#spookymirrorsprite

[callmearcturus]

Alright Arc, I'll bite; what exactly is going on in fields of mistria and in what way is it better than Stardew, and also how many hot queer women are there to (presumably) date?

I played a lot of Stardew but unfortunately I found the experience of it very shallow. And I fully understand it's such a fucking hard needle to thread. Moon Channel pointed out that the sweet spot of these games is a feeling of being welcome and not overwhelmed. So if every character you meet is, as he phrased it (talking about Coral Island), "the coolest person your coolest cousin knows," then you don't feel welcome and the game will not hook you.

Fields of Mistria fucking nails this because there are some child NPCs in FOM that have more character than the combined NPCs of Pelican Town.

As for the love interests.... I'll make a fast ranking.

BACHELORETTES

5. Celine

I do NOT dislike her at all, don't let the rating fool you, she is just not at all my type. She's the Box Art Girl but less Shiori Fujisaki and more Liara T'Soni, if you get what I mean.

She's the florist of the town, is super friendly and a little silly. I like her!

4. Adeline

Oh my gd I adore her. Adeline is the Isabelle of the game, she runs the town on an administrative level and she's extremely good at it. She loves doing government paperwork out in the sunlight! She helps Nora with her taxes! She believes in the power of local government and by gd so do I.

3. Reina

Objectively speaking I think Reina has to be the the hottest girl in town and always gives the vibe that she is into you, which I think is very important in games with dating sim elements. You want at least some of the options to be proactive with their interest and MAN REINA SURE IS.

She helps run the inn and comes from what seems to be a lineage of hot people.

2. Juniper

Juniper is fucking hilarious. She is the villain of every early Sailor Moon arc but now she runs a bathhouse that def isn't a front for some shady magical biz.

She does the Villainous Anime Woman laugh and she has a dog named Dozy who just sleeps all day.

She is so mean and so funny and just pitch perfect. Her weekly lowkey squabbles with Valen at the Inn are my favorite writing in the game. The fucking scene with the super rare expensive wine l m a o.

Valen

LIFE GOALS? WIFE GOALS? who could say!

Valen is the town doctor, she is more than a little posh, her petty fights with Juniper are hilarious, and everything about the look and the fit and the vibe is just 😍

Unfortunately she and Juniper are so good together I worry I'm interfering with some destined perfect kismesissitude....

[callmearcturus]

@spookymirrorsprite replied to your post “not me being a fucking nerd and looking up the...”:

Tdp-throttling?

​dude i hope you are absolutely certain you want to know

if you just want a video to explain this to you, then Russ RetroGameCorps my beloved has a video on TDP manip/underclocking handhelds over here. there's been Innovations in the handheld hobby yet again with two apps that allow TDP control similar to the ROG Ally and the Steam Deck.

but that doesn't answer the question at all right okay

so we're talking about two different things. Underclocking is something folks may be more familiar with. Well, most people talk about overclocking, which is increasing the power to your CPU and getting more computing power out of it. Whether this will shorten the lifespan of the CPU is a matter of constant debate and will remain so until the end of time. i am a conscientious objector.

When dealing with handheld PCs and gaming devices, there's a lot of good reasons to underclock instead. Most of these devices aren't using a discrete (separate) GPU. The one CPU just sections off a portion of its cores to act as the GPU. Some newer iterations do have their own GPU but that's not the norm yet.

So TDP is Thermal Design Power. Which means fucking nothing, but it's basically a limiter on how much power the CPU is allowed to use. If you are trying to run a triple-A game on a handheld device, you are gonna need a TDP of like... 20 to 30W. That's a lot of fucking power and drains most batteries within 2 hours.

The entire reason I invested in an android device instead of a steam deck was the battery life.

But most people aren't playing triple-A games on their phones and Retroids and Odins. They don't need that much power and all it does is drain the battery faster and heats up the device like a mobile frying pan.

So instead of that, we're now getting into the realm of capping the TDP and throttling the CPU down. And it's frequently causing performance increases with games. I only vaguely understand the How The Fuck of this. I think it's about the efficiency of the core usage, how if you throttle the CPU down and lower TDP, it will free up some of the overhead, making the device focus on running GameNative or whatever instead of trying to spread out and allowing other processes to book clock time. It also might be allowing the CPU to give more breathing room to the GPU-side of things. But again: this is beyond me. I only know enough to be dangerous.

