Can I just say thank fuck I found someone else who doesn’t like three body problem.

It’s not just the heavy handed politics. It’s literally everything about the book. Narrative devices used are absolutely garbage. Oh there’s a video game for some reason, and people LARP as Newton and Qin Shih Huang down to their exact personalities. Why the fuck?

In the second book there’s an entire section dedicated to the protag’s fantasies. A woman should have at most a Bachelor’s so she’s smart but not smart enough (paraphrased). What the fuck? And don’t get me started on the suicide bomb strat that immediately saw the Muslims and Japanese roped in.

The characters are incredibly dull. They just do one thing, but they don’t even do that well. Oh here’s Mr. Army guy; personality: army salute-y pragmatic unfeeling. The only character that has an added dimension would be Da Shi the policeman, but adding one more dimension to a point simply results in a plane.

People claim he had innovative ideas for sci-fi. They do realise that the Dark Forest Hypothesis was proposed by someone other than cixin, right?

This turned out to be a rant – could you tell I hate-read this book cause it pissed me off to no end?

Wait why were you being downvoted

That’s fried rice, not white rice steamed or cooked in a rice cooker. I can imagine putting ketchup on a nigiri and immediately getting scolded in Japan.

Good God what happened then?

Steamed? Nah you gotta stir fry that shit for maximum flavor. Or pop some in the oven/air fryer to get delicious crispy broccoli.

Is there some gambler challenge that you’re trying to clear? I gave up at the blackjack one and shot the dealer

Yeap fully agreed here as well. I do think the medium itself is shackled by its own chains, but my goodness when you find a game that does it well – the feeling is astounding.

I guess it depends on the player as well. I adored how TLOU2 handled its story but most people might disagree.

Anyway, I’ve come to the realisation that I’ve mostly been reading non fiction lately! Maybe that’s why I’m so fiction starved.

If you’ve any books to recommend I’d love to hear them!

I’d like to think I’m an avid reader (and gamer) as well. I view both highly and both have their strengths.

SPOILERS

Video games shine in terms of player interactivity. I genuinely felt visceral, strong emotions by simply having to press the square button 3 times in TLOU2. Bashing someone’s head in is the only way to proceed. The music gets more distorted, the screen itself becomes blurry – I felt as Ellie felt. Distraught, upset, angry, and everything else in between.

I felt the acceptance that I have been honing in my countless loops of Outer Wilds when I finally pulled the system’s “life support” out. Flying through space one last time while the music echoes this final journey really made me feel things.

I’d summarise the edge video games have as “This is what you (the player) have done. You have agency. Deal with the consequences of your own actions, or reap the benefits.”

A huge disclaimer, I know that the story is already established in the writers room. I’m not saying that games allow you to craft your own story. I’m saying that they allow you to craft your own experience.

Of course, great writers can accomplish the same. I love Atwood’s writing in particular, and she does conjure up wonderful emotions. But you always feel for someone or something. You don’t have any agency in what happens, so emotions tend to be dampened as well. That’s my personal opinion anyway, feel free to disregard it!

With all due respect, I’m all for FOSS but DAWs don’t really have a good alternative. Recommending Audacity over FL/Live/Logic like saying Paint is a good free alternative for Photoshop. Doesn’t really make sense.

Iirc the only DAW that might barely be enough is LMMS which runs on Linux.

You can’t even share much about this game without ruining it for someone else. I love this game so much but it’s really difficult to get someone else to play it as well.