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Core Worlds Digital.
Core Worlds Digital. Another failed Kickstarter campaign.
Fool me once, shame on you. Fool me twice, and Iâll just continue to naĂŻvely throw money at campaigns on Kickstarter.
As you probably know by now, Kickstarter is one of my favorite sites. As one of the first crowdfunding sites, it enables people with a good ideaa delusional fantasy to find the money to turn their mushroom induced hallucination into something real. Not everything KickstarterâŠ
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A Boost of Energy: Reloaded?
Once upon a time i reviewed energy drinks. Then I didnât. Now I might do it again.
Energy drinks have long been the source of great controversy. Theyâre being marketed to young adults, and thus the young and hopeful go ahead and kill themselves drinking too much. I covered this issue extensively in the post âDeath by Energy Drink!â last year. Personally, Iâm a big fan of energy drinks. IâmâŠ
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Dump Google.
Google shows its true colors, and removes âdonât be evilâ from the code of conduct. Itâs time to dump Google.
For years, Googleâs been the good guys of the internet. Theyâve provided great services without showing a single stick up their customers collective asses. But when they decided to go to bed with the Pentagon war machine, those of us with an ethical backbone started to feel a tiny tingleâŠ
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The Uber Crash: A Cautionary Tale of Cause and Effect.
The Uber Crash: A Cautionary Tale of Cause and Effect.
I canât quite let go of the subject of self-driving cars. Letâs have a look at the cause of the deadly Uber crash that happened in March, and what everyone should take away from it.
You probably know the story, but letâs recap anyway: On March 18, a self-driving car struck a woman crossing the roadin Tempe, Arizona. She was taken to the hospital, where she later died from her injuries. I coveredâŠ
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Murderous Self-Driving Vehicles Strike Again.
For the second time in under two months, one of those deadly self-driving vehicles has been involved in a crash in Arizona.
On March 18, a female bicyclist was killed when she crossed the road in Tempe, Arizona. A self-driving car from Uber failed to avoid her, and she was struck by the vehicle. I covered this incident in the post Self-Driving Cars Must Be Banned Now!. A week ago, on May 4,âŠ
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The Confederate Express Mess.
The Confederate Express Mess.
Over the years, Iâve backed over 40 Kickstarter projects. Most of the them have delivered as promised, but Confederate Express turned out to be a spectacular failure.
The Confederate Express campaignlaunched on Kickstarter way back in 2013. The game was touted as âa strategy-oriented tactical RPGâ, and the campaign launched with an impressive tech demo showing off the pixel art graphics engine.âŠ
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Will Britain turn into a dystopian hell-hole when it leaves the EU? PanicBarnâs upcoming RPG Not Tonight depicts such a scenario, and some people arenât particularly happy about it.
In a referendum on 23 June 2016, 51.9% of the participating UK electorate voted to leave the EU. On 29 March 2017, the UK government invoked Article 50 of the Treaty on the European Union. The UK is thus due to leave the EU at midnight on 30 March 2019 CET. Those against Britain leaving the EU, preach doom, gloom, and the eventual downfall of the UK as an international superpower. The Brexiteers â those in favor of Brexit â see it as the only way to save the UK from being overrun, and sucked dry by the EU and its members.
The consequences of leaving the EU might be many for the brave Britons. Economy, immigration, higher education, academic research, and a metric fuckton of international agreements, are but a few things that will be affected by Brexit. The EU will also cancel 300,000 UK-owned .eu domains in the process. Exactly in what ways things will actually change, however, remains to be seen.
London-based developer PanicBarn is tinkering with a less-than-jolly scenario where Brexit talks have collapsed, an extreme far-right government has taken power. The result is Not Tonight, a âpost-Brexit music road trip thrillerâ.
Welcome to Relocation Block B
With the announcement of Not Tonight, PanicBarn received a lot of attention, and far from all the feedback was positive. âFinally, a game made by limp-wristed slackjaws who passionately hate democracyï»żâ, and âa game for progressives against democracy by progressives against democracyâ are just some of the many less-than-positive comments on the trailerâs YouTube page. In an interview with GamesIndustry.biz, publisher No More Robots describes how they can use the negative feedback to their advantage:
âI wanna try and get it in front of the Daily Mail because as much as they are going to fucking hate it, it will get in front of more eyeballs basically.â â No More Robots company director Mike Rose.
Personally, I think Not Tonight looks promising. The pixel art is appealing, and I love the dystopian setting. That PanicBarn has found a lot of inspiration in the 2013 smash indie hit Papers Please might also prove to be a winning recipe. I reviewed Papers Please back in the days, and gave it a respectable 3.5 out of 5 score.
Not Tonight is scheduled for release this summer, which probably means itâll be released around October. I stopped believing in releases dates years ago. Nevertheless, you should do yourself a favor and wishlist the game on Steam now. If youâre feeling a little adventurous, you can also sign up for the beta over at Discord.
Not Tonight: A Post-Brexit Dystopia. Will Britain turn into a dystopian hell-hole when it leaves the EU? PanicBarn's upcoming RPG Not Tonight depicts such a scenario, and some people aren't particularly happy about it.
