Rants / Reviews / Random thoughts

• the beginning was tiresome and boring, being stuck in the citadel for a while... for me the game start once you gain access to space
  
• the lore felt restricted, it is not as wild, diverse and fun as Star Control 2, it is well made but it is way too conventional; shallow, generic, obvious and boring, follow norms too much, too human-centric
  
• gameplay was tiresome and i felt some parts were made by sadists... such as the heavily repetitive planets gameplay with the mako, especially on worlds with huge hills... another tiresome gameplay thing was the melee rushing enemies or the rocket launcher abusive ones when the player doesn't even have the equivalent weapon to counteract; why ? also explosives everywhere (same in ME2)... perhaps the gameplay just didn't age well and they were still figuring stuff out at the time, anyway it is pretty mild for a FPS, i didn't like backtracking as well especially in ME3 (fast travel option in Citadel still require some amount of walking probably made to lengthen the game)
  
• i dislike the abuse of invisible walls everywhere to prevent the player from falling (same in ME2 and 3), this impact the gameplay in Mass Effect because the player path is often blocked for no reasons
  
• the copy pasted buildings / spaceships interior is mediocre, same as backtracking... i see all this as a cheap development / budget trick typical of these game studios doing business
• the cities are actually pretty limited size wise, you'd expect a huge area but no, many invisible walls etc. same in ME2, it does a great job at appearing as bigger though
  
• the UX was bad... especially the inventory or when skipping dialogs, the HUD UX was ok, this improved a lot in the sequels
  
• it was not as lively, one thing i enjoyed greatly in SC2 was the dynamic map with the enemies slowly progressing as you play and which can eventually wipe all the galaxy out, it is admittedly a pretty hardcore feature though and required me to do the game a second time because i wasn't aware of this at first :D, there is choices to make sometimes in ME (more in ME2) but it is focused on characters with bits of romance, choices are carried over to the sequels though which is a nice feature.
  

Visions of Mana

• game is very slow to start and seems easier than before (in hard difficulty !), there is much less bosses in the first few hours and the game pace seems different perhaps to lengthen the game, bosses were attractive in the original Mana series as a way to rhythm the game and keeps the engagement going with much harder encounters placed at some key points of the adventure, the flow felt great all along, i really started to have fun with Visions of Mana after ~15 hours or so
  
• story is a bit weak, i didn't like the too easy "Soul guard" trope of the main character, the Mana tree pilgrimage is okay, the human sacrifices part is kinda strange in the way it unfold but somehow okay after some hours when it is explained, characters are a bit familiar at least
  
• monsters are in some specific areas of the map, quite classical in this sort of game but... maps can be huge and this spawn system doesn't work as well with big maps, understandable but a conservative choice
• UX / controls are confusing sometimes but it is a minor annoyance
• too much characters and specialties for me, was probably made for replay value but i don't like it at all, it force the player to switch in game (annoying + don't have time to skill up) or replay the game, i prefer how it was handled in Secret Of Mana
  
• loading screen time between zones (or world map) although short become a minor annoyance later with heavy number of quests with back tracking...
• no coop ? game does almost everything likes the first game but drop the innovative coop mode... while being tailored for it, guess it wasn't worth from the developers standpoint
  

Din's Curse

Movies

Books

Every milestone in the history of the company, even when forecast with heaps of hoopla, was ultimately played out according to some secret timeline of geologic tedium, so that it was drained of all interest and drama well before it took place and afterward went all but unnoticed. And the days rolled by, and one grew older, and none of it seemed to possess the least import or substance. Finally, looking back from the death-bed of your entire life in the working world, you would be left exclaiming, 'What was that all about!'.

― Thomas Ligotti, My Work Is Not Yet Done

Video Games (PC)

