Generally, the best options are ports of PC games. Things like Slay the Spire, Balatro, Mini Metro, Terraria, BaBa is You, or Stardew Valley. Not as cheap, but worth the price tag.

A couple of my favorite free options:

Unciv - Its an attempt at recreating Civ. It’s got a lot of issues, such as lacking a lot of the more in-depth mechanics and having terrible world-gen, but its also free.

Vampire Survivors - a fairly simple but content-rich arcade game, reminiscent of old flash games.

Super Auto Pets - an autobattler like autochess but stripped down to its fundamentals making it easy to get in to, and easy to play in short bursts

From a low pressure sales perspective the community should be phrasing it as questions that make the Windows user think about.

Even aside from this, I think the bigger issue is that Linux evangelists need to be open to new/ignorant users, and casual users. So much of the Linux community is made up of die-hards who expect other users to be just as invested in it as they are. For example, I’ve tried Linux twice, and both times ran into issues with support for hardware (audio issues the first time, lack of support for my mouse the second). In both cases, I have a significant number of people making absurd suggestions, and expecting me to devote significant amounts of work or money to make my PC functional when I already had a functional OS. Comments to the point of, “just buy new hardware,” “just program the drivers yourself,” or “just hire someone to write the software for you.” were a significant part of the response. Unless Linux is my job or my hobby, these are not realisitc suggestions, and they make Linux look like a nerdy hobby rather than a Windows competitor.

Jokes on everyone else. My collection of hundreds of Field Tested P250 Sand Dunes skyrocketed in value.

Edit: After fees and taxes, I more than doubled my initial investment.

Gmod is also particularly popular in Eastern Europe and Russia, which seems to be a particularly toxic region. I’ve seen more than a few distasteful posts in Russian, such as when “burnt Ukranian corpses” spent multiple days as the most popular workshop item, with comments in Russian celebrating and making various racist and nationalist remarks.

Also not suprised War Thunder is up there too. Again, popular in Russia, and like HoI, its the type of game to attract Nazis and Wehraboos.

From my understanding, it also locks your inventory, which in a game like CS, is a very big deal.

Part of the problem is that historically, AMD was just flat out bad. Its no so much as thinking of Nvidia as a luxury brand as not even realizing AMD or Intel are valid options. Even if things get better, it will take time for public sentiment to shift, given that people aren’t replacing their computers often.

For example, I got a Vega 56 for cheap near the end of the generation. I had constant issues with it’s drivers, and my whole friend group was obviously exposed to them when we played games together. Seeing that, reasonably, they decided they wanted to stay away. Given that my friend group is relatively technical, they’re opening up to AMD again as people say the issues have improved, but if I had a less cheap and less technical friend group, that experience would have completely burnt that bridge.

I went down this rabbit hole about a year ago, and didn’t have much luck. In the end, the best results I was able to get were from Steam’s Big Picture Mode on a Windows device, mostly launching Firefox (might have been Chrome?) with different launch arguments to immitate a smart TV.

Most available software either doesn’t support Linux well, doesn’t support streaming services and outside software, or doesn’t support non-kb&m input methods. You can get two, but never all three. You could try SteamOS, now that its out, but unfortunately my hopes wouldn’t be high for it to have all the apps you needs functioning.

It is a fun game - I bought it and have put a dozen hours or so into it, but it also really doesn’t capture the brilliance of Slay the Spire or the other more influential roguelike deckbuilders. In particular, a lot of it feels either clunky or repetitive. It is a good game, but just good rather than amazing.

Using your clones example, the Slay the Spire “clones” that give roguelike deckbuilders a bad name aren’t Inscryption or Monster Train or Balatro. Its things like Across the Obelisk and Wildfrost, that are good, but fail to capture what makes others great, and the numerous low-effort copies you’ve likely never heard of that viewed it as an easy way to make a good game without understanding it. Its not that Roguelike Deckbuilders are bad, obviously, its that lazy, or thoughtless use of the mechanics that is. A game isn’t one mechanic, and trying to treat it as such just results in a messy or bad game.

Its a crutch because its expected to hold the game up, rather than the game supporting its own weight. In your bullet hell example, dodging isn’t a crutch, it’s the foundational mechanic. A better example would be a slot machine system (something that is near-inherently engaging) being added to a bullet hell game, not because it fits but because its fun independently and helps distract from the fact that they haven’t put any effort into the core gameplay. The mechanic isn’t a crutch, its inclusion as a tacked-on addition is.

The mechanic itself isn’t the issue, but how it is implemented.

It depends on how (and where) its implemented is his point. It needs to be woven into the comvat system as it is in FromSoft, Batman, Ultrakill, or Cuphead, not tacked on because its easy or popular. Each of those uses parrying in a different way to enhance its combat. On the other hand, if you take these mechanics without the greater context or understanding of why it works, then it’ll tends to stand out as bad, or remain unused. Doom Eternal is an example that immediately comes to mind. The whole game is about fast paced combat, with a plethora of new mobility mechanics, that is, until you encounter one of the enemies you need to parry. Then, the game comes to a grinding halt while you wait for the enemy to take action, so you are able to react, completely opposite the rage-fueled persona and the mobility focus of every other mechanic. Compare that to Ultrakill, where parrying isn’t just a reactive way to mitigate damage, its a situational attack that allows you to keep moving and keep up your carnage.

Game mechanics work best when they’re cohesive. Parrying, due to its simplicity can be tacked on easily, breaking this cohesiveness if not given the same weight as the rest of the mechanics.

It wasn’t a shadow drop, but it was relatively light on PR. They had one big trailer six months before launch some gameplay videos, and of course the store page available.

Not requesting anything since my backlog is already long enough, but still wantted to say thanks for the giveaway!

Its artificial intelligence for an artificial person. They don’t have to think or be sentient or even be smart to be AI. It just needs to be an artificial intelligence.

This seems like too much complexity, given how small (relatively) Valve is. Then again, Valve is always hard to predict. Basically all their projects are wild moon-shots in one way or another, half their stuff doesn’t make it to market, and they have a long history of fake leaks.

I think you’re misunderstanding this. AI has always been a term for algorithms controlling NPCs, including simple ones like the enemies in a Mario game. Nowhere does it say anything about ML, so it seems like (if the rumors are true) its just a much improved version of their existing AI tech, A.K.A. very fancy state machines and navigation algorithms.

Mechanical complexity as in the amount of stuff to learn to “actually play” Minecraft, aside from the controls. For example, which resources are which, what crafts into what, and how to find and gather everything. Its easy enough to punch wood, but trying to figure out (and then remember) how to craft tools or farm food while also trying to remember how to position your fingers on the keyboard is a much bigger ask.

Its going to be a lot harder to play Deep Rock Galactic or Portal 2 together if she sticks with her current perfered movement method: click and drag with the mouse.

Is the US really that central to PC component manufacturing, or is this (mostly) just a US thing? Like, don’t get me wrong, I know a lot of these companies are US-based, but isn’t basically all the manufacturing and most of the distribution handled elsewhere?

The article doesn’t add anything, so here’s the direct link: https://www.fanatical.com/en/pick-and-mix/build-your-own-play-on-the-go-bundle