in the end I went with CanSpace as registrar, and I’m using CloudFlare to actually run the nameservers.

The transfer was kind of a PITA because since the domain transferred from Google to Squarespace to Canspace to then being hosted on CF’s nameservers (but still on Canspace) the DNSSEC meant that CF couldn’t actually get it connected until like 48 hours later. Was quite worried that I’d screwed up somewhere.

in the end I went with CanSpace as registrar, and I’m using CloudFlare to actually run the nameservers.

The transfer was kind of a PITA because since the domain transferred from Google to Squarespace to Canspace to then being hosted on CF’s nameservers (but still on Canspace) the DNSSEC meant that CF couldn’t actually get it connected until like 48 hours later. Was quite worried that I’d screwed up somewhere.

Honestly the 2nd analog stick I didn’t mind too much because the face-buttons made a decent D-pad for the tiny handful of shooters on the DC. The bigger flaw was the lack of 2nd shoulder-buttons.

Also that putting a screen into a controller has always been a solution looking for a problem. It was on the DC, it was on the Wii-U, and there’s a good reason they abandoned the idea to put a screen on the PS4 touchpad controller.

This feels like a workaround for a core problem: Media (particularly games) are no longer transferable goods.

What’s needed is a proper legal standard WRT resale-ability and server support. Clear requirements on what a piece of software must be able to do without its private and impossible-to-acquire cloud server, and clear requirements on allowing transfers of ownership of non-recurring-subscription-based digital goods.

They also don’t have the thumb touchpads that Valve has put so much effort into. That’s a huge form-factor advantage.

On the one hand it’s kind of disgusting, but it’s also heartening: this is a studio that had done nothing but asset flips. Their artists didn’t even know what a rig was. They were completely out of their depth.

And while the game is the most cynical thing I’ve ever seen, its creature designs are blatant mash-ups of Pokemon, and its media hype is absolutely bewildering and somewhat suspicious… but by all accounts it’s decently good fun and looks decent visually too.

So, a studio with no idea what they were doing managed to poop out a moderately good game and smash it out of the park in terms of success.

That should be heartening. That should say “maybe I can do it too” to all the hopeful indie devs out there. That should be a massive endorsement of the tooling that the industry has developed, that a completely unqualified group of guys can make a fun and successful online multiplayer action game.

I’ma call him Totoraichu.

Wasn’t there an official branded pokemon dotalike for a while? I mean, they tried the approach of “let’s make a conventional PC genre game but with Pokemon” and it didn’t stick.

Trial balloon.

This character is the thin edge of a very large wedge.

Fun bit of context: if I, an individual, found a way to remote into Sony Playstation and hack them in such a way that they disconnected from their controllers?

I would be in prison. For years. Remember what happened to Aaron Schwartz? Kevin Mitnick? They do not fuck around on computer crimes.

But when a corporation does it to their customers and competitors? Pay the fine and get back to business as usual.

I don’t think the controllers are literally “damaged”, it sounds like just muddling legal terminology with technical terminology.

The controllers are still physically functional in the same way they were before the patch, they’re just mo longer consistently connecting to the ps5. If Sony rolls back the patch they will return to normal.

That said, returns and reputational damages would be substantial to these companies and the fine does sound too small for such blatant anti-competitive and anti-consumer action.

Sony’s excuse is bullshit. If they really were convinced these were counterfeit 3rd party controllers, they should’ve popped up an on-screen message “defective counterfeit controller detected, please only use properly supported hardware”. That would’ve made the error clear. But random disconnects are just sabotage.

It’s not really about the strategy – jumping from board to a digital counterpart, it’s the book keeping that is the huge difference. All the stuff that happens automatically between turns - in civ, this is income, maintenance, trade routes, research, culture, production, population growth, happiness, religious pressure, diplomatic decay, auto move, terrain development, experience, etc figuring in all the bonuses and penalties applied by every citizen, every trade deal, every tech, every wonder, every cultural development, every special land, etc.

In theory in a 4X you’re supposed to be aware of all those rules and factors that are in play but in practice the game is too large to account for every instance.

In a boardgame, you’re executing that by hand, so it’s much more direct.

Well yes but actual no. While 4X games are turn based strategies where most rules are implemented through simple math, the obscene scale and complexity means they’d be impossible to implement on a board. And that’s before even considering fog of war.

For a TBS to work as a boardgame, it must have a real-world mechanical solution to its secrets (cards, Stratego units, etc) and it must be simple enough for humans to execute all of the logic within the game.

Give me an F-zero 99 + Mode7 Mario Kart Mario Maker game. Simple 2D maps.

I love the concept but that gameplay looks hella repetitive. Combined with a black and white art style that could get tiring, I’m worried about longevity.

I think I saw some co-op in the Golden Axe. If they lean into the multiplayer I could see it being good fun as a co-op soulslike without the oppressive grimdark atmosphere that tends to define the genre.

Shinobi looks cool, but there are enough amazing pixel-art platformers out there already.

No interest in Streets of Rage.

Crazy Taxi looks like Crazy Taxi. Which is neat but I don’t really have nostalgia for that.

I’m mostly disappointed they missed how awesome Armored Core 6 was and didn’t jump onto that bandwagon with a new Virtual On game.

Powerstone 2 was basically a Super Smash Bros-style 4-player fighting party-game but with the 3D-platformer gameplay of a Wrestlemania game. Instead of Smash Balls, there were a set of “Stones” where you’d get an ultimate if you got 3 of them. Very fun party/fighting game, much like Smash.

That’s Capcom. It was a Dreamcast flagship game but resurrecting it still isn’t up to Sega.

Why would they intentionally screw up so badly idk.

“Never attribute to malice that which is adequately explained by stupidity.”

They probably started with an overambitious design, took some ill-advised short-cuts, and pivoted the to the “extraction” format after they’d already marketed it as a different concept, and made a bad gamble or two. Normal gamedev stuff. Same as every Molyneux game.

A few years back this could’ve been another No Man’s Sky story where they fix it after launch… but that means going deeper and deeper into debt while you salvage the mess you’ve made. Post-COVID interest rates make that impossible. So now they’re broke and the project they spent the last years on is a stinker and they don’t have enough runway to fix it.

So they’re done.