• Star General (1996); always fond of SSI General series because of their no fuss appeal (they are very accessible !) and easy to learn but hard to master curve, Star General is a bit of the same but in space with hybrid warfare (land and space), it is much more simplified on land than the other games in the series though, it has more layers to reason about (land, space, siege so supply and logistics etc.) and this may explain that some layers are simplified to keep the formula working, has an early non mandatory 4x feel (even some light diplomacy), it works great for some no fuss hex based fun on a bigger strategic canvas, has plenty content with plenty units type and races, also like the visuals / interface and the manual, the music is also very cool but sfx are annoying though
• Palworld (2024); good multiplayer survival with creature collection, a very accessible mix of Pokémon / RimWorld / Ark basically, it take most good ideas and mix them in an accessible formula, there is cool features such as creatures aiding your camp so that it feels less grindy, creatures are useful, there is plenty creatures as well and they looks nice, the exploration / open world feels good, gameplay is mostly about exploring, catching, building, not sure about guns (could do without i guess) but it is okay, a fun game to play with a pal !
• Dungeon Tycoon (2024); okayish Dungeon Keeper like but much more casual and less refined, goal is to build / manage a dungeon and make it balanced / fun / challenging for the heroes, fixed size rooms can be placed and they can be decorated with a lot of props, heroes props (chests, potions, buffs, party gathering table etc.) are also available and mobs / boss spawner etc. player can tweak mobs level, heroes roam around and kill / loot / rate during the day, game concept works for some light fun but is boring at times as there is nothing much to do when heroes explore (especially later in game), some interaction are possible (helping mobs / heroes) but they are mostly useless, progression feel okay (there is a research tree and stuff unlock progressively), has okay but too generic low poly minecraft like graphics, has no replayability and is not a challenging game although the survival mode may toughen the game, AI is a bit dumb, has non critical bugs, pretty short though (~4h to get a five star dungeon and most stuff unlocked)
• Dungeonmans (2014); good straightforward roguelike with plenty skills to mix in free form style (flexible class system), each run can be a part of the same world so the player get bonuses from previous runs (accumulated gears and knowledge), this ease the game progression (can be turned off), game is kinda goofy, can rush trivial dungeons, no hassle with inventory space or durability (none of that), has cool pets system (poultry based !), feels like Dungeons of Dredmor at times but even more accessible (has some humour as well), quite classic, repetitive and not that deep but still plenty fun to have with some good ideas and annoying deatly surprises (note : don't accept monsters party :D), might be a good entry point for the roguelike genre, like the early 90s aesthetics with the overworld map etc. (Mystic Quest Legend style), also music, feels a bit like a "casual" version of ToME (not matching in depth / intricacy/ diversity though)
• No, I'm not a Human (2025); a fun unsettling progressive horror / visual novel game set in a small isolated house, has an unique lo-fi charm / tone, design is clean and balanced, visual novel part isn't overwhelming, gameplay resolve around day / night cycles, desperate strangers bang on your door at night begging for shelter from some catastrophic event happening outside, it is up to the player to accept them in (one person in is essential to avoid bad stuff), sheltered peoples can be checked during the day through energy "points" (due to creepy "visitors"), can also listen to the radio, check TV, talk, phone, order stuff or perform body checkups, whole game is about survival by making various decisions with the limited energy, choosing who to trust and getting clues / piecing what is going on, there is many endings and 50+ characters, some part are randomized, game delivers an effective experience (+ mood) despite its minimal setup !
• Mario Kart World (2025); fun party arcade racing game with lots of playable characters, survival mode is cool due to the new "open world" concept (interconnected / continuous maps), can also do wall jump / rails grind, riding waves was also surprising / pretty cool and directly reminded me of Wave Race 64 (a nod ?), didn't test single player modes but it seem to "innovate" there as well with more open world stuff (free roam), quite liked the arcadey fusion music as well
• Sands of Salzaar (2021); great 2D open world action RPG set in a fantasy desert / middle east setting, main influence seems to be Mount & Blade (with ramped up RPG elements + magics), player has huge freedom and is free to explore an "overworld" map and makes his way, doing "dungeons", participating in events, looting stuff and recruiting troops / heroes then eventually joining a faction doing quests / help and slowly getting a fief to manage etc. there is siege elements, resources (some units upgrade require specific resources type), a deep skills tree and room for character progression plus mostly all stuff that is in Mount & Blade (map dynamism with factions doing their stuff, promotion, events, party management, trading goods etc.), all this with a RPG / fantasy aspect which makes the game interesting (shapeshifting, boss battles, dragons etc.), has a large world which is split into mid-sized maps (not continuous), fighting has a hack and slash feel and is real time but kinda messy, the player can dodge and use various abilities but it is somewhat lacking in precise controls, battles can be large though, 2D art has charm with hand-drawn / painting style (somewhat minimalist), path-finding is terrible though and got stuck on first few minutes... map path lisibility is meh (require to be accustomed), music is okay but repetitive and unnerving at times... don't really like the many (short) loading screens... somewhat easy, got some minor bugs as well, gameplay + freedom + theme is still pretty cool though !
• Necesse (2025); a fine top down 2D open world survival (Minecraft / Terraria) with a bit of settlement management greatly influenced by RimWorld (get villagers to do the boring work for you) and tower defense (village raids), does not feel very innovative but the mix is fun and polished, villagers can also help on exploration (they can even be some sort of chest mule), has underground, ruins (with "puzzle" challenges with traps) and all plus fun items to use, can play as a summoner / mage and there is a survival mode (adds spoilage etc.), progression feels very Terraria like (biomes, many bosses etc.) so pretty good, it is much shorter though, has multiplayer, had unjustified slowdown on Linux... pixel art is okay, has some good (repetitive) music
• Double Kick Heroes (2020); good side-scrolling rhythm game with metal music (various genres) in a zombie apocalypse / Mad Max settings, pretty funny at times due to the genre nods, has good pixel art aesthetic, can be hard especially when you have to control the car (up / down) and hit beats as well... it is a bit repetitive and screen action gets confusing real quick (heavily demanding / multitasking game !) so not my cup of tea but it is still pretty solid, there is plenty modes and some allow to tailor the gameplay (e.g. to keep the rhythm mechanics but remove the fighting one), there is some great licensed tracks (Gojira, Carpenter Brut etc.) and music can be imported (can also play community designed tracks)
• Princess Farmer (2022); sweet and chill casual match-3 game with a visual novel on top about bunnies and veggies with some dialogue options, can be played in coop, quite like the colorful retro style which reminds me of some arcade era games, gameplay is about stacking vegetables and pushing / popping (a 5 vegetables stack !) to align vegetables on a board, some game are about being speedy or more thoughtful (specific veggies to align, score target, timed etc.) and sometimes both, all this depends on the play style which is customizable, the objectives vary greatly, same for constraints (fulfilling requests, avoiding matching veggies etc.), the game is fun and has diverse set of rules, also has combos and opponent levels, nicely designed with charm
• Kingdom Eighties (2023); just as great as Kingdom Two Crowns with a 80s theme (Stranger Things etc.), does not seem to improve the gameplay a lot, still some sort of side scrolling exploration / builder / tower defense but it adds companions and specific era stuff, the pixel art style is as gorgeous as before and the theme is quite matching for the reused original enemies, it has stylish short cut scenes as well, somewhat short (~7h, medium difficulty) but the formula still works, has coop, synth music is great, a bit too conservative on some stuff as some parts looks like reskinning (some fighting is still with swords / arrows) but pretty fun and solid overall + fantastic theme, had an annoying bug due to building a turret too close to a portal so builders amassed there and could not repair it... interaction are sometimes annoying due to layering
• Everafter falls (2024); decent farming sim in the style of Stardew Valley with animal NPCs, clearly has some amount of care from the devs (polished + features), style is okay although simple, it is grindy as hell though... (+ plenty walk around) so not really into this for the sake of it... still okay due to polish, simplicity and cuteness, fighting is attack + avoid and is kinda meh (pet can attack though), fishing is okay but kinda slow, had UI text bug, farming / gathering is kinda quick due to being semi automated (drones + pixies), addictive mechanisms but heavily tedious (storage space, slowness etc.) and repetitive all in all
• Empires of the Undergrowth (2024); great (and hard at times) "traditional" RTS with ants, gameplay is about digging and building nests of various type to expand and attack / gather foods, there is some base defense / raids and many "boss fights" (giant frogs, spider, scorpion, centipedes etc.) as well, some enemies can invade and the queen must be protected at all costs, units are controlled through pheromone markers which attract group of ants and several orders can be attached to them (no gather etc.), game features are not overwhelming, it is well designed and there is plenty fun to have with varied ants / maps / difficulties / objectives and attached challenges, many extra scenarios as well (+ versus mode, bugs can go huge !), player also play different species (leafcutter, termite, megaponera etc. many biome !) with unique gameplay, the player still win something (story mode) even if losing as there is a hub level which serve as some kind of sandbox / story level with species to unlock, the UX could be better but it is functional, there is no speed down / up, no ways to save in game and there is no multiplayer, some bugs don't attack each others as well (to keep balance ?), reminds me of Empire of the Ants (2000), they did a remake of that game which looks great but seems different, a game i actually never played but wanted so much as a kid... i actually got the CD in a magazine but had a bad batch (game installation failed), this was pretty frustrating ! Tried to play it later but now works poorly with modern hardware... so pretty cool that i got to play "this game" eventually ! There is also SimAnt (1991) which was pretty cool for the time albeit a bit different.
• Megabonk (2025); a good 3D Vampire Survivors / Gauntlet roguelike / survival automatic bullet heaven, gameplay is about dodging enemies and exploring around getting chests / items (+ upgrading them) and interacting with ruins / sellers to get various bonus, goal is to summon boss (portal) to unlock the next area (inspired by Risk of Rain ?), many items and characters unlock progressively, third dimension adds some nice features to the original VS formula (bunnyhopping, sliding, falling, physics etc.), retro graphics are kinda okay but also kinda generic, has about the same elements that made VS famous (fun characters, being overpowered, enemies swarm, fast arcade gameplay, items variety etc.) but i still prefer the progression and 2D style of VS (+ maps; easier to play on steamdeck), it does not push the third dimension too far and feels a bit generic but still pretty fun !
• Animal Rescuer (2020); not sure of the target audience but an incredibly wtf RPG experience for me, game is about saving various animals scattered around, player must heal them by fabricating potions based on plants he gather around, there is some poachers fight as well and bosses ("progression"), concept may sounds okay but the implementation is artful in absurdity and blandness, gameplay is as basic as the action RPG genre can offer (slightly rough as well) and the game doesn't make sens at all (ultra simple narrative, 3 sentences "story" voiced as blandly as possible via text-to-speech, one line fetch quests, totally random animals species scattered around, rigid animations), some parts are funny in a surreal way, game is set in a pretty common RPG world which looks ok at times but also feels INCREDIBLY generic / random, whole game feels like someone who had access to a generic RPG assets library and blindly made a game around it, neither bad or good, it is as generic as possible with bits of conceptual / execution weirdness... heavily repetitive / grindy as well
• Faaast Penguin (2024); free to play multiplayer arcade racing game with penguins, theme is cute, design is colorful (reminiscent of 90s fast paced games such as Dreamcast ones), it plays like a much simpler Mario Kart (with blend of Fall Guys since you can bump / annoy your opponents) with few modes but it just works for some light fun with peoples to play against, races are okay with many shortcuts and stuff to use (bumpers etc.), Epic account requirement is ridiculous though...
• Two Point Campus (2022); good unserious campus management game, series began with Two Point Hospital which was an okay remake of Theme Hospital (management game with some dark humor) and then expanded to other themes (keeping the funny tone), gameplay is typical of this sort of management game (add staff / students rooms and various objects with benefits, manage staff etc.), it put some light students level Sims like management as well so they can form relationships and have personalities / demands, there is graduation ceremonies so the player can follow students life as semesters goes on, player can organize cultural events and activities as well, it is a bit shallow but has many decent features (+ creative freedom / sandbox and many maps) with themed challenges, it is fun at times although i had several crashes ! not too fond of the clean aesthetics but okay
• Station to Station (2023); okay minimalist puzzle game about connecting industries / cities with railroads, the train theme is mostly aesthetic, very appealing visually though (shiny voxel with DoF etc. looks like MagicalVoxel at times !), gameplay is mainly about completing challenges such as optimizing final rails network cost / tracks length, there is also a combo mechanism (delaying certain connections to get a "production" bonus) and cards can be used to lower construction costs etc. it doesn't have much depth beyond that but it is kinda hard at times, not too fond of the slow loading times and most actions can't be undone unless going through previous saves (why ? slow !)
• Wildmender (2023); a good coop desert gardening survival / adventure game with decent stylized visuals and an easy gameplay loop, typical for this kind of survival game (exploration, gathering, crafting, grooming plants etc.) but the main drive is the desert settings and the desert greening process which is satisfying and somewhat innovative, player starts with a small oasis and few materials (seeds etc.) then slowly transform a lifeless desert into a verdant garden, survival require handling thirst (avoiding sunlight) / hunger, it is not very challenging (not a fighting game) as there is few enemies (+ base defense and hazards) but the desert and exploration (biomes, graves, ghosts, spirits, temples etc.) is well done, can climb as well, base building is decent with many features (terraforming) but implementation is a bit rough, has slow / tedious start but being able to drift / skate / teleport / go faster / "fly" after few hours (~8h) is great, plenty stuff to do but somewhat repetitive with backtracking at times, ~20h without rush (but focus) to finish the main quests (+ half side stuff), quite ambient / chill game with a nice open world / "ending"
• The Pale Beyond (2023); a good survival / visual novel / decisions game about an Antarctic expedition that gets trapped in the ice, a bit narrative heavy and quite bleak at times, reminds me of The Banner Saga (or Dead In Vinland / Help Will Come Tomorrow) without the tactical aspect, the player (captain) must manage the crew / resources (loyalty, food, fuel, morale etc.) and keep everybody alive for some weeks to survive the cold and various events, it has nice illustrations (not much animations though) with gorgeous scenes, hard game at times and a bit slow but the fictional early 20th antarctic expedition set is fun
• Cat Quest III (2024); previous one was a cute coop open world A-RPG, this one is fairly similar with a nautical twist (pirate themed), the player can sail and shoot, it is an okay game again with nice design but i am yet to be convinced by the theme, it has more open water exploration but the sea fight is bland, works great on Steamdeck
• ToeJam & Earl: Back in the Groove (2019); great funky (80s / 90s themed game with jazz-funk / hip-hop tracks) heavily cooperative action "platform" game for quick coop fun, very unserious, just like the Sega Genesis original but modernized with online four-player gameplay and 9 playable characters with different attributes, game is about exploration of floating islands bound by elevators with the goal of finding space ship parts, many items are scattered around to help in the form of mystery presents to use (player can identify them), enemies (or NPC shops / mini game) also roam around, enemies can push you back to the previous level, the fun is mostly in the unpredictability of it all, the design enforce players to stay close together and benefit from items and buffs, some sort of party roguelike, had some desync issues in coop though ! (made the game unstable)
• Anno 1404: Gold edition (2010); RTS / city builder / trading (supply chain sim.) game, perhaps my favorite in the series, main issue with all Anno is always the time consuming gameplay though as they can go deep in the amount of stuff to do compared to says Patrician series (which i prefer; smaller scale + smarter design always win !), islands doesn't help also, they are still fun and great looking games, this one has an occidental / oriental split gameplay that is especially great, towns require oriental goods to progress and the player must build mixed settlements, gameplay is mainly about colonizing islands, planning settlements and building factories / farms to meet citizens needs and produce goods that can be traded (and unlock further progress), also have many more stuff such as diplomacy, quests and fights (naval, ground), quite well designed with depth, plenty goods and stuff to do but quite tedious... ~24h to finish one easy scenario (going through most content), there is plenty scenarios ! i dislike the grindy unlockable by gems (achievements) content... not too fond of the cheating AI either... a good adaptive AI is hard to implement i guess ! :)
• Jewel Match Twilight (2022); casual tile-matching (Match 3) Halloween themed game (spooky fantasy), nothing too fancy although fancier than the one i played early on with way more content (multi boards / modes, side levels / games such as Mahjong solitaire which is not really fun with confusing tiles or moves limited matching with boards to unlock for progress), board is less readable with loaded / tinier tiles but i like the ambience and piano tracks, good overall with some ideas
• Skyrim Together (2022); Skyrim mod to add multiplayer, thought it would be unplayable but it works okay nowadays, just have to be careful with quests (must follow few rules to get the best experience), it doesn't crash much and i didn't see much blocking bugs although it have few visual ones, a fun way to play this great game ! Mod is easy to install / run and the interface allow to join public servers, local server creation is easy on Linux, quite impressive that this works at all, may become great in few versions with more bug fixes !
• The Elder Scrolls II: Daggerfall (1996); never played this back in the day (started the series with Morrowind then Oblivion and Skyrim which i liked the most) but i gave a try at the Unity version (refined controls and many other things) with Quest Pack 1 and it is an absolute blast of an old-school RPG, it feels dated (mix of 2D sprites and 3D environments) but still has a lot of charm due to that (especially outdoor) and the interface is functional, it just works, what stands out to me is the incredible sense of freedom that the game offer with plenty side features (bank, property, economy, skills, "politics" etc.) to engage with, the open world is immersive (no hand-holding !) with satisfying / rewarding exploration / content (just missing some wilderness encounters / interactions imho but all this can be added through mods), ambience and pace is also great, it looks a bit repetitive / empty / generic at times but this didn't bother me as i think it works well due to game engine limits, traveling in this huge world isn't a chore as there is fast travel convenience, it is a hard game but the gameplay is enjoyable with non overwhelming depth, has many hardcore roleplaying aspect (fantasy life simulator pretty much) which is also very cool (character creation / customization / progression etc.), a satisfying experience overall and i might prefer this game over Morrowind, i never clicked with the latter as it felt too heavy / slow to me (+ awkward gameplay), i also didn't care much about the hand-crafted world / narrative (ambience was a blast though !)
• Avernum: Escape From the Pit (2011); very old-school isometric fantasy RPG with turn based fights, a remake of a mid 90s game, quite good first feels (~1h playing), the subterranean settings reminds me of Arx Fatalis (2002), graphics are mid 90s but i like the raw style anyway, UI is okay although painful at first, i don't like that the player can barely see what is on ground (confusing), same for elements that can be interacted with, i also don't like the many junk items that lie around (would be better if there was an use case), has a classic gameplay but works fine with a party of 4 characters and traditional but non rigid classes, quite cool lore it seems with a huge underground world that is free to explore
