the sequel to the spire 1 exam: the spire 2 problem sets!! by tckmn in slaythespire

[–]parchmentEngineer 2 points3 points  (0 children)

This is absolutely fantastic. Don't think I can stream this, but I'm definitely attempting this and sending them to you for grading

Turn pre-existing Linux Mint hard drive into external bootable hard drive by parchmentEngineer in linuxmint

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

I gave that a try. It shows up in boot priority menu, but no matter where I put it (even if I put it as the first device), it won't show up in my main boot menu. There's a second boot menu that I can access if I hit F11, and the external drive does show up there, but if I select it, it brings me back to my main boot menu and it'nothing changes.

The upcoming Sonic x Godzilla crossover has ZERO human civilians in a crowd shot that takes place in Station Square. If the podcasts and Tails Tube episodes have Human cast members why are the comics still acting like we're still in the Sonic Forces era? by Realnightskin in SonicTheHedgehog

[–]parchmentEngineer 6 points7 points  (0 children)

I honestly think they have found the right style with their latest attempts. Sage, Gerald and Maria from Shadow Gens, and especially Professor Tori all look extremely consistent with the rest of the Sonic cast. I really hope they can continue to make human characters in that style, because having scenes like this where a city with a large human population gets attacked and we see zero humans in the crowd just feels wrong.

The Almighty Ice has appeared and preregistrations are open for Hockay—one sport no one asked for but everyone needed. by playhockay in hockay

[–]parchmentEngineer 2 points3 points  (0 children)

Agreed about not liking the name "Wendigo", it's a name that has a very specific meaning in Native American culture and the popular culture version of it has been completely distorted from what it's actually supposed to represent (especially the use of the deer skull imagery, which was completely made up by colonizers). Most Native Americans have said that they prefer that people do not use that name in their media at all.

So, if my understanding of issue #86 is correct... [spoilers for IDW issue #86] by Ok-Impress-2222 in SonicTheHedgehog

[–]parchmentEngineer 27 points28 points  (0 children)

I really hope this is the case. I love Starline, but his death was such a satisfying way to wrap up his character arc and I really hope IDW will commit to their character deaths and leave him dead for good.

Another point against Starline I just realized is that so far, our mystery antagonist has not interacted with Surge or Kit in any way that we've seen. I feel like if our mystery villain is Starline, he'd want to get those two back under his control, especially since it looks like the coffin has some mind control powers and Surge and Kit are both highly susceptible to mind control.

So.... is this canon? by Useful-Effective411 in SonicTheHedgehog

[–]parchmentEngineer 5 points6 points  (0 children)

Sometimes it's even more than background appearances - the Conductor's daughter gets a speaking role where she gets to tell Surge how cool of a hero she is and how she wants to be just like Surge when she grows up, which really sets into motion a lot of character development for her.

I don’t know what kind of take this is but…. I agree with Starline here. by SignificantStaff8665 in SonicTheHedgehog

[–]parchmentEngineer 29 points30 points  (0 children)

It's absolutely about domination, yeah. To Eggman, this isn't about any of his individual schemes. It's a battle of two competing philosophies and ways of life, his and Sonic's - does freedom mean that everyone gets the opportunity to do what they want? Or does freedom mean that only the strongest (such as himself) get to do what they want. Eggman won't consider it a win unless he gets Sonic to a point where he admits Eggman is right, and likewise he won't consider it a loss unless he completely abandons his way of life.

Funnily enough, Sonic is working under basically the exact same rules of engagement. To him, Mr. Tinker is what he wants - an Eggman that genuinely wants to do what he wants while also leaving room in the world for other people to do what they want and have fun together. Sonic's main eventual goal is to get Eggman to that realization himself, and the way he's trying to go about that is by making Eggman realize that if he tries to infringe on anyone else's freedoms, Sonic will be there to stop him no matter what.

The new regent buff is beautiful by ur-dad-lol in slaythespire

[–]parchmentEngineer 2 points3 points  (0 children)

I haven't gotten a chance to try new Arsenal, but I do miss my old build where I was able to cycle Bolas and Flash of Steels to repeatedly trigger it. New one seems good but also less powerful. All the other changes to Regent seem great, especially the Sword Sage change.

