Apelsin

Yeah, after hearing the news I saw the Encyclopedia Bombastica Patrick recorded recently and at the end it was clear that he was having a hard time. It was heartbreaking to see.

I'm actually a marmot who also wants to be a march hare, heh. I guess you're right: throw it up regardless.

Sounds great Twig! Hope the position is permanent!

Me?

Is AI War any good? Also, are any of those stand-alone games? Nightsky is tempting as well... Nifflas always seems to find a way to make games I enjoy.

So, I just powered through the last hour or so of BioShock Infinite on the advice from a certain Irish fellow here on the forums. Well, that was an ending. Must also say that in the time I spent away made me appreciate the mechanics again. Maybe I should go back to some other titles I've abandoned. Also, why weren't there more sections with optional combat as in the ? Those 20 minutes were among the most interesting in the game for me.

Congrats Miffy! What subjects will you be teaching? I've finally managed to start making a game! Feels great to actually have gotten over the hurdle of starting, now I just got to figure out how to continue!

Depression Quest by Zoë Quinn (and some other folks I unfortunately can't remember the names of, very sorry 'bout that) is one of the emotionally strongest experiences with any type of media I've had in years, maybe even the strongest I've ever experienced. It does something that I've been wondering how to do for a long time, which is to provide a fairly accurate representation of depression (at least compared to my own experiences). With that said, my emotional response to this game may very well be influenced by the fact that I've experienced a lot of what is portrayed in the game. For those who haven't I can't promise that it will be quite as profound or even register at all. The game obviously comes with a bunch of trigger warnings, but I found it to be extremely cathartic.

Well, I've heard that rapid temperature change can make us more susceptible to certain illnesses (like colds) but I don't know if cold weather in particular has that effect.

The nostalgic part of my brain is screaming at me to say Battlezone by Pandemic/Activision. A FPS/RTS hybrid from '98, the player takes on the role of a combat pilot during the war between USA and Soviet in 1960... in space. The premise of the game is that a new form of metal, Biometal, has been found in remnants of comets on earth. This new material skyrockets technological innovation and the two superpowers race off into space to find more of this precious metal. There are two campaigns, in one of which you play as a pilot for the NSDF (the military arm of NASA) and one for the CCA (Soviet Cosmic Colonist Army) in which you visit several of the planetary bodies in our solar system. Besides the gameplay being tremendous, the setting in this game is just genius in my mind. Taking two factions that most people have some kind of relation to or knowledge about and pitting them against each other in our own solar system, our own backyard, gives a sense of connection which is so often lacking in space games. However since we can't have nice things they of course go and screw it up in the sequel where all humans are united against an alien threat on alien planets.

Ovo-lacto vegetarians eat eggs and dairy. Just a note that I'm not a full-on vegetarian though, just eat mostly vegetarian food. At the moment I'm not eating anything. It's more that I've gotten into a rut of just cooking the same 4-5 meals over and over again. The current staples are a vegetarian lasagna with zucchini and eggplant, Chili sin carne, pasta with tomato pesto and pea soup with pancakes. While all of these are really nice, you do get tired of them after a while.

Interesting! I'll have to try it out, thanks!

Pippi Långstrump is glorious. Well, anything by Astrid Lindgren really.

My school always served it with strawberry jam... Never heard of anyone using lingonberry before. Might be nice though. Edit: Anyone know any nice (ovo-lacto) vegetarian recipes? Completely stumped and insanely bored with the stuff I'm eating atm.

Bought Thomas was alone yesterday and finished it today. Great little game with wonderful music, atmosphere and some really nice gameplay. Also contains the handsomest and most charming quadrilaterals I've seen in a while. Suffers a bit though from Unity physics weirdness where characters will stick to the sides of walls/obstacles or move slightly when on top of moving objects. But the game is an overall

Well, that certainly accounts for some of it. I was thinking more along the lines of "Why does bad stuff happen to people" though.

Why has the world got to be so shit?

If you are interested in learning a bit more about Spec Ops: The line you can check out the talk one of the developers has about the narrative. http://www.gdcvault.com/play/1017980/We-Are-Not-Heroes-Contextualizing

Rougelikes are more about the journey rather than the destination in my mind. The fun in these games (All games really) lies in the moment-to-moment gameplay, not in seeing the "Game over, you win" message. Sure it can bring you a sense of accomplishment (Which I understand that people appreciate) but surely it should be the gameplay that is the most fun? That said though, many rougelikes can be beat though. FTL, Binding of Isaac and Dungeons of Dredmor all have endings. They're just hard to reach which adds further satisfaction once you actually manage to beat it.

This made me smile. (Dragons usually feature mainly in rather than Death metal ) Unfortunately I do not know of any such mods... But it seems unlikely that it has never been done.

Mass Effect 2... For being the sequel to a game I only played for a few hours it was surprisingly easy to get into the story without feeling I had missed too much. Have to say that the game felt oddly incoherent though, Shepard rushing from loyalty mission to loyalty mission to looking up a random distress signal and so on.

Got a late birthday present from my brother and sister-in-law today; Mastodon's "The Hunter" and "Blood Mountain". Some great progressive metal!

Get someone else to do it!

I think I might've quit Bioshock Infinite. Haven't had the urge to pick it up for over a month. A shame since I'm very nearly at the end I think. It's just that the prospect of wading through yet another batch of bullet sponges doesn't really excite me as much any more.

Thanks for all the suggestions! I'll go through them and see if I find something she might like. Some of them (like Miasmata) might be a bit too game-y and horror-focused though.