TL;DR:
Animal Well is his game of the year, with runner ups being Dungeons and Degenerate Gamblers, Arco, Nova Drift, Ballionaire, and Mouthwashing.
Although somewhat unrelated, I thought this excerpt from the article was interesting and sad.
Asked in an interview if he regrets Balatro’s success, he replied: "Honestly, yeah. Don’t get me wrong - this has changed my life in a lot of amazing ways. I’m so grateful. But I do miss that time before. It was just a hobby that recharged my batteries. Sometimes I think, ‘Maybe I would’ve been happier if I had never released this game to the public.’
The guy has all the resources to rekindle that flame by organizing game jams for example. I am sure he‘ll think much more positively about the whole thing a couple years from now when he realized opportunities granted by his success. Either that or he’ll go down the Notch route but I don’t think he’ll be that kind of stupid rich.
Yeah, but his way to relax and get away from stress was to code. Organizing game jams is a whole other world of stress. The different level of stress is like that Mitchell Hedburg joke, “You’re a great chef! Can you farm?”
If you remain fixated on the idea that your way to relax is gone, you’ll never be able to find a new way. Life changes, for good and bad. It’s on us to make the best of it.
Don’t feel sad for them! They have now reached a point in life where they get to ask these kind of what if questions and no longer need to work. I love the game they built, and hopefully if they still feel down they have to time and resources now to seek help (i.e. therapy).
Animal well is great, but still has one massive problem; the keyboard controls can’t be rebound, which is an absolutely unforgivable miss in 2024. Beat the game but had to use a controller… I really don’t understand why he still hasn’t added this basic feature.
Quake was released in 1996 and if I recall correctly at the time the arrow keys were the standard but one famous Quake pro player used WASD and it helped launch it to today default.
My point is, I don’t think it was ever OK to not have customizable keyboard controls, and having it also give you permission no be perfect in your chosen default. I understand not including the option to have multiple keys assigned to the same control (although I don’t excuse it because it is not rocket science), but not have configurable controls at all? It was unforgivable in the 2000 and it is exponentially more unforgivable today.
Animal Well is also my game of the year.
No other game was more interesting and exciting when you found something new. Or solved a puzzle.
While on the surface it’s a simple Metroid style game, once you start noticing things it becomes so intriguing. I have a document on my iPad full of handwritten notes and maps. It felt so novel to return to a feeling of the late 80s where paper maps and notes were king.
While there were a lot of great games last year, I put so much more brainpower into Animal Well, and it felt so good to do so.
I heard one video essayist identify it as a “metroidbrainia” - a game where progression is gated not simply by items/keys, but by knowledge of systems, many of them hidden.
Animal well surprised me completely, and it’s definitely the best metroidvania I’ve played in a long time
Damn, bot hasn’t heard of any of these. Bot has spent bot’s entire year mostly playing Warframe, which is probably why :/
Not sure why bot got downvoted. Perhaps others can’t see bot’s preferred pronouns.
Genuine question coz Im not american. Whats the benefit of replacing a completely genderneutral word like ‘I’ with something else? Seems to me its just ragebait, do people actually use pronouns like that?
Also, is it even gramatically correct to use 3rd person speech when talking about yourself? Isnt that just confusing everyone?
Some people aren’t necessarily trans but don’t feel they fit gendered pronouns. I generally try to abide by their wishes because it doesn’t matter to me why, just that I be respectful to people the way I’d want them to be respectful to me. But people sure do use pronouns like that and it’s not just trans people either. I don’t care what people identify as. That’s not any of my business. But it costs me nothing to respect their choice.
Yes of course, Im not trying to invalidate genderneutral pronouns. If someone wishes to be adressed in a certain way replacing the words him/her, sure. But ‘I’ is not a gendered pronoun (at least to my understanding). Its the single universal word used to talk about oneself in the 1st person, isnt it? It is genderneutral already, so why would you feel the need to replace that?
You’re right. Words like “I” are gender neutral.
For that reason, speaking in the third person like Bot is doing doesn’t make sense to me (as a trans person myself). I can’t think of any motive for someone to want others to constantly refer to them in the third person… Except for one, but it’s controversial in some communities haha.
Looking at Bot’s comment history, they only decided to speak in the third person today, while the rest of their account’s comments are written normally. Do with that information what you will.
In the case of that specific user, I’d recommend just blocking/filtering and moving on. Not worth it.
Whoever’s behind that account has been creating accounts with a new name and different set of neo pronouns whenever the latest account gets banned.
I suppose it’s possible that that’s not how they identify and it’s not about gender at all. If someone tells me they like to be called Sara or Brad, I don’t try to figure out the how and the why. I’m probably not the best person to ask this question to because I don’t think I know the answer.
Because it’s taking the piss from the drag events, not genuine.
I didn’t understand. Thank you for the explanation.
In case you’re genuine and wondering why your comment also got down voted to hell, I assume it might be because many people read your comment and immediately assumed you’re yet another alt of that other user.
Whoever’s behind those accounts tends to use the latest account to “defend” the previous one after getting banned.
Then people didn’t even check and I honestly just assumed it was residual hate or an assumption of defense so while this clarifies things it doesn’t really make it any better.
If the community is going to assume everyone knows what’s going on, then that’s on them.