• The Red Lantern (2021); choice / survival Alaskan wilderness dog sledding game, rare settings with great low poly aesthetics / ambience, i thought there was some amount of controls at first but the game is on rails really so just a bunch of choices to make (+ path choice) and trying to survive to events by managing food / wood / fatigue / health, it is okay, quite short (~2h game) and limited / repetitive overall with heavily random events but the design / theme works, animals violence is always avoidable although it makes the game way harder, this game probably has some ethical issues...
• Journey to the Savage Planet (2020); good first person sci-fi action adventure game, a bit similar to the Metroid series (especially 3D ones), game is set in a colorful and wacky world in the style of No Man's Sky, doesn't take itself seriously (goofy) so quite funny at times, it is exploration based so run and scan around to catalogue the planet oddities, collect resources to upgrade suit and gadgets, this unlock the progression by having new gadgets (jetpacks, grappling hook etc.) that are mandatory to reach new areas, there is various hostile / non hostile lifeforms that can be interacted with or killed with thrown items or weapons / kick, it doesn't innovate much and the gameplay could have been more polished as it is clunky at times (platforms especially; also : invisible walls...) but still okay, has coop support (strongest point of the game probably !)
• Balrum (2016); an excellent 2025 discovery, old-school isometric turn-based (real-time when not fighting) open world adventure / RPG (Ultima like), looks great and has huge amount of content (and many interactive stuff), it is challenging and very slow paced though, much of the progression is done by leveling up and enemies don't give much XP so the player must explore and do quests, walking is slow (can be sped up), the interface feels a bit like late 90s RPGs so kinda slow there as well, sleep must also be managed, thirst also and hunger plus other surprises (hint : try to have fruits in your backpack...), it has survival and advanced crafting bits which is quite unique in this sort of game, there is plenty of "side" content such as farming, harvesting, crafting, cooking, potion making (+ stealing) and pets (taming) plus creative home building which is cool (farming is a good way to get money !) although some of these features might add to the grind at times but most of it is not mandatory although helpful, it is a bit unbalanced (mage sucks, warrior / ranger is easiest !) but has a lot of 90s charm overall and the open world / exploration / crafting system is awesome with depth, story is a bit thin without much text but i actually like that the player isn't some super-hero, it works okay for me, has some humble simplicity charm with lots of features, repetitive after many hours spent although content vary between chapters (5 chapters), ~40h to finish chapter 1, ~54h to reach chapter 4 (looking at most content), ~70h to finish the game with 36/42 achievements on normal difficulty
• Interplanetary: Enhanced Edition (2017); a fun turn-based tactical / artillery game on a solar system scale, has a lot of depth (resources, upgrades, gathering intel etc.) with plenty content due to the tech tree which lead to an arm race like progression with defensive bits in between, develop planet weapons and defensive structures then shoot stuff and try to hit the other planets using gravity fields ! the original version was massive fun back then (2015) and this refined version is still massive fun especially online / local although it feels unpolished at times (balance, bugs...), had game breaking interface bug after few minutes...
• Bravery and Greed (2022); pretty good hack and slash / dungeon crawler / roguelite with vibrant fantasy pixel art aesthetic, simple arcade gameplay with dodge + items but with a class / path system, plenty game modes (+ coop), quite fun overall
• Warhammer 40,000: Boltgun (2023); okay Doom like "boomer shooter", has stylish semi retro (2d sprites etc.) Warhammer 40k visuals and atmosphere, level design feels a bit meh though with uneven distribution of items, gameplay feels a bit slow and heavy but it kind of respect the settings with crunchy weapons, AI is kinda weak though...
• Sapiens (2022); early access stone age survival / colony sim with multiplayer, mostly okay but can't recommend in actual state... has some accessibility / UX issues, looks like the development is very slow and started in 2017 ! it has interesting concept as technology is found by the AI exploring around and the player directing the exploration (engage with objects around), has interesting low poly "flat shaded" design (custom game engine) but the art is uneven, gameplay is slow right now and grindy but original, has okay content with a huge world (whole planet ?), might become good with some polish ! tiny install (~500MB)
• Dawn of Man (2019); a very good stone age up to iron age survival / colony sim, super cool and rare theme when it try to be "accurate", gameplay is somewhat slow but nicely designed and occasionally challenging, feels like an early age AoE without much of the war / competitive aspect (defensive) so it is pretty relaxing at times, AI has issues but is manageable and mainly works around prioritizing tasks / direct order / work zones, it is a bit of a sim as peoples mainly go on about their life (they also age) with occasional priority / build / craft orders from the player, plenty animals and resources are depicted, has seasons, raiders, diseases, trade and weather events, graphics are decent although maps are samey and not very realistic with plenty hills, UX is fine, has an okay technology system based on points that are acquired through discoveries such as hunting new animals, gathering or producing stuff (milestones), it is huge fun as is but could have been better with modding support and some more cares especially in later ages (such as medicines !), a similar but more detailed game is Ancient Cities (2023)
• The Bluecoats: North & South (2020); meh modern remake of North & South, a simple small board game with FPS / top down arcade mini games elements, this remake is barely okay due to overall clumsiness especially the mini games, the wave based fort / train attack / defense FPS part felt way too rigid / unbalanced, top down part is okay after some training but has no configurable keybinds... biggest issue for me was all the way too long unskippable / unconfigurable animations... 2 players mode might be okay... only have a single map and it is repetitive, it differ from the original on some stuff
• Age of Empires: Definitive Edition (2019); good old AoE, can't go wrong with this even with all the debut flaws... a special game to me as it is one of the first game i played on a PC (not counting 8-bit ones such as City Bomber) on Windows 95 at the place of my brother in ~1998, it was incredible going through the ages although i didn't like the simplistic rush / cheating AI (can rush as well to win at most difficulties... :D) , never played the campaign that much because path-finding issues was tiresome (+ a mess) and it was barely better than skirmish to me although i enjoyed some of it with this edition... this game made me want AoE 2 later which i got at Christmas but... didn't had enough VRAM to play it, had to wait next Christmas... heavily frustrating but i had the manual and reference card ! Remastered edition is barely okay, new graphics and music don't do anything much to me but they match the original and they are fine, new features are all good but kinda pissed they didn't keep the original menu / UX or cut scenes, path finding is still meh, still low amount of max units, still no gates... (they added it in an AoE 2 DLC, wtf !), campaign doesn't have a classic mode... skirmish + classic mode and multiplayer is still a blast though !
• Valfaris: Mecha Therion (2023); great metal themed sci-fi side-scrolling shoot 'em up, pleasant retro styled pixelated 3D graphics, can customize / upgrade weapons, short but fun, kinda mixed about the confusing camera / orientation change sometimes but it sure looks impressive overall
• Blue Estate The Game (2015); good rail shooter for quick entertainment but don't expect depth or a story... just some fast paced modernized 90s arcade action with some vulgar and excessive comedy (works sometimes !), has light gun support and the gameplay just works with mostly all stuff one can expect from a rail shooter, has decent graphics
• Doom 64 (2020); didn't play the original but this enhanced PC version of the N64 one is great, some good level design and it is an enhanced classic Doom so super efficient at what it does... soundtrack is more dark ambient than the first ones and the reason was probably due to storage limitations, there is few tracks but it works anyway...
• Garage: Bad Trip (2018); meh hard top-down 2D B-movies era zombie shooter, theme was done over and over so meh, looks fine with some physics (can kick objects) but i don't like the "TV" / drugs tripping filters, gameplay was hit and miss, didn't felt very precise in close combat (punch / kick / weapons; tad better with ranged) and kept stumbling on some annoying path blocking objects due to level design decisions, no sounds as well (bug)
• Palia (2024); free-to-play cozy multiplayer life sim adventure similar to Animal Crossing / Disney Dreamlight Valley, explore, gather and craft / unlock stuff in a colorful world, has all the content one could look for in these sort of games (farming, fishing, hunting, collectibles, exploration, building, high amount of customization etc.) so it is not bad but it is way too generic (and "static", déjà vu) in all it does for me and the monetization part sucks although it doesn't affect the game much, it is advertised as a MMO but "massively" is a bit off, i couldn't care much about the world (too boring) but it looks and play okay (no swimming though...), the cooperative aspect is a bit lacking but the devs seems to want to improve that aspect, some sort of light peaceful pseudo MMO
• Cyber Hook (2020); Synthwave parkour / speedrunning game with a grappling hook and a laser gun to clean the path, fast gameplay (double jump, slide, slowdown etc.), this has been seen many times but it is still effective, had some strange bugs where the game registered a 3 stars level although i had only 2... ambience is good, levels are sometimes wide and diverse but they also feels a bit hit and miss design wise, reminds me of Verlet Swing (2018) somehow which was quite good as well (in a Vaporwave settings)
• Devil Daggers (2016); quick to play very hard fast-paced shooter (stripped-down Quake / Doom) in a small arena with the sole goal of surviving as long as possible / scoring high (die and retry !), content is thin (13 enemy types) and the environment doesn't change but it is a well designed bullet hell shooter to the core (one hit = die) with two weapon modes (continuous or shotgun), simple but intense with subtle gameplay features (positional audio matter !), very smooth, unforgiving, good ambience with a darkened Quake design, game has a replay system (with scrubbing, stats and graphs !) so all peoples games can be watched to learn from
• Aliens: Dark Descent (2023); blend of XCOM (management) and stealthy real-time tactics, seems okay for the small amount of time i played, prologue was cumbersome and the story isn't that great at first glance but it has the movie ambience with associated fan services and style direction plus the XCOM bits, graphics are okay, gameplay is an interesting mix of stealth and action which reward quick reactions and planning due to the real-time bits, this successfully match the early Alien settings in a top down form factor (tense situations in claustrophobic space / being hunted / trying to stay undetected and working around the motion sensor etc.), the game allow to slow down / pause to use abilities
• Smalland: Survive the Wilds (2024); good A Bug's Life themed open world survival game (bug level RPG), similar to Grounded but a bit rougher overall and weaker on the adventure / story side, more akin to a smallish Ark (can tame, glide, fly, mount, have a group of 4 bugs etc.), quite fun for this alone, gameplay feels okay but doesn't feel as smooth or polished as Grounded (also : can't swim), still looks great though and has all survival stuff (base building, crafting, foods, hazards etc.) plus coop and a nice large world to explore with weather changes (snow, storm etc.) and few bosses, some large update still in the work so may become better !
• Meeple Station (2020); flawed / abandoned isometric pixel-art space station building / management, great groundwork / concept but meh execution and polish, quite buggy with a tiresome AI to manage, it lack many details about production so the management is a complete guess, also has no feedback as to why some stuff are not working as intended (wiring), had charm with okay amount of features but not fun at all in its current state beyond the first few hours (~2h), there is better similar games such as Stardeus (2022) ...
• Grow: Song of the Evertree (2021); colorful cozy farm game mixing multiple mechanics (city building, exploration, farming, collecting stuff etc.) in a 'shallow' way, some similarity (vines corruption) to Disney Dreamlight Valley, decent at what it does with good amount of customization but doesn't go too wild with the formula, has lots of charm, first few hours (~10h) were okay then it is quickly tedious / repetitive after the first two towns, theme / aesthetics reminds me of a poorer Secret of Mana (not bad !), game has some annoying bugs but they are avoidable, "tiny" install (~2gb)
• Mech Engineer (2024); 2D mech management game with tactical semi auto battles against mutating aliens, very similar to X-COM on the management / strategic side (also theme / goal; same publisher !), base management is replaced by a movable city, game is focused on mechs so provide many customization options with a research tree / parts production / resource management / gathering to build / design them or refit them to accommodate different terrain types / missions etc. pilots must also be managed, missions are real-time with limited direct control over the squad (tactical), kinda unforgiving / hard AS HELL with a tedious / confusing UI (Skeuomorph; analog) but has a lot of charm and ambience
• Golden Light (2022); grim weird first person shooter horror style game with props (meat mimics) that hunt you, a fun idea (fight or flight), all is bleak as fuck in this game though, story is about saving your girlfriend that was sucked into a meat hole, the player must gather keys to progress through exploration, world use procedural generation and feels very surreal, feels a bit like the older LSD: Dream Emulator game but more nightmarish (jump scare...) with more gameplay, the game push the weirdness to the items (head etc.) that you can eat... very nonsensical all in all but great ambience with nice pixelated organic graphics and ok polish (coop etc.)
• Monster Train (2020); good deck builder with a fun but not that original train to hell theme, very similar to Slay the Spire gameplay wise with some twists, fighting works vertically on three levels that the player must manage until an "auto-battling" boss end, very flashy style akin to mobile first games at first glance, mix several mechanics (auto battler, tower defense, deck builder etc.), works + fun but not as refined as StS, heavily repetitive after a while, honest ~9h play time on average to unlock most of the base content though !
• Nowhere Prophet (2019); good deck builder in a post-apocalyptic settings, a bit like Slay the Spire with some resources / party (convoy) management (+ trading), leader management (levels, items), cards (units) can "level up" and do take damage / die though so the deck stay fluid, convoy get bigger through events or recruiting units in towns, 4 maps on campaign mode ending with a boss fight (with different endings), game is hard and fight focused, has positioning board when fighting, many classes and convoy type (determine leader / deck), adjustable UX delay but some visuals stuff still stay too long, graphics are cool (stylized), very decent but took a while to appreciate the rules and style / theme
• Insurmountable (2021); quite original mountain climbing themed rogue-like with bits of sci-fi adventure, turn based gameplay with mountains climbing goal while managing sanity / warmth / oxygen / energy and health, 3 characters to choose from after a while each with their own skills tree, some good ideas with route planning to avoid dangerous events with an okay story and progression, nice ~9h game (~5h rushed) with good ambience, repetitive after a while, replay value is limited, way too easy in normal mode also...
• Citizen Sleeper (2022); fantastic game, well-crafted text heavy RPG (visuals, style, lore, soundtrack etc.), great ambience in an unique dystopian scifi settings playing as an artificial sentient construct in a half-derelict station, whole game is a narrative experience with dice management game / tabletop RPG on top with choices to make and consequences, player is somewhat free of the direction to take, kinda slow paced but well designed so engaging, ~10h of game, reminds me of Tharsis (2016) although it was way cruder and wasn't as narrative heavy, also Disco Elysium (2019) but didn't like the lore as much as this one, end game was a bit boring but still worth for the story
• Grindstone (2021); okay polished cartoon stylized puzzle game based on color-matching mechanics + simultaneously moving on a board to achieve different level goals, a bit grindy with many filler levels but has decent content
• Garden Life: A Cozy Simulator (2024); okay gardening game, kinda pretty, casual, easy at first then repetitive, has some grind to farm variants after some times, not really a deep simulation but still has the basics, has okay content with many variants and ~30 types of plants, has some daily quests in the form of bouquets / flowers to gather and a story mode which has some bits of progression, UX is tedious when you have many items... and too bad that the plant marker is just decorative...
• Foretales (2022); excellent card game that is not focused on fights nor deck building, gameplay is unique with a choices matter type of vibe (Gamebook style), resource management and narrative puzzle / adventure game blend, very well designed / polished overall with pretty fine lore and art, the player have alignment choice / freedom determined by its play style, it is a bit repetitive sometimes due to how the game works, deck flush is sometimes necessary to have cards that unlock paths, also has bits of grind in the form of multiple play-through, most concerning issue to me is that the UX / animations is kinda slow
• Fabledom (2024); chill cute fantasy city builder, fairy tale theme with a light gameplay loop, has regular city builder features with a mix of ideas, sometimes challenging (handling sickness) but nothing hard, most fighting stuff can be ignored if you play at peace
• Across the Obelisk (2021); polished and challenging roguelite deckbuilder with huge amount of content and good co-op, DLCs hellfest though... a bit similar to Slay the Spire but also very different with a 4 characters party (with individual decks) + equipment and a town at the beginning of every area where resources can be used to craft, upgrade or manage decks, has many paths, events and quests, progression is very trial and error, kinda repetitive after some times
• Homeworld 3 (2024); not bad, still a satisfying space sci-fi RTS for an average player, it has good visuals and ambience, story feels a bit more Hollywood than the earlier game but it is okay for me, ones can wonder the necessity of doing a third game when it doesn't really adds that much compared to the earlier ones (and remakes) though, perhaps a good base for mods...
• One Finger Death Punch 2 (2019); two buttons fast-paced kung-fu brawler / rhythm game with stickman, very arcade, short to play, addictive and fun with satisfying visuals (reminds me of Flash era browser games !), goal is to avoid any misses with some button smashing events in between, main gotcha is almost zero difficulty variation (and many useless rounds) so quickly become repetitive... game title reminds me of One-Punch Man superhero manga which is also fun
• Fighting Fantasy Deathtrap Dungeon Trilogy (2018); same review as the other Fighting Fantasy game below, same engine with minor visual adjustments, much more stable, three adventures based on Deathtrap Dungeon (1984), Trial Of Champions (1986) and Armies of Death (1988), a fun revisit of the books as a computerized board game / gamebook combo, intact story and puzzles with minor extra features, first two games are fun classic dungeon crawlers and the third is "open world", a game that i didn't play but that looks fun is "Deathtrap Dungeon: The Interactive Video Adventure" (2020) which is the original gamebook experience with a narrator
• The Sims 2 PS2 (2004); played in split-screen with PCSX2, fun two players mode which is the sole advantage of the PS2 version, has much less features than the PC version otherwise
• Skald: Against the Black Priory (2024); dark fantasy CRPG, very cool pixel art reminiscent of 80s games, gameplay is Ultima like, well made overall with some D&D feels and neat tactical turn-based fights, plenty dialogues and some great ambience
• Streets of Rogue (2019); kinda fun procedural GTA2 like with RPG / roguelike features, roam a city consisting of several floors, graphics are very minimalist but gameplay is freeform with many characters and traits / "mutator" to choose from which adds to the fun
• Capcom Arcade Stadium 2 (2021); exactly the same as below with different games, why do another title though ? kinda prefer this one for the selection of games, played Savage Bees (1985) which is an okay shooter with weird ambience / theme
• Capcom Arcade Stadium (2021); okay, necessity of this when MAME (and many front-end) is available could be argued though... tried 1943 (decent shooter with confusing visuals sometimes), Progear (great bullet hell), Commando (meh repetitive run and gun, feels very dated), Section Z (fun side-scrolling shooter, enemies design reminds me of Xenon 2 / Super Metroid), Trojan (nice but very hard, the spiders and flail dudes...), Legendary Wings (very nice, first boss reminds me of Metroid design), had slowdown on Progear though, sprites glitches in Commando and pinball passage in Section Z was slow and buggy... rewind feature is nice to have along with speedup / slowdown or difficulty change, has a good presentation overall but feels heavy just to play some old arcade games...

