SaraTonin

The exact mechanics are never explained, but I’ve always loved “fenestering” in David Zindell’s Neverwhere and Requiem For Homo Sapiens trilogy.

A pilot, in a one-person “lightship”, interfaces with their computer, merging their minds into one. They then solve maths equations which have never been solved before and prove new mathematical theories. This opens up a window underneath the ship, which it falls in to, into hyperspace. They then need to do more novel maths to open up the window to where they’re going and fall through that.

It’s weird and it’s nerdy and it’s poetic and it’s mystical, like everything in the books, and it’s just so incredibly cool.

Un-Named-Tomato-Y-Thing-With-Mince-Pasta-And-Pesto-ius

If you do check it out, then I’ve got two recommendations. The first is as I’ve already said - try to know as little as possible going in. Progression is the aquisition of knowledge, so the more you know going in, the more cool discoveries you’re not allowing yourself to have organically.

The second is to not treat it as a game. Every person I’ve seen not like the game has treated it as a game with quests and having to finish an area before progressing to the next, etc. etc.

Instead be the character, and be in the world they’re in. If you see something and think “oh, that looks interesting”…go and look at the interesting thing. If you see something and think “oh, does that mean…” …go and find out if it does mean. And if you get distracted by something shiny along the way, get distracted by the shiny thing.

Lots of games sell themselves as being open world. This game really is, one necessary trigger right at the start aside. It’s my most-watched YouTube let’s play because every single person who plays it has a very, very different path through it. The first thing one player does might be something that another player does right before the end. And it’s so well-written that both are equally rewarding and make the player feel like they’ve discovered things in the “right” order.

And that is a big part of what gives it its power. It’d honestly make a good film, book, or TV series. But none of them would be as good as the game, because here you’re not being told the story, you’re discovering it for yourself, and in a way that nobody else quite has.

I’m very evangelical for this game (can you tell?), but that’s because it really is an experience. There’s a review quote used in one of the trailers which calls it a “once-in-a-generation game”. I really, strongly, believe that to be true. There’s nothing else quite like it, and I want as many people as possible to have the opportunity to experience it, because - more than anything else I’ve ever played - you really can only play it for the first time once.

If we’re specifically doing recent games, then Outer Wilds really is a once-in-a-lifetime gaming experience. Which, if you’ve not played it, you really want to play with as few spoilers as possible. It’s genuinely one of the most profoundly moving experiences I’ve had while consuming any media.

I’m reminded of a case here in the UK a few years back where bigots left something like 200 bacon sandwiches on the doorstep of a mosque. The next day the mosque released a statement to the press thanking the unknown people for their kind donation and that the local non-Muslim homeless population had very much appreciated the sandwiches that the people at the mosque had distributed to them.

Get the emulator BbebEm: http://www.mkw.me.uk/beebem/

Developed for Windows, but ported to a bunch of other systems and OSes.

Then go to the BBC Micro Games Archive. [edit because I forgot the link] https://bbcmicro.co.uk/index.php?atoz=C

There are a tonne of games to download, but I’m going to recommend 2, both of which are still incredibly fun to this day.

The first is Citadel, which is a puzzle platformer. Would probably be called a Metroidvania today, as the formula is exploring a labyrinth of screens to find keys, objects, and solve puzzles, but it was actually released a year before either Metroid or Castlevania.

The second is Chuckie Egg. This is a much more straight-forward “one screen is one level” platformer where you have to dodge enemies and collect objects before a timer runs out. Where this stands out from the pack is the physics. Your character is really bouncy when jumping against walls and platforms, which allows you to fling yourself around the stage in a way that’s really fun.

And, if you’ve never played it, I recommend last year’s UFO50 on Steam. The concept is that some game designers found a forgotten 80s console from forgotten studio UFO Games along with 50 cartridges and ported them over. So what you get for £15 is 50 8-bit games, all of which have some modern ideas but which could conceivably have been released in the 80s. It’s incredible value for money, and there’s even a kind of meta-narrative as you watch the studio’s games get more sophisticated over time (for example, the first release doesn’t have any background music) and characters return. And, of course, there’s a huge variety of styles and genres.

It’s not made before the 90s, but if you’re after that feel rather than necessarily specifically games which were actually made then, then UFO 50 is very much worth your money and time. You’ll honestly marvel at how ridiculously underpriced it is.

As a last note, if you are at all interested in archaeology, then Elite Dangerous is basically a modern port of the original BBC Micro game. If you’ve played the former and boot up the latter, you might be surprised how little has actually changed and how much they stretched computing technology to fit that entire game into 8 bits and 16Mb of RAM.

But it really all you’re after is strictly just games made before the 90s which still play well, then try Citadel and Chuckie Egg. The emulator & ROMs are all free.

This is called the “relative privation fallacy” - where it’s stated or implied that action shouldn’t be taken on one issue because larger issues also exist. It’s like suggesting that the police shouldn’t try to catch pickpockets because unsolved murders exist.

The truth is that it’s possible for organisations to work on multiple fronts at once and that making rules around food labelling doesn’t imply that “the world is[…] burning” isn’t also something that’s being worked on.

I think that can be accomplished by rules like, say, having to have the words “plant-based” clearly visible next to the word “burger” in a legible font at an equivalent size. And if it contains any actual meat, then it has to say something like “40% real meat” in an equally visible place in an equally legible way.

At the moment what happens here in the UK is that you get things advertised as “mlk” or “scheese”. There’s no standardised language, and it’s actually harder to work out what it is you’re looking at. I imagine it’d be similar if people have to start selling “brgers” and “bergurs”. Might even lead to more chance of a mix-up for people who can’t read well.

A specific logo would be good, too. Separate, easily distinguishable logos for vegan, vegetarian, and containing meat. At the moment there’s no emblem which tells you something contains meat, and there’s no standardisation on vegan/vegetarian logos, which means that both are a “V” which is either green or in the negative space of something green, and which can be in any font. This isn’t optimal for quickly and easily informing people about the contents of what they’re buying.

So, again, it’s helpful but nowhere near as helpful as it could be - not least for the fact that there are plenty of manufacturers who have veggie/vegan products who don’t label that fact at all. Presumably for fear that the vocal minority who say they won’t eat anything which doesn’t contain meat might not buy their products. But if everything had such labelling, then that would just make it commonplace and people would get used to seeing these labels on their bread/pasta/whatever.

That’s Roku’s Basilisk

I forget what it’s called, but there’s a measure of what people need to live. But it includes a likely more than bare necessities. So included, for example, is having one 5-day holiday in the UK and going out to a restaurant once every 3 months. Not exactly extravagant, but accounting for one or two things that make life worth living beyond the way that these kinds of things often just count you as okay if you’re not actively starving.

This year, in order to maintain that lifestyle as a single person with no kids, the average person would need to be earning £35,000 a year. That’s higher than the median income. Minimum wage is less than £20,000.

Couple that with public services all having gone to shit and it’s no wonder people feel like they do.

Want to stop Farage, Keir? Make people feel like they can afford a decent quality of life. Rather than trying to out-bastard him on immigrants and trans people. Make people feel like they’re doing okay and the hatred against those groups will mostly disappear all by itself and Farage will have no power. But if people feel insecure, that’s when the door is open for finger-pointing and cries of “it’s THEM who are taking your money”, which is the only trick Farage has got.

And Doyle got the inspiration for Holmes from watching doctors diagnose patients

Imagine how much money she could make if she dyed her hair blonde and claimed to now understand that climate change is a hoax. She’d get her own show on Fox.