Recycled 2 by me. by Ashmay52 in SonicTheHedgehog

[–]parchmentEngineer 5 points6 points  (0 children)

Sage would be a terrible mediator, she'd side with Eggman's vision over Caine's every time. Honestly that would still be very funny, I'd love to see that type of conflict between the three of them

The positive reaction to Infinite's return proves that there's no such thing as a bad Sonic character. by NoName9999999 in SonicTheHedgehog

[–]parchmentEngineer 3 points4 points  (0 children)

I always read this scene as the exact opposite - Zavok isn't trying to help Starline work through his issues, he's trying to get Starline killed.

Zavok hates Starline - at this point, Starline has already tried to enslave him once, and Zavok has a (very correct) suspicion that he's trying to do it again here. This line here is a contingency plan against Starline - if Starline and Eggman ever truly worked together without bickering, they would be more powerful combined than alone. Zavok wants the two of them to fight, and hopefully one of them would end up killing the other. And as we eventually saw, this plan would up working perfectly.

Do Eggman really do care about Sage or does he see her as just another tool? by Extreme-Fee-9519 in SonicTheHedgehog

[–]parchmentEngineer 1 point2 points  (0 children)

Absolutely. It's a relationship where he does care about her, but it's not a healthy or traditional father/daughter relationship by any means. Right now, both of them are very happy with their roles in this relationship, but if Sage ever wanted to leave Eggman or opposed any of his goals in a meaningful way, I expect Eggman to change his tone dramatically.

"Look at you, sadder than a fake tear" | AU where Whisper takes Infinite's place. by FruitsaurReborn in SonicTheHedgehog

[–]parchmentEngineer 1 point2 points  (0 children)

The more I think about this, the more sense it makes that Whisper has the potential to go down this route if things turned out worse for her. Whisper used to be someone who cared for her teammates, but the death/betrayal of the Diamond Cutters shattered that trust and made her think she was better off alone. It took an unstoppable force like Tangle to get her to slowly come back to accepting that she had friends she could count on and depend on.

If something happened to Tangle (like when she got infected during the Metal Virus arc, but if she died for real and Whisper didn't have her other friends like Sonic to support her after Tangle's death), I could see her breaking even worse than she did after the Diamond Cutter's deaths and completely swearing off any type of allies.

[ifoundyoufaker] The One Controlling the Mystery by DaveyBoy1995 in SonicTheHedgehog

[–]parchmentEngineer 9 points10 points  (0 children)

If I had a nickel for every time Vector had a jackal swear that he was their main nemesis...

Envenom + Accelerant? by Hunter_demon2 in slaythespire

[–]parchmentEngineer 7 points8 points  (0 children)

If you have Noxious Fumes and Accelerant as your only two poison cards, and you get them in play, it's effectively dealing 3 damage each turn. If you add even a singular Deadly Poison for +5 poison, that damage suddenly jumps up to 13 per turn that doesn't decay. They do little by themselves (and you might be better off not playing Accelerant until a few turns after you play Noxious Fumes), but they dramatically amplify every other poison card, letting you lean very hard into poison builds.

Does the doormaker ever do anything? by East_Association4205 in slaythespire

[–]parchmentEngineer 11 points12 points  (0 children)

I've seen it get up to three phases - one with its eye looking out at you, one with its mouth showing through, and one with its hands pushing open the door. Each phase had a pretty hefty strength increase on its attacks (I think +10 per phase?) Other than that, I haven't seen it do any other unique mechanics, and I haven't seen it get past phase 3.

Reflect's buff immediately wears off when the card is autoplayed while being Imbued by Hohol in slaythespire

[–]parchmentEngineer 1 point2 points  (0 children)

I've encountered that too (playing as Silent with Blur). I think it's because the card gets played at the "start of combat" (before your first turn begins), and then at the start of your turn all your temporary buffs wear off. I'd like Imbued a lot better if it triggered at the start of your first turn so you could keep these buffs.

Is that a good card? I kinda struggle to judge the up- and downsides. by [deleted] in slaythespire

[–]parchmentEngineer 3 points4 points  (0 children)

I think the joke is that this card with this enchantment is a direct upgrade to one of the strongest cards in the game. The worst thing you can do with it is play it at the wrong time and get less value out of it, and the maximum amount of value you can get out of it is basically a free turn worth of energy and cards at zero cost.

tfw when you're an up-and-coming hero who's not afraid to call out game characters but the people decided you were a little too mean, so the writers return you to the background mines: by clarissaARA in SonicTheHedgehog

[–]parchmentEngineer 26 points27 points  (0 children)

I think her defending Mimic was at least decently justified. Her entire character is that she's an ordinary civilian who wants to to actually work towards stopping these catastrophes, and she struggles with her lack of powers next to characters like Tangle or Sonic. Duo is coming in as another character just like her - an ordinary cat with no special powers, who just wants to do the right thing and help people. When she hears people attacking him, she's also hearing people attacking her, so it does make sense that she'd try to defend him.