• Shield of Loyalty (2021); okay turn-based strategy game reminiscent of the Fantasy General series (challenging simplicity), management screen looks like HoMM
• Inkulinati (2024); a fun turn-based strategy game with great art style, has a pretty original medieval manuscripts theme but the gameplay has interesting mechanics too where moves / positioning / choice of units matters, units can also push others off ledges or various hazards (fire, demon etc.), campaign has some branching structure with shops / choices (upgrades etc.) similar to a roguelite with bestiary and different runs to unlock progressively, games are short, ink is a resource used to draw the characters onto the board and is distributed across the board and can be collected by units each turns, player have some drawing "spells" which can be used to draw hazards or move units left / right (useful to collect ink; also useful to prevent enemies to collect ink !), heal, hit etc. works great and it is funny at times quite history / pop references, only complain is that it feels slow sometimes (animations etc.)
• Cat Quest II (2019); cute coop open world A-RPG, kinda simple and repetitive but okay, the gameplay feels good, it has ideas and is polished, packed with content (weapons etc.), it is quick to play and i like the overall design, ~9h to finish, a perfect game for the Steamdeck !
• Risk of Rain Returns (2023); accurate remake of 2D RoR, same review than Risk of Rain 2 to me... an enjoyable gameplay loop / design
• Defend the Rook (2021); nice mix of tactical RPG, roguelite and tower defense, fighting few waves of enemies over a tactical grid with towers and a roguelite progression with randomization of each game
  
