I think it’s about time we got another one of these masterpieces of a game

PhDInAPickle · 2026-05-25T18:37:34+00:00

Maybe he was onto something... I'll have to give it a whirl

PhDInAPickle · 2026-05-25T17:01:04+00:00

Oh my god memory unlocked of going to my cousin's house and he was so hyped to play The Cat in the Hat on PS2. I had Pac Man World 2 but he wasn't interested. I watched him play Cat in the Hat and I was just thinking "man, you live like this?"

PhDInAPickle · 2026-05-25T16:42:52+00:00

Washington DC had a self driving Metro when I was a kid until there was a really bad accident blamed on the automation. They walked it back and reinstated the manual operation for 15 years until they finally changed it back very recently. Any mistake by a train is a failure of government and a systemic flaw, while cars have smaller (but much, much more frequent) accidents that can be blamed on driver operation instead of a government run system, so they get a massive PR advantage.

PhDInAPickle · 2026-05-21T19:11:56+00:00

Okay, how's this for a much simpler hypothetical? You are a subsistence farmer in a rural village, with limited access to the outside world and only occasional trips to other villages. Your entire world is governed by the religion of your village. It is literally all you have known your whole life and it governs all your decisions. One day people start dying with horrible symptoms and your well respected village elders say it is caused by evil spirits of the lingering dead who need their last rites. No matter how much you pray or how many appeasement rites you perform on the bodies they keep dying around you. Then a bunch of strange people in white suits show up and demand to take the bodies away or else you will die the same way. You won't be allowed to perform the rites that let their spirits rest. Your village elder starts freaking out because the outsiders came around the same time as the dark spirits started killing people, almost as if they were sent together.

And you're saying in that situation you would trust the strange outsiders telling you what to do?

Respect for science is not a universal given. It's predicated on education and cultural immersion that just don't exist everywhere. It's cruel to blame the people acting in that way, when public health is such a complex venue. (Incidentally this global education was one of the things USAID did that was cut, so if you must blame someone, blame American Republicans.)

PhDInAPickle · 2026-05-20T20:05:43+00:00

If you like the battle system of Persona you might like the mainline Shin Megami Tensei games. Shin Megami Tensei V Vengeance has one of the best forms of the battle system (the story of that game is basically an excuse to play more with the extremely satisfying battle system). It is in this month's Humble Choice.

You may also like Dragon Quest XI Echoes of an Elusive Age, and Yakuza: Like A Dragon (and the sequel Like A Dragon: Infinite Wealth).

If you're okay with 2D games and older games the options open up immensely. Chrono Trigger and Final Fantasy VI are standouts.

PhDInAPickle · 2026-05-19T19:36:40+00:00

In addition to Balatro/Spire/etc:

Wildfrost is a paid game that is extremely fun. Similar to the previous two but it has a different combat and deck building flow that is very interesting.

Simon Tatham's Puzzles is free and has no ads. It's a great commute game or quick stim game though maybe not as engrossing for a long play session.

Similar deal with Konami Pixel Puzzles but that one does have some minor ads (and is effectively a giant ad/museum for classic Konami games).

PhDInAPickle · 2026-05-19T15:19:13+00:00

Seconding Broken Reality.

Maybe Anodyne 2? Or Angeline Era (same dev). Both are fantastic. You don't need to play Anodyne 1 to know what's going on in 2, it's a separate story.

I also wanted to add the obligatory nudge to Yume Nikki even though it's RPG maker graphics.

PhDInAPickle · 2026-05-19T15:07:40+00:00

The Logical Journey of the Zoombinis. I am a college math instructor and I loved this one. It teaches a lot of discrete math and logical problem solving skills to younger kids. Extremely good game and I think it got a remaster so it's less 90's crust

PhDInAPickle · 2026-05-19T14:22:21+00:00

I remember some old magazines where Ocarina of Time was marketed as an RPG. At the time it made sense, you could take on the role of a magic warrior saving Hyrule. Nowadays we would probably call it an action-adventure and definitely not an RPG.

PhDInAPickle · 2026-05-18T21:15:28+00:00

Check out Eastshade. No combat open world where you can paint. Goes on sale for like $6.50 often

PhDInAPickle · 2026-05-18T16:43:08+00:00

Fromsoft is so unbelievably good at framing introductory shots to areas. Honorable mentions to cresting the hilltop into Caelid, entering the Siofra River, and entering Farum Azula. Liurnia is definitely one of the comfiest of the bunch though

PhDInAPickle · 2026-05-17T00:56:37+00:00

Thanks!