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May One-liners.
New one-liners for May 2018.
Itâs the first of May, which marks both Labor Day, and the addition of a couple of new one-liners to the collection.
Truth is mighty and will prevail. There is nothing wrong with this, except that it ainât so.
The lack of money is the root of all evil.
I didnât attend the funeral, but I sent a nice letter saying I approved of it.
The Public is merely a multiplied âme.â
A man who carries a cat byâŠ
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Google Translate Firefox Extension.
Google Translate Firefox Extension.
I made a Google Translate Firefox extension that lets you translate between any two language from the Firefox address bar. Awesome!
When I write for this site, I use many different tools[note]For an insight into my creative process â haha â why donât you have a look at my guide to joyful writing?[/note]. To spice up the language a little, I use Thesaurus.com. Dictionary.comis a life saver when IâŠ
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Project Highrise.
Review: Project Highrise.
The sky is the limit in SomaSim Gameâs Project Highrise.
If youâve been around for a while, you might be familiar with the 1994 simulation title SimTower. The Japanese game, which was published by the once great Maxis outside of Japan, allowed the player to construct and manage a modern, multi-use skyscraper. Even though I never really got the hang of it[note]Iâve never been any good at any ofâŠ
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Deadpool 2.
From the studio that killed Wolverine.
For movie night a year or so ago, Anniken and I watched Deadpool. Itâs a fast-paced action comedy starring my man-crush, and all-round funny face Ryan Reynolds. I never got around to write a review, but Deadpool was an absolute hoot. In about a month the sequel, Deadlpool 2, premiers, and it looks like itâs been cooked using exactly the same recipe.
I lolled.
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Your favorite grand strategy game in space, Stellaris, recently received both a massive overhaul, and a new expansion. But was it for better or for worse?
Itâs been about a year since my first Stellaris review, in which I gave the game a rock solid 94 out of 100 score. When our heroes at Paradox released Stellaris 2.0, and the accompanying Apocalypse expansion, Iâd put a massive 83 hours into the game. That put it on par with Tropico 4 in terms of gameplay hours. Other players have racked thousands of hours in Stellaris, so a measly 83 might not sound like much compared to that. But for me, that number of hours put in a game show just how entertaining it really is. That the 83 hours only covers three games, 2 won, 1 forfeited, also says a lot about Stellarisâ longevity.
Paradox is well know for keeping their games alive by frequently releasing free patches, and new DLC. Crusader Kings 2 is a good example. The game was released in 2013, but itâs still updated by Paradox. It looks like Stellaris is no exception to that rule. Two years after its release, the game has received multiple patches, two major expansions, and several story packs. Even without buying the DLC, you get a lot from just patching the game. Me, Iâm throwing all my money at Paradox, one of the very few companies I buy games and DLC from on release day.
Changes. Changes everywhere!
Stellaris 2.0 contains a lot of changes to the core gameplay mechanics. Among the prominent ones are changes to how FTL and system ownership works. Before 2.0, the player could chose from three different FTL technologies when designing a new species, whereas every species now starts with hyperdrive FTL technology. This means that your ships have to follow star lanes when traveling between star systems. I used to avoid hyperdrive FTL and star lane travel like the god damn plague, and preferred warp travel instead because it was much less restrictive. Paradox has made it possible to crank up the number of star lanes so it works pretty much like warp travel, but playing with the default star lane density took a while getting used to.
Another big change in Stellaris 2.0 is how system ownership works. Prior to 2.0, you either expanded by extending your border range, or you built frontier outposts. Now system ownership is determined by who controls the starbase in the system. Starbases are built by construction ships, and cost influence to build. It feels like expansion happens a bit faster in 2.0 than it did before, even though you must fully survey a system before youâre allowed to build a starbase in it.
For an extensive list of all the changes in Stellaris 2.0, see the official change log. For a rundown of what they actually mean, see T.J. Haferâs excellent âPatch 2.0 âCherryhâ Notes: What They Actually Meanâ.
Stellaris: Star lanes. Not my preferred way of FTL transportation, but what can you do? (You can throw science at it, but I eventually got used to star lanes.)
Letâs Play Stellaris!
For my first Stellaris 2.0 playthrough, I created a custom race. Meet the Great Vun-Okon Nation, a happy bunch of xenophile, pacifist arthropoids with a thing for robot servants. Everything started out quite calm as it turned out I was light years away from any other races. The first few races I encountered were about as xenophile and pacifist as the Vun-Okons, which also contributed nicely to the peace and quiet. After a while, a few warmongers appeared out of the void. But I didnât complain, since it gave me an excuse to try one of the new ship classes introduced by the Apocalypse extension: The Colossus.
Stellaris: All hail our Arthropoid overlords!
Colossus ships are planet killers, capable of eradicating planets in various imaginative ways. As a pacifist race, the Von-Okon only has access to the Global Pacifier. It will not blow a planet to tiny, tiny pieces, but rather encase the target with an impenetrable shield. Everybody lives, they are just not allowed to go anywhere.