• Spooky Bonus (2015); casual tile-matching (Match 3) Halloween themed game, it is decent but there is probably better games in this category, made me remember my GP2X years with cool homebrew games such as Animatch or Battlejewels and the great and polished Wind and Water: Puzzle Battles, also earlier ones such as Sega Columns and the fun Puyo Puyo which i also discovered on GP2X through emulation, ~10h to finish
• Fashion Police Squad (2022); ok goofy non-violent (paintball) boomer shooter (Duke Nukem 3D / Doom like), nothing too special except the fashion vibe, quite easy, some enemies require switching between weapons which i don't like as a gameplay mechanics (cumbersome)
• Fast Food Simulator (2024); mostly okay as a casual party game, slow progression and repetitive though
  
• Fantasy Wars (2010); tactical fantasy strategy game, played this game a while back on a Eee PC 1001PXD but kinda forgot about it, stumbled upon it again and remember it fondly, a to the point challenging wargame (with turns limit, small scope) reminiscent of the Fantasy General series, also reminds me of the FOSS game TBW, stylistically a bit likes HoMM at times without the depth, hard, simple tactical design with the essentials so very easy to pick up and play but planning ahead is a requirement (mistakes are costly due to turns limit and different modifiers / spells), many units, weak story, too few scenario maps but okay campaigns with orc / human / elves path, a no fuss to the core fantasy wargame
  
• Fighting Fantasy legends (2017); a role-playing Gamebook in digital form based on the 3 first Fighting Fantasy, choices, dices (skill / luck dices) and cards, very random but works for me and is kinda fun at first, i especially like the top down 90s representation (well done dices as well), it is a bit ridiculous that the character often cannot go back though but that is very gamebook... it force you to circle around... there is some amount of grind and i had several crashes apparently due to the music (when it loop back / change), ~10h game length unless very lucky (or good intuition), probably has stripped down writing to accommodate for graphics, although ok the books might be better ! Note : Some gamebooks are available digitally as Fighting Fantasy Classics (2018) with a polished presentation, Tin Man Games also have some other nice narrative-adventure games in the same style as well.
• Faery: Legends of Avalon (2011); short (~5h) quirky / unusual fantasy adventure / RPG game, gameplay is a mix of exploration and fights, exploration is fun due to being three dimensional (flying as a fairy !), mixed feeling about the gameplay due to being too easy / simple / repetitive, still had fun due to the music and fantasy style (exaggerated proportions) that is uncommon in games (character design was made by Jean-Baptiste Monge), the game feels highly unpolished at times (no voicing, rough animations and UI etc.), was made by a very small team, has ideas and mood
  
• Dreamscaper (2021); a great action / roguelike similar to Hades (trial & error but with content in between to ease the future games, endlessly replayable), psychological theme and the overall mood (dreamy; fighting nightmares) is original and is where the game shine with incredibly moody aesthetics, gameplay is hard though
  
• Hammerwatch (2023); ok dungeon crawler with nice pixels art, similar to Gauntlet so gameplay is straightforward, very one dimensional (fight and explore), these games probably shine in coop though... (up to 7 players)
  
• Delivery INC (2023); okay time management game based on delivery services, repetitive but polished for what it does (can even import real maps), fairly similar to the Operator series (911 operator etc.; same style) but the campaign is shorter and is less fun overall
  
• The Expanse: A Telltale Series (2023); a glorified TV episode, common to Telltale games, okay for the fans i guess but also avoidable as a game, it is quite shallow (even story wise), little to no gameplay in there...
  
• Banished (2014); great city builder with a survival focus, smart horizontal game design concept, no tech tree, some unavailable resources such as seeds or animals must be acquired through trading, game starts with few peoples and grow naturally from there (even animals !), it is peaceful at times but the early game can be hard (on population transition, harsh events such as diseases etc.), doesn't have huge amount of content nor end goals but still nicely crafted and there is plenty resources to acquire, the few elements it is based on hold it all together
  
• Prey (2017); "highly polished / modernized half-life" (incredible vibe with creative level design, less of a shooter and more of a problem-solving / RPG game), always wanted to play Prey from friends recommendation (first one also but didn't try yet) and finally did, a satisfying experience overall with outstanding level design and amazing gameplay mechanics, very immersive in survival mode and quite challenging, story is ok (survival horror), lots of gameplay possibilities, not really a fan of all the jump scare though although it is not as bad as some games
  
• Risk of Rain 2; coop action game with rogue like elements, quick condensed refined fun with good amount of content, fast and very accessible, pleasant boss fights and pace, gameplay based on survival with a concept around play duration, quite effective Cel shading style, very enjoyable overall !
  
• Europa 1400: The Guild; medieval life / economy simulation game with funny takes, turn based / real-time mix, emphasize role-playing and has highly non-linear gameplay, wanted to play this since a long time as i was quite fascinated by it (same for Patrician series and similar games...), i remember that it was mentioned as best game for years in 2000s magazines, it feels old fashioned now but is immersive and has unique charm and blend of ideas, key part of the gameplay is playing a medieval persona in a small town and pursue professional, political and personal goals with huge amount of options to do so (with opponents that try to makes your life hard !), game doesn't end when the character die as the game can continue with a heir ! UI is quite slow / meh, fights are also very meh and it is a very buggy / rough game but it is fun at times with all the options the player have to progress.
  
• GemCraft - Chasing Shadows; good dark fantasy tower defense with gems that can be combined and upgraded with spells etc. has high amount of depth and is challenging, graphics reminds me of Diablo somehow (mid 90s)
  
• The Lord of the Rings: Return to Moria; ok dwarf survival gameplay with procedurally generated Moria mines... somehow interesting concept but fall short of fun, game emphasize exploration, it is quite nice in this aspect although it still feels very linear and you have to build many camps to go further into the mines, survival mechanics was seen a million times already though, might be nice in coop !
  
