To be clear, I think the original Pirates! actually was Sid Meier’s work. I’m not sure about this remake.

Running it wasn’t exactly straightforward. My CD-ROM copy was a no-go, but I managed to get the GOG version working in a 32-bit Wine prefix with DXVK. (I’m on linux.) Remaining problems are lack of wide-screen support (so I run it in a full-height window) and pauses between various scenes (which I might be able to solve with an older Wine version). It’s playable already, though; I’m glad I put in a little effort.

Other linux users wanting to try it might want to use Lutris, which seems to have install scripts for it, or a console emulator. Or maybe the Steam version works fine through Proton? I haven’t tried it.

I think how often this is a problem varies widely from person to person. I don’t remember the last time I gave a mobile number out to a company, but it was more than a few years ago. The last few that strictly required one were non-essential; I just took my business elsewhere.

Seems unlikely that all these would have fallen here.

I wonder what sort of creature would go around collecting them, only to leave them out where they would reflect light and attract the attention of anyone passing by. It’s almost as if…

What was that sound?

We could quibble about the details, but all of them are fundamentally last-man-standing competitions.

The Hunger Games was indeed one of them. I didn’t mention it because it’s the most obvious one in current cultural memory (no need for me to point it out) and because Battle Royale came a decade earlier, and Battle Royal half a century before that. The characters’ situation is probably older than printed words.

Even if a competitive game format was unique to the Hindi film, it would be tough to argue that nobody else could have thought of that detail when making their own variation of the same theme. Calling it a “blatant rip-off” of Luck (2009) is quite a stretch.

(Incidentally, the Luck synopsis that I read says it focuses on gambling, not competitive trials or children’s games. A quick look at the video confirms it.)

They haven’t even had the account for an hour and they’ve already violated lemmy.world ToS (calls for violence) in another thread. May the ban hammer strike swiftly.

Breaking! Community rule 1 (points 3, 4, and 5).

https://www.rottentomatoes.com/m/battle_royale

I wouldn’t be surprised if the theme also showed up in books that predate all of these films.

many results say to install custom ROMs which I can’t since its a US model and the bootloader is locked.

Are you sure it can’t be unlocked?

https://xdaforums.com/t/guide-to-root-galaxy-s22-plus-b-e-n-0-unlock-bootloader-and-flash-official-firmware-noob-friendly.4404351/

Many phones that don’t officially support unlocking can be exploited to do so anyway. Some will lose relatively minor functionality in the process (camera enhancements were lost on mine, but the camera still works fine) but the tradeoff is often worth it.

Is it true that Telegram doesn’t encrypt group chats at all? Maybe that would get their attention?

My biggest criticism of Telegram (but not the only one) is that they use homebrew crypto. Of course, I don’t know if your family would understand why that’s bad.

Announcement from last year:

https://www.consumerreports.org/media-room/press-releases/2023/10/consumer-reports-introduces-free-permission-slip-by-cr-app-to-empower-consumers-to-take-back-control-of-their-personal-data/

That’s not how EOS works.

What’s your complaint? It’s a UE5 game

I’m not them, but I dislike Epic Online Servies, too. Last time I read the terms document, it granted permission for way too much data collection, and I’m not a fan of spyware.

A large part of the reason Mercedes and other German brands were considered high quality was that they were more reliable than a lot of other brands on the market, while being good to drive.

“Good to drive” is a bit of an understatement. German cars have enjoyed car enthusiasts’ favor for decades, despite often mediocre reliability, specifically because they were great to drive. There are multiple dimensions to that, ranging from the safety advantage (and fun) afforded by giving the driver a good feel for what’s going on between the tires and the road surface, to an excellent balance of responsiveness and comfort from well-designed suspension. VW even ran an ad campaign around it: Fahrvergnügen

Japanese and American cars generally could not compete in this area.

However, those same German cars also became famous for developing endless little problems over the course of ownership, from annoying rattles to failing parts that were either expensive to buy or difficult to reach (and therefore expensive to replace).

If there was a time when German cars were known for above average reliability, I think it must have preceded the more recent generations. Maybe back before Japan had started investing in this area?

This version of the patch notes has spoiler tags:

https://forums.larian.com/ubbthreads.php?ubb=showflat&Number=948592

For Linux, I recommend the DualShock 4 (PS4) and DualSense (PS5) controllers. They have native support built into the kernel, so you don’t need to install drivers. They’re great in Steam, emulators, Wine, and most native linux games. They work in both USB and bluetooth mode. Motion controls work. Touchpad works. Rubmle works. Dead zones are nice and small.

The only features I’m not sure about are the DualSense haptics and adaptive trigger feedback. There was work happening on those when I last looked a couple years ago; I haven’t checked recently.

A few people have reported lag with certain bluetooth adapters. I haven’t seen it with any of the hardware I’ve used, but if you encounter it, you can always get a different bluetooth adapter or exchange the controller for some other model.

Make your cut scene compelling, or at least interesting, and people will slow down and experience it willingly. Once.

Force players to slog through your cut scene whether they enjoy it or not, and you’re just being self-indulgent, ignoring the fundamental purpose of a game (entertainment) in favor of your own ego. If you want to do that, make a movie, not a game.

Forcing them to do it again after they’ve already watched it (during a subsequent play-through, or after your game crashed during the mission, or because they made a mistake and want to retry) is well beyond game designer arrogance; it’s just plain bad software design. How would you feel if you had to read and click through time-consuming new user help screens whenever you launched an app, and not just the first time you used it, but every single time?

Red Dead Redemption 2 is particularly bad in this area, as it has cut scenes as long as ten minutes, and not only forces them down the player’s throat, but also makes it impossible to save the game just afterward, so fully restarting a mission requires slogging through the cut scene again.

Note that the emphasis here is on unskippable. Cut scenes on their own are fine. Even slow ones.

I consider any mission that starts with an unskippable cut scene, especially one that lasts several minutes, to be bad. Needlessly wasting the player’s time is unforgivable.

I consider any mission that instantly fails if you step outside an invisible and unstated boundary, especially in an open world game, to be bad. Punishing the player for creative thinking is unforgivable.

I consider any mission that presents a challenge, and then cheats to force failure when a skilled player is about to succeed, to be bad. Breaking the physics of the game world in order to artificially cancel excellent play is perhaps (barely) forgivable, but terrible game design.

So I guess I don’t get to be in your gang. But I’m glad you had a good time!

(P.S. The game world was beautiful, at least. Props to the folks at Rockstar who did that.)

In my experience, it can handle most games that expect the Steam client/libraries to be present, so long as DRM is not involved. Some games might require special configuration, like generating an interfaces file, which is documented. So… pretty reliable?

I have also used the experimental build to block internet access for a game that was trying to collect data from my system and phone home, without breaking LAN multiplayer features. Not foolproof (I don’t think it blocks DNS) but good enough for what I needed.

In case anyone here doesn’t know already, many (most?) Steam games can be run without Steam, using a tool like this one:

https://gitlab.com/Mr_Goldberg/goldberg_emulator

If you’re concerned about what might happen to your game library if Steam disappears or changes drastically, make backups. There’s a good chance you would still be able to play them.