• Some Pokemon ROM hacks where the difficulty spikes were not too harsh

There are definitely some good pokemon fangames on PC that aren’t super difficult from what I remember.

• Pokemon Hidden Place ( Spanish fan game with English translation IIRC )
• Pokemon Bizarre ( another Spanish/maybe Portuguese ( I don’t fully remember ) one with English translation ). Has some memes here and there but it’s manageable.

Most other fan games I could think of are either too long, have a good amount of difficulty, or have some sort of QOL thing preventing me from recommending it.

They’re gonna be in my backlog for a while, but earlier I got Kerbal Space Program 1 ( with DLC ) all for less than $15USD before tax and the Steins;Gate visual novel for something like $3.99 before tax. Would have gotten S;G Zero as well, but I am low on funds as of now.

I personally think smaller scale 2000s collect-a-thon games like Ty the Tasmanian Tiger hold up pretty well. Never knew that specific series existed until maybe a year or two ago and I gotta say, it’s pretty good and runs real smooth on Dolphin on my Steam Deck ( and coincidentally better than the legitimate PS2 copy I have ).

I personally also think the PS2 Star Wars Battlefront games still hold up well enough. Love the lack of monetization and lack of online play because I hate competitive play as a more casual player.

Those games are definitely pass my recommendation checklist due to the amount/quality of content, and/or replayability level.

Another couple games that pass that checklist would be Final Fantasy X ( I never finished it, but had been enjoying it all the way ) and Sly Cooper 1 ( due to the time trials for each non-boss level adding a good amount of challenge and length ). Both on PS2.

I was lucky to have survived having gone my first 5 years of life with a heart valve that was back bleeding.

I also cannot tell when I’m having a ear infection unless liquid comes oozing out. I have had some many in my life that they just don’t hurt at all.

In my opinion ( haven’t played or really seen the DLCs, so I’m just talking about base game ), Pokemon Scarlet and Violet.

Definitely had ups and downs when I did my only playthrough. Absolutely middle of the road compared to the official games ( completed gen 3, part way through gens 4-7 ) I have played and still even middle of the road compared to some of the fan games I’ve played over the years.

I personally think AROS ( AROS Research Operating Syste ) is pretty cool. Same with just the basic Amiga Workbench 3 series ( the only one I have any experience with ).

Obviously Amiga Workbench isn’t daily driver ready, but neither is AROS since it’s, from what I can tell, just an Amiga OS passion project trying to make a more modern more open source Amiga OS.

Technically I don’t think there’s a tutorial level per say as much as there is a tutorial set of levels, but Baba Is You.

The game starts off with only the controls on how to move and teaches you about how you can change the rules of the level to beat it if it isn’t possible normally, without explaining anything. Just from you exploring and testing different things. The only other time you’ll ever see any other form of level hint is maybe in the level names or if you end up in a position where you have to undo or restart the level from breaking the " [ object ] is you " rule in some way.

A lot of the game before you escape the testing track, minus maybe the point you are told about momentum jumps, feel like one big tutorial without even realizing you’re in one. It’s done very well.

I personally make a guess depending on certain games as to how long I’ve played them. I’ve definitely lost track of how long I’ve played certain games ( especially on console ) like Borderlands or Sonic Unleashed on xbox360. Especially since I never wrote any of that kinda stuff down in middle/high school because I didn’t care how long I had been playing in total.

Though, I will say that I like and dislike how Steam tracks your progress in playing games. I was roughly 4-6 minutes off of playing for 2 hours in order to buy some game related account themes but now I’m 2.7 hours in accoring to them because I ended up leaving it on in the background. In the future, I’m not gonna remember I did that, so I’ll assume I actually played all that time. There’s no nuance in their monitoring. If the game runs, so does their meter of how long it’s been on, regardless of you playing or not.

Though, I assume a good solution would be using any form of note taking program and jotting down your play times and dates and any other notes you want. Or using a spreadsheet with that same information. As long as you don’t lose that/those file(s), depending on what solution(s) you choose to take, it should be fine as long as you actually remember to do it and aren’t lazy about that, like I would be.

I kinda meant a place where the author(s) and researcher(s) could scrub any identifiable info like their names and/or anything else that would help identify them in order to get their work out, either as author/researcher anonymous or under a random pseudonym, if it isn’t safe for them to publish under their working conditions.

This is why we need an open access oasis where people can anonymously and securely drop their research papers, hosted in a safe country. Still wanna create my own but I’m too broke and don’t have enough skill to pull it off.

That is absolutely egregious. 200GB game with a 45GB update? You’d be lucky to see me installing a game that’s around 20-30GB max anymore because I consider that to be the most acceptable amount of bloat for a game anymore.

Probably. Though it also doesn’t help with how old it is considering I can do fine enough on city skylines.

I absolutely suck at it, but I started a save on SimCity 3000. I have a lot of learning to do because my city is 100% dying, so I should probably run through the tutorial…

I have also been doing very minor chip damage on completing Gemcraft: Chasing Shadows. I’m far enough along it takes a long time for me to beat any levels. And probably even longer when I finally am able to beat the 200+ wave level.

I also discovered that Portal is now 7.63GB in size currently, after buying The Orange Box for $3.99 and wanting to check out a mod I found for Portal that I didn’t realize wasn’t released yet. Don’t know how big the game originally was on launch, but now it’s nearing the 11.88 GB size of Portal 2, which I find insane.

I also kept failing at Zuma Deluxe due to bad luck and skill issues on my end.

I cannot recall any specific programs besides a game called Feudal Tactics, but I swear I’ve seen software while looking through EasyFlatpak that surprised me.

I got to start a furry visual novel I found on itch(dot)io called Promises to Keep. It’s not complete yet, but so far I’m loving it. The character art is nice and the backgrounds are pretty good and I’m really liking the music.

I am absolutely glad I randomly found it on itch.

• Sonic the Hedgehog ( Genesis/Mega Drive )

• Chuzzle Deluxe

• Borderlands

• Baba Is You

Those would be some picks I would say are objective masterpieces, but that’s subjective, I guess.

I feel called out. Should definitely make an alias or two that auto CDs me the amount of times I need…

Ever since I first heard it a few months ago, it has never left my mind for even a second.

Free by Crush 40

Sadly this great song was tied to a spin-off series killing game.

They may be dead, but we still have some amazing alternative OS’s that exist that, as far as I’m aware, are still being updated. First thing that came to my mind was AROS ( Amiga Research Operating System that had to change the name to AROS Research Operating System ).

I personally don’t use it since I don’t use Amiga software, but it’s still really cool. Under no circumstances would I recommend it as a daily driver because any software based around Amiga is purely hobby at this point, but it’s still cool to check out.