• Outshine; quite good (and hard) arcade typing game with Tron like theme
  
• Chicken Invaders 5; meh, gameplay feels slow, theme has some humor, graphics are... very 2000s, it has some charms overall (i like 3D rendered looking sprites although they are sometimes confusing !), works ok but there is wayyyyy better shoot 'em up ! Made me think of cool early 2000s shoot 'em up (Lethal Judgement) done in PureBasic by B-Games which also used 3D rendered / hardware accelerated sprites. (Sprite3D)
• Old World; turn-based 4x blend of Civilization and Crusader Kings, heavy ancient / classical era focus so has a smaller scale than usual which have many benefits such as way more refined gameplay (i have the same view between Shogun vs other Total War games), the blend of dynasty simulation with narrative elements (choices) is a fun and welcome addition that enhance role playing, it also spice things up since you can do well on a game but poor choices (or events) ultimately brings chaos (internal struggle) to your civilization that may affect its outcome, scenarios are great such as the barbarian horde (quick to play, fun), perhaps my favorite "historical" 4x of the last few years
  
• System Shock (remaster); didn't play the original although i knew the lore, good, quite stylish at times, my main issue is that the map is way too labyrinthic and the character felt heavy to play, tiresome inventory management also, might play a bit more as it is still good and some of these points may be addressed later
  
• Star Wars: Dark Forces (remaster); Doom like FPS in the Star Wars universe, didn't play the original game but the gameplay is good and diverse with original elements for the time, the game engine also has nice features compared to the original Doom and accompanying soundtrack is nice, there is some dull levels such as the sewer level... a common type of (boring) level to have at these time anyways
  
• Tinykin; excellent 2024 surprise for me, a visually good (3D / 2D mix) non-violent platformer with puzzle elements of reasonable length (~10 hours total), no hassle gameplay with non boring collection mechanism through exploration of large indoors area, seems to be inspired by Pikmin (which i never played but kinda want now !), theme is fun and a bit like a Toy Story if it was bugs, somehow reminded me of Banzai Bug (1996), racing content added by the DLC is questionable but is still fine, i don't recommends going for achievements as this part has many bugs... (on PC)
  
• Hades; gorgeous art style, theme and gameplay, very smooth hack and slash with rogue-like elements, progression is felt and try hard to lessen repetition, a greatly polished indie game with souls ! OST is also great, can spot some Tool influence in there !
  
• Disney Dreamlight Valley; streamlined farm gameplay in Disney universe, quite ok with lots of content and gameplay polish, like a wilder Stardew Valley, not as wild as Graveyard Keeper but less stupidly grindy (well...) and more colorful, still require way too much time...
  
• Dome Keeper; sci-fi tower defense, miner roguelike, gameplay and ambience feels great but get repetitive fast, some nice ideas / stylized minimalist pixels graphics though
  
• ANNO 2070; great RTS / sci-fi city builder / trading game, horrible Ubisoft package (online launcher etc.), feels great if ok with the rules (they make no sens sometimes), has deep and varied gameplay even more so with DLCs (seamless underwater DLC is innovative !), somewhat reminiscent of Anno 1404 in a futuristic settings with more content
• Dustland Delivery; fun 2D Mad Max (truck driving survival with a crew) RPG make your own story type of game with lots of choices to make, open world with good trading elements and town managements
  
• Vault of the Void; roguelike deckbuilder, great gameplay, reminds me of Slay the Spire with more rules, somewhat slower though ? grindy content
  
• Creaks; atmospheric underground surreal puzzler, can't go wrong with Amanita Design stylish hand-drawn art... gameplay has some Oddworld / Braid vibes and is okay but i prefer Machinarium / Samorost world
  
• Diluvian Ultra; retro FPS with nice design and darksynth music, gameplay is okay but didn't like it (too slow, confusing screen action and UX), meh performance on my GTX 970 with shadows...
  
• Power to the People; power grid micromanagement game, ok gameplay but don't expect a simulation, feels more like a puzzle game than anything else, clean minimalist aesthetic is cool
  
• Strikey Sisters; fantasy themed arcade brick breaker reminiscent of early 90s themed arcade games, local co-op mode, polished and fun but some confusing screen actions and repetitive
  
• 60 Parsecs!; sci-fi version of 60 Seconds! but way more refined, a survival make your own story type of game with choices to make, fun adventure game
  
• Wingspan; strategy game about birds based on a board game, relaxing / fast to play, cute naturalistic birds artwork, nature themed, many good feels !

• IKEA MARKUS ergonomic office chair: good looking and still as comfortable after +6 years of intensive use, has minor polyester scratch but pristine otherwise, easy to assemble / disassemble, a solid and somewhat heavy chair although wheels are the weakest point (wheels now roll with difficulty, can be changed), armrest / headrest are good for me but may be meh for some peoples (not flexible), some parts must be tightened again along the years
• IKEA NORDEN Gateleg table: heavy but stable and compact table with 6 drawers, ideal for small spaces (adaptable, up to 6 peoples with some stretch), +6 years of intensive use and just have minor scratch, quite like the sturdiness of the materials overall, i remember this being a bit of a pain to assemble though
• TFA Dostmann AirCo2ntrol COACH: USB CO2 room monitor, decent sensors (NDIR; temp is also good, don't know the accuracy for humidity), decent features (24-hour graph)
• ACER G246HL: old but cheap 1080p monitors (had them for ~100e), decent qualities / features for the price, both are old (+6 / +10 years) and survived many rough moving so guess they are quite sturdy (or i am lucky !), getting hotter as they age though, segmentation and market lifetime of this kind of product is crazy btw...
• GTX 970: lasted 10+ years with this GPU, VRAM might be an issue nowadays (can be modded to up to 8GB though) but still lasted up to 2025 with most games, got a RX 5700 afterwards with compatibility issues with many demanding games (offered a leap in performances though)
• Uniqlo clothes (shirts, sweater etc.), especially the EZY slim jeans (ultra stretch), i usually don't like the texture of most jeans (and burden / rigidity) but these always felt extremely comfortable to me, they are stretchy and soft (almost like joggers !), durability is good, colors tend to quickly fade if not cared for
• Philips OneBlade 360: great face shaver / trimmer
• Philips Sonicare
• RAVPower 60W 12A 6-Port Desktop Charger; somewhat expensive at the time but they are sturdy chargers
• goCoax MoCA 2.5 adapters (MA2500D); a bit expensive but works fine to go 1000 Mbps instead of 100 Mbps when a flat has poorly built ETH links, doesn't heat up a lot and has nice features

• deleted videos on YouTube showing up as deleted but without metadata anymore (title at least) is a damn plague (not even deletion notifications !), i had a way to dodge that by asking for my data from time to time but they don't even show the title anymore in the metadata... (i think they used to ? anyway that is how they treat your data...) fortunately there is tools... with a bit of JavaScript to put in devtools console to get all playlist IDs on the playlists page (once you fetch all of them due to infinite scroll) :
  var pls = document.getElementsByClassName("ytd-playlist-thumbnail")
var plsId = ''
for (const e of pls) {
  if (e.tagName === 'A') {
    plsId += "https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=" + /(list=(.*)&+)+/.exec(e.href)[2] + '\n'
  }
}
console.log(plsId)Note : looks like they are still shown in YouTube Music ? (unless deleted by the uploader)
• YouTube playlist feature is quasi unusable with high amount of videos and the endless scrolling of doom unless you just change the URL... perhaps that is why they limit it to 5000 videos !
• i often come back to the idea that accessibility and certain hardware designs have actually made software more complicated than it needed to be, this often led programmers to fight against the CPU (optimizations) more than they should have, this idea is perhaps more aligned to 80s / 90s computing as it perhaps vanish entirely with GPUs (through sheer parallel power) or modern CPUs vector extensions which usually allow complex data processing (non linear), a simple example i like to point out is related to monitors casing and height-field rendering : monitors design often prevented them to be physically rotatable (e.g. 90° or more) but a height-field algorithm could have been made as fast with simpler code by leveraging CPU multi-data writes instructions (only works linearly) if monitors were designed to be rotatable.
• on a related but wilder note i sometimes imagine a computing system inspired by modular synthesizers where "simple" independent external modules could provide features such are multiple framebuffer with output signals that the user can then plug to modulators to do mixing, blending etc., a bit like video synthesizer for digital graphics processing, this would be expensive / a practical nightmare perhaps but it could scale to an individual graphics computing platform made of simple hardware building blocks, it would perhaps simplify graphics algorithms, a simple example would be rotatable backgrounds implemented as two shifter modules likes Alvy Ray stream processor. (two-pass technique)
• control freaks websites that detect ad blockers are ridiculous, kinda funny how much time they spend trying to lock content down with various complicated schemes and how users threatening the whole thing is, they also often make false promises (e.g. reducing intrusive ads), they fortunately cannot do much more than spit to an equally technical person.
  
