Vidya Gaems General

glennmagusharvey

https://itch.io/b/520/bundle-for-racial-justice-and-equality

fourteenwings might hate this bundle, but even ignoring the political dimension, it's still an excellent deal -- not all the (literally hundreds of) products are worth it, but there are some very nice games in here -- and it's also entirely DRM-free direct downloads.

lrdgck

Huh. I assumed it must've been already posted in here.

Anyways, contains a bunch of good stuff at a really good price, and in addition, I've had this thought it allows you to pay money so shit can keep going on in the 'States. It's like funding a reality TV show. (Or sending a payment to a patostreamer.)

glennmagusharvey

> patostreamer
hahaha

Well, there's that perspective too, though most likely the money...

All proceeds will be donated to the NAACP Legal Defense and Educational Fund and Community Bail Fund split 50/50.

...is going to go into boring stuff like "civil rights lawsuits" and "community bail funds".

Stormtroper

I was hoping to be the first one to bring up the topic in this thread.
Specifically, Activision Blizzard's courageous stance of supporting these protests in the face of adversity from those pointing out they did the opposite not long ago.

Blueeyedrat

If anyone's looking for recommendations from the massive itch.io bundle, I wound up sorting the stuff I claimed for my account into a list (excluding the non-game stuff, like game dev assets):

Games I already own and have played: A Short Hike, Celeste, The Floor Is Jelly, GNOG, Micron, Puzzle Puppers, Pyre, Spring Falls

Games I already own and would like to play at some point: Cardinal Chains, Luna, Minit, Nuclear Throne, Octodad: Dadliest Catch, OneShot, Oxenfree, WitchWay

Games I already had on a wishlist somewhere: Night in the Woods, The King's Bird, Golf Peaks, Signs of the Sojourner, Silicon Zeroes, ETHEREAL

Games I was aware of and kinda interested in: Anodyne, Catlateral Damage, The Deer God, LYNE, Mable and the Wood, Old Man's Journey, Overland, Pet the Pup at the Party, Pikuniku, Quench, Semblance, Underhero, Vignettes

Games I hadn't heard of before but seemed interesting: A Snake's Tale, A Wish Upon A Star, Beglitched, Brushwood Buddies, Campfire Cooking, Dorfromantik, DYO, Feud, Fugue, IGEO, Knights of the Card Table, reky, Ruya
(about half of these are puzzle games, I think)

Games I was aware of but not really interested in (but other folks might be): ART SQOOL, Bleed 2, Cook Serve Delicious 2, Glittermitten Grove, Jimmy and the Pulsating Mass, Quadrilateral Cowboy, Super Hexagon, They Bleed Pixels, a bunch of the visual novels

Stormtroper

Celeste is one of those games where just watching it is already fun.
Dunno about Long Gone Days but I know one of the developers.
Also, I can't help but notice that Social Justice Warriors is there.

lrdgck

by the way, not all are video games. A few are tabletop games, or something else altogether.

glennmagusharvey

Hahahaha yeah.

There are actually at least several games I've played or am otherwise aware of. I might post a list later.

fourteenwings

fourteenwings might hate this bundle

To be clear; I don't hate these things. However, these are concepts that... well, they scare me. A lot of things are being whitewashed like this, and have been whitewashed like this in popular culture since probably before I was even born (at least the 60s).

I can't control what other people do with their money, that's not what I believe in. However, it's becoming increasingly difficult for me decide what I want to do with my money.

Activision Blizzard's courageous stance of supporting these protests in the face of adversity from those pointing out they did the opposite not long ago.

You mean Hong Kong? Haven't LeBron James and uh... other guy who plays basketball also basically been saying a lot of things that sound gigantically hypocritical?

I mean, this is the inner cynicism of capitalism. You go with what will bring in money. This never bothered me before, even when companies were on the other side of things (not rocking the boat, which I have now learned is probably the appropriate position! So thanks childhood of believing otherwise) but now I wonder if there are limits to what I believe is okay in terms of the cynicism of capitalism.

Actually, I don't think so! I guess I'll just have to become a person who buys very little.

See, this is how you become a conservative classical liberal Amish hermit.

glennmagusharvey

I guess I'll just have to become a person who buys very little.

Just get everything on deep-ass discounts. If they're good people, you gave them money. If they're bad people, you stiffed them. Works both ways.

Stormtroper

^ But then there's the problem that if they're bad people, you gave them money. If they're good people, you stiffed them.

Haven't LeBron James and uh... other guy who plays basketball also basically been saying a lot of things that sound gigantically hypocritical?