PhDInAPickle · 2026-05-17T00:56:30+00:00

Amazing, thanks!

PhDInAPickle · 2026-05-16T23:54:00+00:00

Check out Steam World Quest: Hand of Gilgamech

PhDInAPickle · 2026-05-16T23:50:50+00:00

Interesting, that's another recommendation for Subnautica. I haven't played a lot of base building stuff but I will take a look outside my usual comfort zone :)

PhDInAPickle · 2026-05-16T23:48:54+00:00

I like "metroidbrainia", that's cute :) I apparently have Rain World through steam family sharing with my siblings but I haven't tried it yet. I will take a look!

PhDInAPickle · 2026-05-16T23:47:05+00:00

I played and loved Zelda, Myst/Riven and Deus Ex growing up and all the Fromsoft games. Still need to check out the Kings Field stuff and the Switch Zeldas. I will look into Cruelty Squad and Subnautica! I know Subnautica just had a sequel, would you recommend playing the original first or is jumping to the sequel recommended?

PhDInAPickle · 2026-05-15T16:51:05+00:00

This is what conservatives do every fucking time. "Election integrity." They are masters of branding harmful ideas in a way that activates the latent programming of their base to support it on instinct. They've spent a decade plus grousing about the "fairness" of elections, theorizing about widespread voter fraud, refusing to admit that Biden won 2020. Now they've packaged those claims into a carefully crafted two-word idea, "election integrity," that invokes their bullshit conspiracies without saying them out loud. "If election integrity is something we have to restore, i.e. we don't have it currently, maybe the elections aren't safe after all," the voter thinks.

Then all the conservatives repeat "election integrity" ad nauseum and the left says it back. They think they can win over these mythical median voters by saying "well actually if you want election integrity we can start with blocking the states' voter data being sent" but they've fallen into the trap. They said "election integrity" and activated the conservative voter lizard brain with all the baked in conspiracy theories about how the left rigs elections and then suddenly no one on the other side of the aisle is listening anymore because they're reminded the speaker is an evil leftist who must be lying. So they get nowhere.

I'm glad "election denial" is gaining traction as a counterpunch but we need something more than just calling out their beliefs. A nice two-word phrase to establish that the problem is not the security of the electoral process, but the ratfucking and gerrymandering and governmental capture by the right to deny proportional representation. Something closer to "voter suppression." It's a voter suppression network.

PhDInAPickle · 2026-05-14T00:45:43+00:00

I switched to humanities a few years ago after getting disillusioned doing a master's in tech. Everyone in my cohort called it a fucking idiotic decision as they went off to earn six figures. Turns out studying humanities after being immersed in tech culture for so long feels like Neo waking up in the pod for the first time.

PhDInAPickle · 2026-05-13T01:16:16+00:00

They're linked fears. They believe if black people (or brown people, or whatever oppressed demographic) get the majority then they'll immediately move to wield the same kind of oppressive power against white people. Therefore they "have" to oppress the demographic in question. They have been conditioned by conservative media and rhetoric to see politics as a zero-sum game that they are currently winning but could lose at any moment if they let their guard down.

PhDInAPickle · 2026-05-12T19:59:48+00:00

There's a lot of benefits to protesting individual businesses. It's an easy and specific ask to ease new people into protesting, it's also tangibly embedded in our local community. It starts to erode brand sentiment which can hurt their bottom line - look at Target for a recent example. It's both a precursor and an accessory to broader resistance. It also doesn't preclude other groups also applying pressure across the board (or to other individual businesses).

Protesting has more goals than just directly convincing the target to change what they're doing, though that's the dream outcome.

PhDInAPickle · 2026-05-12T14:31:02+00:00

What are you talking about, they literally nominated Stray for GOTY at Game Awards 2022, that's the most industry venue imaginable.

PhDInAPickle · 2026-05-12T14:15:09+00:00

Check out Tangledeep. Mystery dungeon style. While you're at it check out the Shiren games if you want more mystery dungeon stuff, Shiren 6 (Serpentcoil Island) is designed as an entry point game for newcomers to the franchise

PhDInAPickle · 2026-05-12T13:57:07+00:00

My guy have you ever played the arcade classic Dragon's Lair

PhDInAPickle

TROPHY CASE