• formal verification of software programs are a very useful resource for maximum efficiency and reliability in defense programs (aerospace etc.), an interesting example of how a mix of seemingly innocent mathematics and software engineering can be reused for the gloomy stuff (but not only fortunately), seems the main source of funding for this in the US is (was ?) the DoD itself. Same for AI by the way, an AI arm race (see 2022 paper) is probably underway. Not new at all but a good reminder from time to time with things such as Kessler syndrome or Mirror life, many ways to fuck things up from apparently harmless ideas.
• i am always amused by the (way too optimistic + usually closing) argument against pre-civilizational life that modern society massively increased average quality of life, absolutely agree with the statement but it also lacks A LOT of nuanced depth (Meme like argument, anthropocentrism...) which makes it quite dubious as is... it does not consider the amount of harm combination (spectrum of possible experience) on all scales that this "evolution" unfold (industrial accidents, environmental illnesses, technological fails and all the trauma or life crippling stuff that may be implied, tools / infrastructure enabled crimes, large-scale tech enhanced warfare etc.), not even talking about the vast amount of new psychological harm enabled by various form of oppression, all this enable huge amount of new horrors that many unlucky heads (and not necessarily of human origin, what about the food industry / industrialized mass murder ?) may experience... the upper bound of horrors is in a way massively increased which is way too easy to put under the carpet for convenience. Note that the enlarged spectrum is also true for the good stuff, was it worth though ? avoidable ? is there alternatives ? (somewhat related to see through different kind of "large-scale" societies : The Dawn of Everything by David Graeber and David Wengrow)
• etymology of "silicium" aka silicon is from Latin Silex or silicis for flint, it is fun to me that this metalloid (combining metals and nonmetals properties) chemical element which is the second most abundant element in the earth crust is so widely used in computing hardware (backbone of semiconductor technology) and relate to one of the first multi usage (almost fundamental) stone age tool around. The fun of this relation between ancient tool-making and modern technology was in part triggered by a Deleuze lesson in relation to a Rimbaud text. Although bullshit my mind later wandered with the musing / metaphor that the flint was somehow one of the Eden forbidden fruit from the tree of knowledge which enabled refined goods (such as leather cloths) and more tools which enabled more awareness and further refinements (the fall and man "disobedience" against its previous nature) perhaps allowing him to "eat" from the tree of life which might become a form of carbon and silicon association. (AI ?) This was kinda fun as i see it as some sort of distilled science fiction story mixed with spiritual ideas, this was perhaps triggered by science fiction stories such as the one in Mass Effect video game since i can see similarities, some recent black metal lyrics also. This align more to some kind of Gnostic interpretation (not Icke stuff heh...) but can be adapted.... (of course... !) that view is of universal salvation (eventually) from gathering fragments, it is more redeeming and transformative than "usual" (there is some pessimistic flavor of it as well) and ignorance there is seen as the act of forbidding the access to the tree of knowledge, the "evilness" lie in preventing awareness which just lead to not knowing whether own action is evil or not (true evil is in the suppression of knowledge and awareness), the serpent is metaphorical and may be seen as anything adversely that trigger changes (usage of new tools !) to push forward and self-realize. Note that even if tools are important there, they may also suppress awareness especially when they have a "life of their own"... it is nuanced ! (note: could argue that bringing another kind of consciousness might be yet another nightmare... for many reasons, this Creatures story might be somewhat related...)
• could also think of the Eden forbidden fruit as the food surplus of the early states (see Against the Grain (2017) by James C. Scott or Friedrich Engels) which lured peoples to live into early states / settlements and thus progressively exiled (corrupted) them from Eden which would be the "hunter-gatherers" way of life (with abundance), the serpent in this case may represent a sneaky trickster (dominating power; authority), the "good and evil" aspect may be what was going on with early settlements (they provided rewards but also punishments; "domestication" of humans), Eden is sometimes interestingly linked to region of abundance such as the fertile crescent... Enkidu from ancient Mesopotamian mythology may also strongly relate to the theme
• i clearly oppose nationalism as i see that worldview as a faulty (misguided) abstraction full of lies, same for most religions, they only serve a thick layer of comforting narratives... and corrupt (distort; dilute) everything along, not a primitivist either (we can't go back) but i see it as much less convoluted at least... a good base to reflect upon
• the brain can be considered as a generalized belief system, did the beliefs started to have a life of their own (subtly gone rogue) when the brain created "optimistic" models to adapt / counter bad experiences ? in this framework even atheism is somehow grounded into belief as the environment around is formed from a syncretization of beliefs, may still be better than being stuck in a closed optimistic model though as it allow skepticism (so "pessimistic") to slip through...
• optimizing for binary size is very satisfying and quite different than optimizing for source code size, it often results in clean understandable / generic code (highly depends on underlying CPU architecture and HW constraints though...) while optimizing for speed can be tedious with usually higher code density (due to edge-case handling, code duplication, having to care for CPU caches etc.), size optimization holy grail for me is when the code still has good speed on some simple architectures (such as early ARM CPUs) or that a great tradeoff is found between size / speed such as speed optimization that involve straightforward precomputation or loop unrolling which doesn't necessarily add complexity
• not really into caching unless it is a very straightforward implementation, i acknowledge it as a particularly handy optimization tool that works for many things in the real world but my main issue (skepticism) is that it often adds complexity and many edge cases that turns into wild bugs (+ painful to debug) as the code base grow, don't have any issue with straightforward caching but more so with advanced optimization (caching strategy, invalidation, enforcing specific abstractions etc.) use cases or when it is buried in a code base with dependence and in relation with specific app. behaviors... that is mainly the reason i prefer cache less CPUs for example ! (but yea good luck with this idea right now ;) how far would you compromise for quick speed / scale gain ?)
• Single-Page App. is a disease, no doubt it works for simple stuff or truly realtime content but the biggest red flag is when you come to reimplement things using complicated schemes that the web solved decade ago (they were progressively reintroduced back) such as back / forward behaviors, state maintenance, context loss (for pure GPU / WebGL parts), accessibility hell (handling a lot of edge cases !), pain in the ass tooling and testing etc. debugging is also more complicated unless specialized tools are introduced, a nice way to slave you away to a big ball of mud that will last ~10yr max !
• 32-bit 1987 ARM still blow my mind and will continue to do so, has incredibly simple yet powerful instructions (due to the few smart tricks such as barrel shifter or conditional instructions) with few transistors (RISC; vs others), surprisingly readable due to the simplicity and the tricks plus three operands instructions are useful to reduce code density in most cases (4-bytes opcode doesn't help though but it is okay with compression), still many devices / CPUs in the wild that support the ARMv2 instructions subset, it is the CPU that is the most deployed in the world (embedded systems, appliances, IoT etc.) so a subset knowledge of it may still be a very worthy skill (too bad it is all slowly switching to 64-bit though !), also cool that it had no cache as well (and no MMU !), some of this may apply to other RISC but i specifically love the early ARM due to its simplicity / features ratio, the RCA 1802 CPU would be the 8-bit counterpart to me although not optimized for throughput (6809 perhaps better suited ?), 1802 is still produced and has 16 16-bit registers with quite cool features and a very simple CMOS design, has radiation hardened versions and very low power... some microcontrollers may also apply (AVR ?) but i still prefer the simpler pre-RISC RCA 1802 design. (early ARM is RISC in principle but with added tricks, pretty similar in spirit !) Harris RTX 2000 and related may be the 16-bit counterpart although i don't know this one well enough to draw a conclusion, it use a simple stack machine architecture, the CP1610 might also be a good fit. (CP1610 share PDP-11 concepts, PDP-11 is sometimes cited as proto-RISC)
• personal opinion but wanting the same thing as others without spicing it up (questioning / critically engaging) with some bits of deconstruction of thing is just worthless and may just lead into more of the shit by getting way too comfortable, this is especially targeted at any socio-political movements, my main lead for this was about work in general (replace "thing" with "work") in combination with progressive movements (e.g. outcome equality but not criticizing the whole notion of work) or allowing some code of conducts (e.g. being progressive and all but having a dress code and not thinking about neurodiversity), this just apply to about any movements though (e.g. glorifying work / maximal productivity as a moral duty for whatever grandeur fantasy it will be associated with while calling out discriminatory shit such as laziness (boredom is a moment of lucidity and might try to tell you something profound !), complete shame at the time of nearly complete automation, just some masked rebranding / propaganda that is devoid of any criticism of whatever bigger structure all this come from, ultimately detached of the original individual / group fantasy and serving something else that will ultimately unpack with time...)
• there is extensive ways to quit in consumption contexts but all this is much more restrained in labor context... why ? when single click quitting ?
• i ideally side more onto a hunter-gatherer base model (so not literally; more as an inspiration to build upon without the cruft; see Against the Grain (2017) by James C. Scott, also total liberation or 1987 Jared Diamond article) than on agricultural subsistence, gathering / fishing being most ideal (yea i'd likely drop or reduce the importance of hunting) akin to Jömon or some coastal cultures, also Mesolithic / Subneolithic with perhaps transient smallholding, this presuppose rich ecosystem / stability though (we had one, right ?), i see no point at being grounded unless in a very rich area (also see about no points in modern hunting btw although i acknowledge due to a rural background that it vaguely relate as a superficial / partial emulation of the idea / primordial tradition on an individual level), i think many issues (+ social issues) came from this alone (it divide), it is impossible to go back at this point although it can be done individually / with a small community to some extent (it is more of a lifestyle then) so i don't advocate for this nor do i advocate for something like the Amish lifestyle... technology is not incompatible with the idea (and especially for all kind of health stuff as it might have been rough at that time !) but it should be heavily criticized and adapted, same for the naive hunter-gatherer base idea... i am highly skeptical for any grand ideas anyway, this skepticism is modulated by a negative utilitarian stance, perhaps we will be forced to go back to a similar lifestyle (+ salvaging ?) in some way in the future due to world development...
• the origin of modern religions can be traced back to early forms such as Animism / Ancestor Veneration / Shamanism etc. which then drifted into (among others) polytheism and monotheism, it looks like they emerged as a model to serve a healing / psychological aid with some of the early ones being a reaction to primal fears (predators, natural forces, death and various forms of ambiguous stimuli), a way to cope for an overtly conscious mind, these early forms were in a way most "sincere" (first layer; stateless; direct biological response to the environment) while polytheism and monotheism are way more anthropocentric, abstract and layered (often with state relationship), they answer a totally new set of issues (social; civilizational), all of these share the same coping mechanism though (a narrative), philosophy / pessimism is also a narrative albeit one with the sole purpose of (trying to) not to lie, it breaks all layers to directly stare at the abyss, admittedly not a survival stance though...
• very highly speculative / oversimplified / geographically oriented / too linear take but perhaps shifts in power dynamics can be explained (in part) by this layering (e.g. western history) such as monotheistic religions creating brand new social / political tensions which would then challenge polytheistic powers, the worst of it all culminating with pseudo-cults (state supported totalizing narrative; a melting pot of previous layers) taking power left after a "modernity" vacuum... single narratives were fortunately silenced so we "enjoy" some sort of stability but what is next ? (note : perhaps this could be applied to "barbarian" as well, in this framework they were from early / hybrid layers and opportunistically robbed / attacked what was coming next and challenged their world, same idea of mono vs poly theism)
• there is little sens to make about most of human history when viewed from the present unless it is heavily contextualized, our era might appear the same way to some distant observer, most of human history is a jumble of trial and error without much coherence, most peoples are all immersed in some ways to momentary substructure shaped by layers of history that they barely notice, the structures might be akin to a form of "multi cellular organisms" with way more persistent momentum and influence than one could typically grasp at surface level... (autonomous / beyond control)
• i tend to see oppression in pretty much everything, this somewhat relate to Thomas Ligotti or some kind of "cosmic anarchism" (see here), this view is highly tempered by negative utilitarianism and Emil Cioran pessimism though "We are always too late", the only "winning" move is not to play...
• late Alexander Grothendieck appeared to struggle against his own consciousness, a délire obsidional, i like to think that his late trajectory relate to Thomas Ligotti idea about consciousness (a tragedy; pessimism), seems like Grothendieck tried to resolve this at times by going through the Christian spirituality route (mid breakdown / deconstructing himself then "mystic" later on with hidden evil seen as structural), some of his late writings / quotes hints at some kind of transient awareness of the issue but he seems to be in perpetual struggle / a quest to try to solve it until his death (note : he seems to be pretty much thoroughly aware from the accessible fragments of his late writings), his trajectory is comprehensible / incredible anyway as he is a genius (couldn't turn off his mind) who achieved everything society values but realized that the game was hollow / corrupt and thus walked away (a betrayal of expectations) living in radical simplicity / seclusion in a mixture of rational clarity and metaphysical anxiety... the "mystic" road was his residual spiritual framework... quite fond of Radio France podcasts among others about Grothendieck... (not fond of the absolutely creepy crap AI part but it seem well criticized by Grothendieck quotes afterward)