âNo, of course they canât leave. But they like it in there. Donât worry. They told me before the shield went up. Just going to have to take my word for it.â â Sol Corporation P.R. Representative
The problem with the Global Pacifier, is that other races gets really mad when you use it. And that I used it six or seven times didnât help. Some of the races the Vun-Okon considered their friends, suddenly didnât return their calls. In the middle of all this, some of the robot workers on one of the remote colonies started to ask questions about âsoulsâ, and other subject they shouldnât bother with down in the salt mines. And then the Vun-Okon suddenly had an AI rebellion to deal with[note]There were a lot of warning signs, I chose to ignore them, hoping that the problem would go away. It didnât. They never do.[/note].
Stellaris: Oh, fuck me. Looks like Elon Musk was right after all.
The Million Dollar Question
âŠnow is of course; is Stellaris 2.0 (with Apocalypse) a better or worse game than it used to be?
Stellaris is a complicated game, and some of the mechanics arenât exactly straight forward to understand. The user interface also has its challenges, and some times I get the feeling itâs working against me, and not with me. At one point, I tried to build a Dyson Sphere. The option was available, but it just didnât work. There was no message, or any visual indication around the potential building site as to why constructing a Dyson Sphere was not possible. In the end it turned out I could build the sphere because the star I tried to build it around already had a mining station orbiting it. I shouldnât have to search the internet for that kind of information, Paradox.
I also tried to make sense of the new fleet manager, which was introduced in the free 2.0 patch, but never managed to get friendly with it. For some reason it suggested I should add tons of new ships to my fleets, a suggestion that totally messed up my fleet cap. In turn, this quickly drained my resources. Why would it suggest such a bad move? Maybe the AI rebellion had already started, and taken over the fleet manager AI? I donât know.
Some people are not too happy about the changes Paradox has done, while others like them. The bottom line is that you simply canât please everyone. Personally, I have absolutely no idea if itâs a better or worse game than it used to be. When I started playing Stellaris 2.0, it was such a long time since Iâd booted the game, that I didnât remember all the details. And that makes it hard for me to compare. All I know is that I really, really enjoy Stellaris. And that whatâs matter.
At the time of writing, Iâve played 111 hour of Stellaris. That means that the 2.0 patch and Apocalypse expansion have lured me back in for another 28 hours of gameplay. For many years, Iâve been looking for a game I can return to over and over, the kind of game I would take with me a deserted island. Despite its minor flaws, particularly on the user interface side, Stellaris might just be that game.
This review is based on the Cherryh patch (version 2.0.2), with the following DLC and expansions: Apocalypse, Humanoid Species Pack, Synthetic Dawn, Utopia, Leviathans Story Pack, Plantoids Species Pack, Creatures of the Void, and Horizon Signal.
Review: Stellaris 2.0 With Armageddon (and more). Your favorite grand strategy game in space, Stellaris, recently received both a massive overhaul, and a new expansion.
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How to install Nextcloud on NETGEAR ReadyNAS.
How to install Nextcloud on NETGEARÂ ReadyNAS.
Once there was ownCloud. Now there is Nextcloud. Itâs time to install Nextcloud on NETGEAR ReadyNAS.
If youâve followed my 5-year-old guide How to install Owncloud on a NETGEAR ReadyNAS, you might have noticed that the ownCloud desktop client has complained about an unsupported server version for some time. ownCloud on your ReadyNAS server has been stuck on version 6, while the rest of the worldâŠ
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The Big Four Oh.
The Big Four Oh: On turning 40.
Yes, yesterday was the day. Iâm now in my forties.
When I turned 30, I also wrote a post, appropriately titled âThe Big Three Ohâ. It contains a few bullet points summarizing my universe at the time:
Iâm still enjoying playing video and computer games.
Getting kids is still a very distant idea.
I donât want to buy a motorcycle yet. But maybe thatâs what men do when they get to 40, not 30.
MarriaâŠ
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We Need to Toot About Mastodon.
Is Mastodon the silver bullet, or yet another social media dud?
Is Mastodon the silver bullet, or yet another social media dud?
First of all, weâll have to clarify one thing. This post isnât about the American heavy metal band Mastodon. Itâs about the social network Mastodon. Youâd think that the creator of Mastodon (the social network) would to at least a little research before picking a name, but apparently not.
With that out of the way, letâs get on withâŠ
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April One-liners
New one-liners for April 2018.
Spring has really started to beak through winter, at least in the Northern hemisphere. Letâs celebrate with some of those one-liners that will make you go âhmmmmmâŠâ
âBe the change you want to see in the world.â â Mahatma Gandhi
âAn ounce of practice is worth more than tons of preaching.â â Mahatma Gandhi
âFailure is success if we learn from it.â â Malcolm Forbes
âMillions saw the apple fall, butâŠ
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Self-Driving Cars Must Be Banned Now!
Self-Driving Cars Must Be Banned Now! (Or perhaps not.)
Or perhaps not?
People have gotten themselves killed by Tesla autopilot for quite some time. The first known fatal incident happened in 2016, when a Tesla Model S with the autopilot engaged slammed into a 18-wheel tractor-trailer. The autopilot didnât notice the white side of the crossing tractor-trailer against a brightly lit sky, and the brakes were never engaged. The Tesla went so fast theâŠ
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