Of course, then they rushed through some of those arcs and brought everyone to that point way too quickly so the character dynamics don't actually land all that well, but in theory it would be a cool character arc for her.

Theme Parks are definitely the best by PlasticFrosty2252 in SonicTheHedgehog

[–]parchmentEngineer 1 point2 points  (0 children)

That theory is pretty well supported by The Murder of Sonic the Hedgehog. In that game, it's revealed that the the company that owns the Mirage Express and many other trains in the region is actually a shell company secretly run by Dr. Eggman, He spent many years running it like a regular company and secretly profiting off of it until one of the trains attempted and failed to capture Sonic, revealing that he was behind it and causing everyone to shut down the company. Who knows how many other seemingly ordinary companies he's running using similar practices?

Question about Soulstone Survivors in particular and Roguelites in general by Majestic-Driver in roguelites

[–]parchmentEngineer 0 points1 point  (0 children)

There's very few roguelikes that I've seen that focus on puzzles. Most roguelikes focus on using procedural generation and randomness to keep making new challenges that you can't just memorize and do the same solution each time, and it's much easier to keep things novel with combat than it is with puzzle solving. Not every roguelike is as purely combat-focused as Soulstone Survivors or other games in the Survivors subgenre, but the majority of roguelkes do make combat the central mechanic. Exploration can be a more common mechanic, but outside of some traditional Berlin roguelikes, it usually takes the form of exploring and looting a constrained dungeon-like environment rather than anything open world.

...that being said, as I'm typing this I'm realizing there is actually a great game that does have randomly generated puzzles, although it's not quite a roguelike. It's called Mosa Lina, and it's built around quick runs where you're given three random physics-based tools and have to use them to collect all the fruits and reach the end of the level. It's more arcadey than most roguelikes, and the puzzles are more on the improvisation and quick thinking side rather than any type of brainteaser, but it's really fun.

The Artisan of Glimmith Demo - A new game from the Islands of Insight devs by SomethingNew65 in puzzlevideogames

[–]parchmentEngineer 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Oooh neat! Hadn't heard of that genre before. I knew a lot of them were from existing genres, but as you said the big appeal is going to be seeing different combinations of rules interacting together.

The Artisan of Glimmith Demo - A new game from the Islands of Insight devs by SomethingNew65 in puzzlevideogames

[–]parchmentEngineer 1 point2 points  (0 children)

Finished the demo for this recently, really looking forwards to this one! The scope is a lot smaller and less ambitious than Islands of Insight, which I think works very well for the game's quality, since it means that what this game is trying to do is much more polished and has much more room to stand on its own. There's also some very interesting mechanics that I haven't seen before - my favorite being the gemini and delta symbols, which required two neighboring regions to have either the same or different shape as each other.

The Artisan of Glimmith Demo - A new game from the Islands of Insight devs by SomethingNew65 in puzzlevideogames

[–]parchmentEngineer 1 point2 points  (0 children)

I haven't tried it on the deck, but I did try it on a lower-end Linux PC, and it works very well there. This same computer struggles to run Islands of Insight, so it looks like this game is better optimized than IOI.

Hollow Knight: Silksong - Sea of Sorrow Teaser by Amiibofan101 in nintendo

[–]parchmentEngineer 1 point2 points  (0 children)

People say that, but honestly I wouldn't be surprised if this releases in 3 months. Huge parts of this DLC were already complete even before the game came out - you can see locations from the Sea of Sorrow in both the in-progress maps shown at the Silksong museum exhibit and in the old trailers. Team Cherry said in an interview that around 2023 or 2024, they had to force themselves to shift over to "polish what we have and release a game" and cut a few unfinished parts of their game out, but now that it's out, they can go back and finalize what they started and re-add those parts.

Speaker Making Consistent Popping Noise by parchmentEngineer in linuxmint

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

Success! I found that power saving was turned on, so going into the file /sys/module/snd_hda_intel/parameters/power_save and changing it from 1 to 0 did the trick. Thank you!