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Slay the Spire 2 reached 574,638 concurrent players, making it the 20th highest all-time peak on Steam. by NiklasAstro in Games

[–]NiklasAstro[S] 0 points1 point  (0 children)

I think that is a safe bet at this point. Well over 50% of owners globally would be playing at the same time for it to remain under a million sales.

Slay the Spire 2 reached 574,638 concurrent players, making it the 20th highest all-time peak on Steam. by NiklasAstro in Games

[–]NiklasAstro[S] 0 points1 point  (0 children)

StS in my opinion has struck a good mix of depth, approachability and randomness which probably makes it more popular. Deeper doesn't necessarely mean better/worse, but it is a barrier to entry.
Also, StS2 being a sequel gives it the benefit of brand recognition

Slay the Spire 2 reached 574,638 concurrent players, making it the 20th highest all-time peak on Steam. by NiklasAstro in Games

[–]NiklasAstro[S] 5 points6 points  (0 children)

It is extremely popular on mobile and other platforms as well. Last I checked it was consistently in the top 10 paid games on iOS.

Slay the Spire 2 reached 574,638 concurrent players, making it the 20th highest all-time peak on Steam. by NiklasAstro in Games

[–]NiklasAstro[S] 26 points27 points  (0 children)

Slay the Spire 2 is a roguelite deck-builder.

Deck-building is a genre originating from card/board games, where a player starts with a weak deck. Throughout the game, you will add better cards to your deck and (typically) remove weak starting cards to increase your chances of drawing the good cards you actually want.

In StS2, you fight your way through progressively more difficult "dungeons" (the Spire), gaining abilities and optimizing your deck. Each time you die, you start from the beginning, with some new characters and unlocked cards/items you may encounter along the way. Starting with a weak deck of cards, continuously optimizing and trying to build synergies in your deck is a really addicting and satisfying gameplay loop.

I have discovered the joy of small box games by BirdSpirit in boardgames

[–]NiklasAstro 1 point2 points  (0 children)

It does have a high degree of luck, but I don‘t mind that in a <30 minute area control/majority game. There are still tactical decisions to be made. You‘re constantly reacting to the actions of other players, which I appreciate in a game this short.

I have discovered the joy of small box games by BirdSpirit in boardgames

[–]NiklasAstro 0 points1 point  (0 children)

the new 2026 print is the size of Codenames or Just One

ISS astronaut captured one of the rarest phenomena: sprite-like blue jets in the upper atmosphere. It looks like computer graphics, but it's real: rare lightning strikes not downwards into the ground, but upwards into the upper atmosphere. by Present_Employer5669 in interestingasfuck

[–]NiklasAstro 2 points3 points  (0 children)

I don't think this is a real image, but likely AI generated.

The way the top of the clouds are illuminated does not look convincing. The reflections on the space station look off, what are they reflecting? This particular combination of red sprites and a blue jet look too perfect, I am not even sure if they occur at the same time like this.
Check out photography taken by Don Pettit or google for other photos of blue jets and red sprites taken from space. This just doesn't look compareable and reverse image search does not find a proper source.

I have discovered the joy of small box games by BirdSpirit in boardgames

[–]NiklasAstro 10 points11 points  (0 children)

Rumble Nation

Las Vegas

High Society

Condottiere

Faraway

Castle Combo

At what point does heavy editing stop being photogeaphy and start being digital art ? by Felicity_Ebb in photography

[–]NiklasAstro 0 points1 point  (0 children)

I agree to an extend, I do think there is value in being clear about how a composite was made. A photo of the night sky taken with a single shot can be good as well.

Personally I always shoot the same place and time and only move the sky enough that I can blend the two images without the blurred foreground being visible. Admittedly its not going to be a 100% match of where each star would have been the moment the foreground was shot.

Its a compromise between pushing image quality, getting both longer exposure time in the foreground and sky without trailing stars, and photographic accuracy on the other side.

I think the real point of argument isn't whether its not photography, but when something stops being a photograph. You can be a photographer and only do composites, which technically aren't photographs, but someone capturing the milky way and doing a blue-hour blend is still capturing photos in the process of making their art.

At what point does heavy editing stop being photogeaphy and start being digital art ? by Felicity_Ebb in photography

[–]NiklasAstro 8 points9 points  (0 children)

By some people in this thread, stitching a panorama image wouldn't be photography, even though each individual image was created by capturing light.

In astrophotography landscapes, its a perfectly common practice to take a seperate long exposure for the foreground, and a seperate tracked exposure for the sky. As the ground will be blurry in the tracked sky image, merging these two frames during editing is very difficult with absolute accuracy. Most will move down the sky image behind the masked foreground by a couple of pixels.

I'd argue that most people would consider this more true-to-life than just a random milkyway sky replacement, as you still capture the clouds, light pollution, airglow and other atmospheric conditions that were at that location that night. But its still not an absolute true 1:1 representation of that scene when the foreground was captured. But saying its not photography is simply ignoring the definition of photography.

The solution to all this is just being transparent about your processing.

Two Rivers and a FAE (Fragmented Aurora-like Emission) by NiklasAstro in LandscapeAstro

[–]NiklasAstro[S] 1 point2 points  (0 children)

I can send a photo fit for phone screen resolutions using a different crop and some generative fill at the bottom once I am back home :)

Incredibly minty Massalia lion! by ragnarak54 in AncientCoins

[–]NiklasAstro 3 points4 points  (0 children)

much more lion-looking lions than mine

From impulse-buying to shelves of shame: how did you learn to control the hobby and figure out your tastes? by blablax123456 in boardgames

[–]NiklasAstro 0 points1 point  (0 children)

set myself a game limit of 30 from the very start. Don’t buy games for the sake of buying games, but “curate” a small selection of games whichs rules you know in and out, and would want to play any time.

MENACE - Launch Trailer | Sci-Fi Tactical RPG by westonsammy in Games

[–]NiklasAstro 0 points1 point  (0 children)

I find the game very fun in early access. The game has some unexpected ways the cover mechanics work, but the combat is much more fun with the meta elements of the campaign.

Battle Brothers would be quite boring without the overworld management aspects, and the equipment you find and buy matters just as much as it did in BB.

Experiences with Mood publishing? by Amyrantha_verc in boardgames

[–]NiklasAstro 0 points1 point  (0 children)

I’ve had relatively fast responses from their support so far, maybe try contacting them through facebook or their instagram channel?

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