Probably. I'm waiting for someone to make a protest hypocrisy compilation/collage.

lrdgck

^ I saw a collage of some sportsman's or media personality's twitter posts. Went from "I understand rioters, fuck the police!" to "fuck, they're looting a gated community next door! Where's the police?" to "fuck you guys, those weren't REAL protesters!". Probably a bit cherry-picked, but I checked and he really posted the words the collage attributed to him.

glennmagusharvey

^ But then there's the problem that if they're bad people, you gave them money. If they're good people, you stiffed them.

...fair point.

hypocrisy

Criticizing hypocrisy is one of the earliest things I learned to do in arguing, and while I didn't know it at first, I later learned that it's also one of the most useless things to do. Most if not all people have said contradictory or otherwise stupid/unwise things, and the more famous a person, the easier it is to find examples of such stuff that they've said, as long as you bother digging. But criticizing people for such, except in limited circumstances, is of relatively limited use, and is mainly useful just for embarrassing the opponent and/or prolonging the argument, since it doesn't add anything productive to the conversation.

Then again it's not like internet arguments are meant to be productive, and besides, the opponents in such a context are probably already thoroughly convinced that their respective opposition is wrong.

Stormtroper

Yeah, but that's when arguing with someone on the 'net, nothing has ever come out of those.
I like to think most people would start thinking things more thoroughly when faced with reasons why two positions are incompatible, at least if there aren't personal interests involved.
It's easy as long as one doesn't have to do the truly dreadful thing: admitting it.

lrdgck

Meanwhile in Magic: the Gathering, the following cards are now banned because that's racist: Invoke Prejudice, Cleanse, Stone-Throwing Devils, Pradesh Gypsies, Jihad, Imprison, Crusade.

https://magic.wizards.com/en/articles/archive/news/depictions-racism-magic-2020-06-10

Didn't feel like looking for more appropriate thread - it's a game, we strayed quite far from vidya gaems already, so I'm putting it here.

Stormtroper

It kinda makes sense for Stone-Throwing Devils* and Jihad as those were controversial beforehand, and maybe Crusade as that's a sorta well-known card, but for the others I can't help but imagine someone going through the tens of thousands of card prints looking for stuff to find objectionable so as to make a big deal out of cards no one cared about. I bet that's why Honor of the Pure got saved.
.* If you're confused, it's an anti-Palestinian slur.

glennmagusharvey

I was confused; thanks for explaining that one.

Invoke Prejudice is presumably because those look like KKK hoods. (For what it's worth, the capirote is a thing elsewhere, with very different meanings. But given the card's name, the intended association seems obvious.)

I did notice that all the cards seem to be really old aside from Crusade. Is it the old art that's the issue with Crusade?

Crusade and Cleanse also seem like they're consistent with what I know of the color wheel, though I'm guessing the wording (particularly in Cleanse) is the issue? I notice they never reprinted a new version of that card, so does anyone know if that same mechanic (but with different wording or other differences e.g. mana cost) still exists in any currently-legal card? And I could ask the same for the rest of the cards with respect to mechanics too, though in most other cases it seems it's the picture or name that's the problem.

glennmagusharvey

Incidentally, about an actual videogame, the capirote and its use in stuff like the painting "A Procession of Flagellants" are the inspiration for the game Blasphemous. (Warning: blood, violence, gore, horror. It is rated M, after all.)

Though in that case the hat is apparently a stiff material and has a face mask.

Stormtroper

I notice they never reprinted a new version of that card, so does anyone know if that same mechanic (but with different wording or other differences e.g. mana cost) still exists in any currently-legal card? And I could ask the same for the rest of the cards with respect to mechanics too, though in most other cases it seems it's the picture or name that's the problem.

Cards that worked against enemy colors* during the first 15-20 years of the game and so you'd often see white anti-black whatever and vice-versa, although generally with names that are less, umm... open to interpretation. Now, almost every card in the game is legal in some format, I'm out of touch with the game to tell about recent formats but off the top of my head, White Knight (that's another unfortunate name for ya) and Purge are legal in Modern (2003-now), as I said they're rarely used anymore so I bet there aren't any recent ones, but still, there are lots, much newer than these.
As for Crusade, as I mentioned, Honor of the Pure. Crusade-like mechanics (the fact that it's color-specific) are not that common so Honor of the Pure stands out. There's also Bad Moon, Ascendant Evinkar and Crovax the Redeemed.
.* For each color, its enemy colors are the two colors farther from it in the color wheel, the thing you see on the back of the cards. That is: W->BR, U->RG, B->GW, R->WU, G->UB.

glennmagusharvey

Come to think of it, a destroy ability is more associated with the black color so maybe that's a color-wheel flavor reason that it didn't get reprinted.

