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lextorias @lextorias.me · 21d

I'm not normally a completionist, and I missed an achievement and some other stuff, so I I'm not gonna 100% it. But the fact that this game could keep me interested enough to do nearly 90% is pretty impressive

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lextorias @lextorias.me · 21d

*I'm an advocate for intended difficulty, but since it does seem to be causing a lot of people genuine issues, I'd say if it is too hard to enjoy, maybe consider modding it

They're very easy to install, and the ones I played around with do a good job making it easier, but still somewhat balanced

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lextorias @lextorias.me · 21d

#JustFinished Hollow Knight: Silksong

Managing to take a very good first game and upgrade it in nearly every way is an achievement for anyone, let alone a small studio

It has balance and pacing issues, but the story, world, and gameplay are all so good I just couldn't put it down

Must Play*

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Reposted by lextorias

Zi @ziqqix.bsky.social · 22d

how I feel trying to explain to normies why nsfw ban and censorship is bad and why they should care

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lextorias @lextorias.me · 25d

what the heck

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Reposted by lextorias

shaunt @shaunvids.bsky.social · 27d

boy howdy am i tired of the daily "man who sells Thing says Thing very important" tech story

CNN @cnn.com · 27d

Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg has told analysts that people without smart glasses may one day be at a "significant cognitive disadvantage" compared to those who do use the tech: https://cnn.it/47L2Y5a

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lextorias @lextorias.me · 28d

Silksong is Team Cherry’s Dark Souls 2

…is what I would say if I was trying to be controversial and hyperbolic

I think they just tried to make a game for the people who mastered the first, and ended up making it so compelling I wish it didn’t require mastery to have fun

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lextorias @lextorias.me · 28d

And it does suck, because a lot of the non-difficulty changes make this game feel made to sink into. You’ve got hubs and quests and more RPG elements. It’s beautiful and has a much stronger narrative

But the difficulty just turns any attempt at investment into stress and tedium

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lextorias @lextorias.me · 28d

Enemy spam. Significantly more annoying runbacks. Double damage from what feels like everything

It’s a massive difficulty increase for no real reason, often from no real mechanical change. You just have effectively half health throughout the game. How is that not a troll?

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lextorias @lextorias.me · 28d

Some of it is fair and balanced mechanical progression. The diagonal pogo, increased enemy and boss complexity, etc.

But so much is just… trolling? I can’t find any better word for it

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lextorias @lextorias.me · 28d

Mind you, I completed a 100% run of Hollow Knight the day I started, so I’d say I went in well-prepared. And yet I STILL felt an immediate spike in difficulty that seemed intent on angering me

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lextorias @lextorias.me · 28d

I… kinda agree with this?

I’ve talked about difficulty and praised hard games a ton, but a lot of design decisions in Silksong seem made purely to fuck with the player

I just couldn’t stop imagining how much fun I’d be having if the game didn’t have a grudge against me

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lextorias @lextorias.me · Sep 10

ngl the difference in response on these two apps is very telling

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lextorias @lextorias.me · Sep 9

It’s certainly been happening for a while. This is from one of my favorite articles on the topic, all the way back in 2015

www.engadget.com/2015-12-02-p...

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lextorias @lextorias.me · Sep 9

the budget is actually just for all the cocaine the producers will be doing. 70s cinema is back, baby!

Culture Crave 🍿 @culturecrave.co · Sep 8

OpenAI confirms they're helping make an AI-generated movie called 'Critterz'

• Goal is to finish production in 9 months
• Budget is ~$30M
• Plan is to debut the film at Canne
• 'Paddington 3' writers penned the script
• Art will be fed into Chat GPT 5 and other image models

(via WSJ)

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lextorias @lextorias.me · Sep 9

“What artist thinks they deserve $100?” = “I would feel bad paying/getting paid more than $100”

“Artists honestly deserve way more than $100” = “I would feel bad paying/getting paid less than $100”

That’s it. All discourse does is possibly drive other people’s ranges up or down to meet your own

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lextorias @lextorias.me · Sep 9

Comms (like most transactions) are oppositional

Commissioners want to pay as little as they can get away with. Artists want to get paid as much as they can get away with. The final price is just where those two overlap

Arguing about how much artists deserve is just rationalizing your price range

pikat @pikat.io · Sep 8

i dont think the price of commissions has anything to do with how much an artist "deserves", or even how much work goes into a piece -- isn't it supply and demand? if you charge $100 a sketch and your slots fill immediately, maybe you should be charging more. the luis vuitton of sketches

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lextorias @lextorias.me · Sep 9

I’m not playing Silksong, but I just want everyone to know I could beat it really easily if I wanted to. I can tell everyone complaining about the difficulty is a worse Gamer than me

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lextorias @lextorias.me · Sep 8

game developers when something good happens in the industry: here’s why this thing is bad and will ruin my life, actually

rj @rj.dcellgames.com · Aug 30

silksong honestly should cost 40 bucks and i'm not even joking

i won't go so far as to say it's bad it doesn't, but! it will have Effects, and not all of those effects are Good

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lextorias @lextorias.me · Sep 8

Restricted Mode has existed since 2010, is off by default, and YouTube says it only accounted for 1.5% of views in 2017

It’s likely not the problem here, but I did do some research into how it might be related

lextorias @lextorias.me · Sep 7

Did a bit of bored phone research into Restricted Mode, YouTube’s recent AI age-verification censorship, and any reason why they might be causing views to go down across the platform

For anyone who’s interested, here’s a thread 🧵

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Reposted by lextorias

Ela Bambust 🏳️‍⚧️ @ela-bambust.bsky.social · Sep 7

"the real game starts after the credits" well too bad, my adhd put a little tick mark next to it with "task completed" written in crayon so I'm never gonna touch it again

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lextorias @lextorias.me · Sep 7

TL;DR: Restricted Mode has existed since 2010. YouTube said only 1.5% of views are using it. However, their teen content filters seem to be identical, and it’s only after they started forcing age verification that views went down for everyone

lextorias @lextorias.me · Sep 7

Did a bit of bored phone research into Restricted Mode, YouTube’s recent AI age-verification censorship, and any reason why they might be causing views to go down across the platform

For anyone who’s interested, here’s a thread 🧵

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lextorias @lextorias.me · Sep 7

This is all just coming from a couple hours on my phone though, so take it with a grain of salt

It’s a lot of speculation based on some weird coincidences that I don’t have any better theories to explain. All I really know is that something fishy’s goin on

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lextorias @lextorias.me · Sep 7

At best, minors are having their algorithms fucked with to “protect” them

At worst, every person under 18 or on a public network is having guideline-compliant videos hidden from them and deprioritized without their knowledge

That could certainly explain a drop in views

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lextorias @lextorias.me · Sep 7

It does seem strange that it’s around the same time YouTube began implementing this new AI restriction overhaul that many big creators started noticing an immediate dip in views, seemingly correlated to what videos are hidden in Restricted Mode

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