I think specifically with emulation, especially with 6th Generation Consoles (esp esp with the PS2), lowering TDP and underclocking better emulates the specs of the original console and tends to lead to more stability.

The reason I bring it up regarding my phone is: the apps I'm using should not have this extreme power/battery requirement. If I force the TDP lower, I may get significantly improved battery life. Or I might break the whole device. Who could say? Not me!

but really I'm going to see if I can use Pulse to get Disco Elysium running on my Odin Portal, that's my white whale right now.

[callmearcturus]

Pssst Arc come back to whomstve youve already blocked the shitstirrers there so itll be safe(ish)

unfortunately, i have an absurd story to write first before i can permit my next Homestuck Relapse to happen :pensive:

[callmearcturus]

RE your poll about being intimidating, in the gentlest way I can put it; you give off the aura of the nicest kid at the playground? You have so many friends that you're already playing with that it seems impossible you might be open to playing with anyone else. And for people who have followed you for a bit, it becomes apparent that while you like clever asks and comments, you're content with your current friend circle. Which is fine! You don't OWE anyone attention and you definitely have good reason for keeping things close(Arc Deep Lore). But people treat tumblr like that playground where it's as simple as "i like your shirt- i like yours- we're friends now", not the high suspect website that it is. And encountering someone who does guard their heart and privacy fiercely can be discouraging, maybe enough that people give up. This is a long answer and I am so sorry, I hope it makes sense. Feel free to answer or not, whatever you're comfy with!

That's a very interesting and insightful answer. I do have people I consider close friends who can basically have my attention on demand.

But I would point out that to get to that point of friendship, everyone starts off... not at that point, you know? Like, Punct and I are megacollaborating right now, but that started as "omg punct keeps leaving really smart funny comments, i wanna befriend them" and then we were just ambiently around each other in a discord server and now we DM and argue about fic outlines every night.

I'm a huge proponent of the idea that there are different levels of friendship, from fandom-specific acquaintances to longtime mutuals to I have two people I refer to as my brother and one of them went on vacation with me a few weeks ago. And none of those "tiers" are bad. It's fun to have fannish friends! It's fun to have lifelong besties you'd take a bullet for.

I also think I get fewer asks than you would assume, which might be part of the Arc Is Intimidating thing lmao.

Anyway, this is an interesting answer and I'm nodding. I have very firm boundaries and that's maybe what's intimidating.

[callmearcturus]

@spookymirrorsprite replied to your post “All y'all saying smash bros don't understand games”:

I only said Smash because it's the least approachable to me personally. I want more games with accessibility controls to turn off all combat and button smashing, and Smash Bros is nothing but that.

Well, it is a fighting game. I enjoy accessibility settings for games that broaden the audience, but SSB is One Thing and that is fighting.

@chronicangelca replied to your post “All y'all saying smash bros don't understand games”:

I don't understand games. I chose Minecraft because I, personally, have a disdain for it though.

Minecraft is one of the most wildly important games and it actively seeks to develop and iterate on itself both in the sense of the official updates expanding the scope in interesting ways as well as serving as a platform for amateurs and hobbyists to explore game development through the robust modding scene. Some of those people (like the folks who made Thaumcraft) made better games than many triple A developers.

Minecraft is awesome.

[callmearcturus]

Pocket Mirror is a fun, very story-driven rpgmaker horror game? With multiple endings depending on how good you are at making friends. I know you don't tend to play PC games, but it's very good and makes you think

"don't tend to play PC games"

wh

legit question, do you have me mixed up with someone else on your dash lmao

i have a gaming rig, fitgirl is in my most visited sites list, and i have been playing P4 and P5 on PC, just streaming to a handheld.

anyway i am a wuss and can't really do horror, 999 is about as close as I'm gonna get to that

[callmearcturus]

What do you know about burning digitial media to dvd? I'm having to use an external disc writer and google is being extraordinarily unhelpful QnQ

Ooooooh, sorry. Pretty much nothing. I do the opposite thing, ripping physical discs to my Plex server. 8\