OTOH white is associated with protection so buffing other creatures makes more sense. Though I think that that sort of buffing is still more associated with green? Though it can't be too tightly associated with anything since it's also a thing amongst artifacts.

Stormtroper

You're thinking too rigidly about the color wheel, most mechanic are relegated to more than one color, especially if it's not exactly the same but with some important variation.
Case in point, although black is generally speaking the one with creature destruction, white does have some too and, more importantly, is actually the color associated with the mass creature destruction that Cleanse is a color-specific form of: Wrath of God, Day of Judgment, Akroma's Vengeance, Kirtar's Wrath, Rout, Fated Retribution, Myojin of Cleansing Fire, Mageta the Lion, Austere Command.
Similarly, although green is the color most associated with pumping, it's something every color can do and white does it second best, and is the color most associated with the mass-creature pumping that Crusade is part of: Angelic Chorus Glorious Anthem, Heliod's Dictate, Honor of the Pure, the one with Multikicker whose name I forgot Marshal's Anthem.
Edit: slashes.
Edit edit: I think a good way to illustrate this is Planar Chaos, a set specifically about playing loose with the color-wheel and which shows how flexible it can be. Also two of the cards are Damnation (white Wrath of God) and Gaea's Anthem (green Glorious Anthem) specifically because these aren't things black and green typically do.

glennmagusharvey

Is there a renamed Cleanse that does the same thing?

Stormtroper

Not that I'm aware.

fourteenwings

I saw a collage of some sportsman's or media personality's twitter posts.

This was that guy who lived in a gated community to start with, right?

That was almost as sad as Guy With The Thumbs Up Shouting "We're on Your Side!"

the following cards are now banned because that's racist: Invoke Prejudice, Cleanse, Stone-Throwing Devils, Pradesh Gypsies, Jihad, Imprison, Crusade.

KOTOKO has a song called Jihad (it's an OP to an eroge sequel, which is why you've never heard of it). Whilst I don't like the song that much, I always thought the name was cool.

It's going to turn out, in 10 or so years, that offensive has become the new edgy (which feels like an odd sentence to put out there but this is where we are). I mean, with the internet, it already has, but there will certainly be a TV show one day where the black-wearing emo boy is emotionally disturbed because of his two emotionally distant yet extremely demanding monogamishly hypergamous-yet-constantly-jealous overachieving dads and he'll say things like "Sometimes you need to be patronized to."

glennmagusharvey

free game https://www.gog.com/game/hitman_absolution

glennmagusharvey

https://www.gog.com/game/alwas_legacy_bundle

Alwa's Legacy is now available on GOG, which also marks the first time its predecessor game, Alwa's Awakening, is available DRM-free. (It was previously only available on Origin or Steam.)

https://www.humblebundle.com/fight-for-racial-justice-bundle

Another bundle with the same fundraising theme as the giant itch.io bundle.

I might pass on this though since it's mostly Steam keys and the DRM-free games aren't to my interest or are ones I already have.

There are also a bunch of books in there. Most are unfamiliar to me, though there are graphic novels of Attack on Titan, Ghost in the Shell, and Shaft (you damn right! though this looks like an origin story for him). Also, a book about "ubuntu" that is actually about the philosophy, not the operating system named after it.

Finally, I recently discovered that Indie Gala maintains its own trove of free games. https://www.indiegala.com/showcase/

They're all just downloads and thus DRM-free as well. They don't seem to be generally well-known, though some look nicer than others.

glennmagusharvey

I posted too soon.

https://www.gog.com/news/special_sale_dd_games_up_to_75_off_and_a_free_giveaway

D&D games on sale. Eye of the Beholder, specifically, is free for the next two days.

lrdgck

Looks like I didn't warn you guys when there was free Total Annihilation.

I feel guilty.

Stormtroper

Now you have to purchase it for each of us.

I don't think I've played any of the temporarily free games we've posted here. Well, I did play Fallout for a bit, but I could never figure out how to not fail after a while.

glennmagusharvey

Off the top of my head there's only been on temporarily-free game that was actually on my wishlist at the time, and that was Rebel Galaxy.

For a broader range of "that I would have wanted", perhaps Spelunky (paid version) and Xmas Shooting Scramble could count.