With the exception of some aberrant cases, man does not incline to the good: what god would impel him to do so ? Man must vanquish himself, must do himself violence, in order to perform the slightest action untainted by evil. And each time he succeeds, he provokes or humiliates his Creator. If he manages to be good—no longer by effort or calculation, but by nature—he owes his achievement to an inadvertence from on high: he situates himself outside the universal order; he was foreseen by no divine plan. It is difficult to say what station the good man occupies among what we call beings, even if he is one. Perhaps he is a ghost ? Emil M. Cioran

• i approach the problem of evil in the same way as i think it is more or less structural / embedded (quasi ontological), a propagating "cosmic horror show", consciousness may play a central role (see my take on states / religion above), what led me to this was seeing a lot of "evil" hiding behind good intents (see my take on pets or argument against pre-civilizational life, there is hidden domination / harm / structural violence concealed in good intentions) and philosophical pessimism, we may be in some lovecraftian / kafkaesque weirdness !
• kinda share Thomas Ligotti interest with rational tragic figures such as Mitchell Heisman (i read him very early, same for Grothendieck...), many of these figures are very Ligottian / Lovecraftian in a weird way, what drove me to Mitchell Heisman at first was his "Norman conquest of England" but i ultimately failed to find meaningful stuff in this... (my framework is way more untidy / fragmented and goes much further back in times) his exploration / philosophical enquiry still had a long lasting influence which i later linked with philosophical pessimism !
• not too fond of reading for the sake of reading as some peoples do (consuming large volumes of books in a precise time allocated fashion), this somewhat aligns to Arthur Schopenhauer essay On Reading and Books (1851), my preference usually goes to a pragmatic approach or non-linear readings, getting hooked to some shared ideas (usually short or direct insights) from a wide range of writers (often with highly contradictory views or from different geographical background; building connections), then dive deeper but still non-linear and with s/pace, it is highly difficult for me to review books due to this... also tend to prefer short-form writings such as novella.
• a long time aversion of mine : i abhor car centric infrastructure and all the ritual (liturgical) stuff around cars (licenses, etc.), peoples tends to target cities which is okay for many reasons (air quality etc.) but i also target the rural world... where it is much harder to criticize due to an almost religious way to shut down any form of criticisms by leveraging the sheer usability / freedom / comfort a car provide... i agree to some of this but not freedom (it is contextual and unrelated to technology, technology act as an enrichment), my main point is that cars shaped so much of the modern world that it also shaped behaviors and built a solid network of resilience for the underlying ideas... so i am nostalgic of the train-centric era (or any alternatives such as bikes !), i see cars and its modern idea as an infection (or another medium by which an infection is spreading), Ford / mass production probably played a crucial role in this as a preaching agent with a good base idea that extended way beyond the original motive (almost cancerous and serving as subtle propaganda), this criticism is sometimes mitigated by automation (technological progress) but i am highly dubious of it as well since it is very difficult to predict any good outcome with certainty... a small anecdotal example but in my car centric country that used to be train-centric (France) the price of traveling by train nowadays is about the same if not hugely more (when late) than going by car with availability / network issues (especially if heat is at play !) since it is optimized by demands so the other obvious solution is cars and if you want a nomadic lifestyle / renting a house for some days (heh even moving out by yourself !) this will be a huge expense as well (and i think the relation to cars is somewhat tied to this as well !) unless you leverage your network... i think all this would works differently in a train-centric world. Perhaps rail transport isn't so neutral as well.
• never was into work drugs (e.g. coffee and tobacco...) although i like some of their less popular side effects (coffee especially...), always thought it was a peculiar propaganda / control tool for discipline, focus and productivity, it is not only about that as some of it may also get incorporated as a sort of ritual (always tied to a particular context !), a pseudo freedom and controlled way to release (pacifiers), i much prefer disruptive ones (alcohol even although numbness effect bother me) in some ways although i am also highly skeptic of them due to technological amplifiers / optimization so i don't endorse them at all... (see Tastes of Paradise by Wolfgang Schivelbusch)
• not against having pets but highly skeptical of its modern "purpose" in so many situations as it seems to act as a form of one-sided way (propagating) psychological coping mechanism (when they aren't considered as pacifier / prop or as a power tool... many such things in other area of life to my opinion such as... work !), there is nothing wrong about this although it may have bleak implications (hidden or unintentional cruelty; systematic cruelty beneath affection), i have witnessed so much shit with animals being abused in many ways (even with peoples who appear kind and well-meaning; turns out they miss a few things about good hiding as evil) that i deeply distrust humans to ever be able to handle this issue... feels like another form of existential horror... may perhaps prefer a slightly more respectful utilitarian free associative way... (respectful coexistence, distanced observation etc.)
• i don't get why so many video games trailers barely show any gameplay even when they are sold in bundles etc. (so with proper presentation features; laziness ? reducing cost ?), it is tiresome to dodge this all the time by trying to find actual gameplay footage... maybe they could ask for some gameplay footage of random individuals and give them some money.
• i used to exclusively consume in digital form but switched to a mix of both especially for newly released materials that directly support writers and artists (tapes, books etc.) plus you often get extra content / infos such as lyrics, direct purchase (bandcamp etc.) from artist / label is best especially if they are niche or local / not too far, don't care much for used materials though... unless they have extra infos, not a collector but having physical materials also help "connecting" to them as they are immediately available without dependence to complex systems (internet etc.)
• individuals are more compelling to me than any large-scale abstractions, i generally see rigid scaled up abstractions with skepticism as they are likely to trap / silence / abuse like-minded agglutinating mass for meta-agendas, these abstractions couldn't form with sufficiently differentiated individuals (free form associations is all good btw !)
• i work best independently but highly value team oversight / guidance, always good to have some sort of exchanges / external feedback from a mind that is not your own
• things that we interact with are never neutral; kinda fun that the AI craze was a side effect (in part) of GPUs advancements / demands mainly related to a specific kind of video games consumption (fast and ever-shinier graphics)
• always admired small team ~2 peoples computer game designers (such as Star Fighter 3000 or RollerCoaster Tycoon but there is also many modern examples such as Baba Is You or Spiderweb Software games) as it require a great amount of skills and mastery in many areas plus heavy endurance (refining a game is another huge part of the game making process), niche genre such as Wargame or Roguelike in particular always fascinated me for the extra passion / research peoples put into them with long term support (e.g. UnReal World, Dwarf Fortress etc.) with peculiar resistance to any form of "industry"' standards (UX etc.) and selling them at low price (or sell them at all), highly value slow games as well (turn-based, text adventures, point-and-click, PeBM etc.), games which does not require to be 100% focused for hours but allow pacing
• always had issues with making games as i get quickly bored in the process of making them, don't really like the design / refining aspect so i don't bother anymore and prefer doodling with graphics code, kinda the same with demos as i tried hard so many times (stubborn) to make regular format demos but... ended up being bored / never satisfied, what did work however was to stop chasing these formats and try smaller / minimalistic formats
• i am okay with the Type safety road (strict typing sure help a lot with teams on large code base) but i am wary of half-assed attempts / tools (bricolage ramped up as something else), best example to me was a TypeScript case which happened on a library migration which ensured stricter rules (noUncheckedIndexedAccess) : 
  if (data.length === 0) {
    return a;
}
a.min = data[0]; // typescript throw an error with strict rules (can be undefined or a number)
a.max = data[data.length - 1]; // typescript throw an error with strict rules (can be undefined or a number)The version of TypeScript i used at the time throw an error (even with stricter checks on data) even though there is no issues there, probably due to limitations on the analysis part of the tool. Solution was to add an ugly assertion to remove the "can be undefined" case...
• editing videos or audio is a tiresome soul crushing task ! Probably why i never made any sens of "studio" at all (and the associated hardware / software) even though i respect the minutiae of the peoples doing it, like the technical side of it and probably listen and watch to a lot of heavily edited stuff, things is i naively thought that most stuff was done live when younger and this magic was shattered a bit later when i *got* the editing aspect, the (probably) many hours passed in post production polishing the end result is somewhat of a nightmare to me... couldn't conform to that and that is why i nowadays fully go to one shot stuff (with the unpredictable / unexpected sometimes popping up !) although i get that editing is sometimes necessary as duct tape even for one shot stuff. (a way to curate) this also include playing an instrument... could never conform to the standard way of learning it so my playing is ultimately lacking, still doesn't mean you can't express stuff, it is all fine.