nyaa.si has a bunch. Just be careful to not download the manga instead. (Both are under the same section, “Literature”.)

When “the right thing to do” enters in conflict with “what maximises profits”, businesses almost always pick the later.

What makes this decision particularly stark is the response from other tech giants. The same censorship notice was sent to Apple and Google, as the game has been available on their Russian mobile stores since 2020. Both companies reportedly ignored the request, leaving Flick Solitaire available for download.

It’s a matter of relative power.

Slay the Spire: yes. All four rules are there, specially in spirit. It’s also a deck-building game but that’s fine, a game can belong to 2+ genres at the same time.

I’m not sure on Balatro. I didn’t play it, so… maybe?

There are a thousand definitions and mine is just one among many, I’m aware. This is not a “right vs. wrong” matter, it’s how you cut things out.

For me, a roguelike has four rules:

1. Permadeath—can’t reuse dead chars for new playthrus.
2. Procedural generation—lots of the game get changed from one to another playthru.
3. Turn-based—game time is split into turns, and there’s no RL time limit on how long each turn takes.
4. Simple elements—each action, event, item, stat etc. is by itself simple. Complexity appears through their interaction.

People aware of other definitions (like the Berlin Interpretation) will notice my #4 is not “grid-based”. I think the grid is just a consequence of keeping individual elements simple, in this case movement.

Those rules are not random. They create gameplay where there are limits on how better your character can get; but you, as the player, are consistently getting better. Not by having better reflexes, not by dumb memorisation, but by understanding the game better, and thinking deeper on how its elements interact.

I personally don’t consider games missing any of those elements a “roguelike”. Like The Binding of Isaac; don’t get me wrong, it’s a great game (I love it); but since it’s missing #3 (combat is real-timed) and #4 (complex movement and attack patterns, not just for you but your enemies), it relies way more on your reflexes and senses than a roguelike would.

Some might be tempted to use the label “roguelite” for games having at least few of those features, but not all of them. Like… well, Isaac—it does feature permadeath and procedural generation, right? Frankly, I think the definition isn’t useful, and it’s bound to include things completely different from each other. It’s like saying carrots and limes are both “orange-like” (carrots due to colour, limes because they’re citrus); instead of letting those games shine as their own things, you’re dumping them into a “failed to be a roguelike” category.

I did because my older computer was a potato, so it was kind of obvious the game took a bit too long to install.

From the top of my mind, Europa Universalis 4. Even the base game takes ages to install, and I don’t think it’s just the Linux version.

Incidentally, I checked it in FitGirl’s site, found EU5 instead, and she’s complaining about the exact same thing:

Installation takes 5-12 minutes (depending on your system, mostly on your drive speed – the game has more than 49000 small files, Paradox never learn from their mistakes)

Bingo. And this means they’re effectively choosing who their games are for. And then complaining the ones they didn’t choose decided to pirate it.

So you’re saying that all games should install like this?

Given other people addressed the same point, but unlike you they aren’t disingenuously assuming words into my mouth, I think it’s pretty safe to block you as dead weight.

I’m aware that compression rates are a trade-off between space and processing time, and that there’s some balance to be had. However, I don’t see this balance from plenty commercial games; what I see instead is disregard.

Here’s a made up example. Suppose you have a choice between compressing a game:

• to 10 GiB, and it takes 2min to unpack it in a certain machine
• to 3 GiB, and it takes 8min to unpack it in a certain machine

FitGirl will consistently pick the later option. And it would be fine if devs picked the former, or a middle ground… but they don’t. Instead, often you get a 10 GiB file that takes 10 min to unpack, the worst of both worlds.

And it isn’t just a matter of the compression algorithm. The developers also have the freedom to choose how they split files; but they often create 9001 files the size of an ant, that is going to hurt decompression times. (Paradox Interactive, I’m looking at you.)

Tagging @[email protected], as it addresses what they said too.

Fair point. I guess it would be more accurate to say “development studios” (you know, the organisation… including the bloody boss) instead of “game devs”.

You’re missing the point. The other user is highlighting why your typical player would go with those repacks. And, well, your typical player doesn’t use Linux (…yet - Microsoft is fixing this real fast.)

(I typically use johncena141, but I don’t recall having problems with FitGirl.)

Note plenty FitGirl repacks are lossless; as in, she isn’t taking less important files out of the game, she’s compressing it better. 90GB→35GB seems accurate; you often see ~1/3 of the original size, like this. And it shows plenty game devs

1. do an extremely bad job at basic tasks like compression.
2. give no flying fucks about players, who might have really slow connections.

And then those same developers get amazed at the fact FitGirl is so popular. “Maybe we’re doing something wrong? …nah.”

This is almost a textbook example of the broken window fallacy.

To be fair to the copyright troll, the Switch buttons are still in the same relative positions as they were in the SNES.

“Microsoft”, who? Certainly not Suleyman, Davuluri, or Nadella.

Even if you’re in the camp that understands memes like “6 7” have more significance than they’re given credit for,

I think 6-7 is a shibboleth. It doesn’t say much on its own, except which group you belong to.

Substance, as ever, remains a relative notion. Nyan Cat perhaps didn’t have the substance of an Andy Warhol image

I’d argue the Nyan cat is more substantial than what Andy Warhol came up with.

If you want a great reset you’ll need a new internet that is outright hostile to corporate interests. No corposlop being produced there, no derailing old memes to sell you junk.

Nah, quoting Stormfront is not a bug. Quoting well-sourced facts retrieved from Wikipedia is.

I’m mindblown at him being mindblown.

Oh wait, I’m not. Because I know those CEOs are completely detached from reality, and take users for dumb cattle ready to be herded.

Funny but insightful comment from the link:

“Never get high on your own stuff. A lesson this guy doesn’t seem to have learned…”

Fediverse, please enlighten me - is Windows a drug? …on a more serious note, “don’t overestimate the desirability of what you’re trying to sell” is sensible advice.

It’s possible. For example, the quality assurance department finds 9001 critical bugs, but whoever is in charge says “ship it lol” regardless of those bugs. In fact I think this might be the problem with CS2, I wouldn’t be surprised if Paradox was the one doing the QA for Colossal Order.

Still a bad QA matter, though. And it’ll get worse.

Relevant to note the publisher (Paradox Interactive) is also known for extremely poor in-house QA. Both game and DLC releases are known to be extremely buggy.

[Hallikainen] We’re confident that the franchise will continue to thrive under Paradox’s leadership

That’s corpo speech for “we lost the franchise, PI has it under its direct control now”. Note Iceflake Studios is “part of Paradox Interactive”.

The series is dead. Nothing to see here. Move on, gentle folks.