't interested in going thru the grind loop again, I started digging around the ROMhack scene. Most mods were of the usual, outdated, poorly documented, sort. There were only 2-3 polished and highly rated ones but they didn't really grab my interest. But one recently released ROMhack stood out, with its ambitiously vast scope of changes and the author's unwavering dedication. Pokemon Sweltering Sun, a hack based on Ultra Sun (2017, for the 3DS), that in the author's own words, tries:

To have every single Pokemon be fun and viable to use for the entirety of the game... thanks to new moves, abilities and so much more.

By every single pokemon, he means every single pokemon, and to wit, has uploaded a 488 video playlist, covering all 800+ pokemon (the hack adds all mons from gen 1-7), explaining each redesign thought process. There's also a neat spreadsheet pokedex with all the changes for "easy" reference (and it will cause your browser to lag). As a modder, I can tell you that is not normally, This very very insane. It is one thing to make an ambitious mod, it is two things to be super disciplined about clean documentation, and it is three things to have so much sustained passion, because in the process off writing this, I noticed the mad lad has still been pumping out content and just announced a brand new romhack project.

Moviebattles 2: a mod for Star Wars, Jedi Academy.

Finally, someone figured out how to do sabers vs guns in a multiplayer game. It's basically a standard class based deathmatch - various classes with abilities that you spend points to buy. You could be a bounty hunter with snipers and grenades, a sith who can jump and run and blast people with 2 handed lightning, a droideka with powerful shield and quick movement - possibilities are nearly endless. Playing on a series of movie accurate maps (seriously, the Phantom Menace hangar/throne room map...), 2 teams of various units face off to either kill everyone or complete the objective.

The lightsaber isn't a baseball bat. It's a one hit kill (unless the super battle droid opted for Cortosis!), BUT, when not in blocking stance, you are vulnerable to blaster fire. A skilled jedi could wipe out numerous trooper type units, but working together a good soldier could hold their own. The dueling as well, I never could figure out but was pretty high skill ceilinged. Really really fun, hours and hours of my youth on that.