DizzyDoo

This is not 'Incredible Machine' related, but while I'm here, I'm working on an engineering-adjacent game where you build and automate a zoo full of spooky monsters. Might be of interest to some! https://store.steampowered.com/app/654960/The_Eldritch_Zooke...

Comment · 3 years ago

I very much enjoyed RPS in the days of the original four writers, and also when Quinns was contributing, though I haven't kept up so much in the last eight years or so.

Eurogamer seems to cover the games news and reviews in the way I like best right now, and Digital Foundary's writing and videos that lean on the more technical side of games are just excellent. (I believe DF also have an arrangement to do some content for RPS, so it's probably being shared around as it should.)

Comment · 3 years ago

I mean, it was Russell Kay[0], David Jones[1] and Mike Dailly[2], though I don't know if they're here.

Personally I enjoyed the Lemmings Revolution game in the series, and that was much later than the Amiga version.

[0] - https://www.mobygames.com/person/685/russell-kay/

[1] - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/David_Jones_(video_game_develo...

[2] - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mike_Dailly_(game_designer)

Comment · 3 years ago

Exactly, and it's not just about reading but also (perhaps even more so) about writing. If Nintendo control the manufacture of their proprietary disk, well, it's unlikely that a pirate outfit will be able to build a disk manufacturing factory that produces something compatible with retail Wii U's they can then sell their own non-Nintendo licensed games on. Or burn Nintendo's own games onto. The cartridge era of games were much easier to reproduce the physical medium onto, and this was super-widespread.

This did break down for Sony later on in a way it hasn't for the Nintendo Switch, a widely shared opinion on why the PS Vita flopped was because it was incompatible with standard SD cards _and_ that their own flash game cart and memory card offerings were so incredibly expensive. (And there were cheap SD-to-PSVita adapters that were released anyway. [0])

[0] - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/PlayStation_Vita#Hardware

Comment · 3 years ago

I'm having problems with Discord, Spotify and Gitlab right now. I wonder which cloud service that's running a third of the internet is struggling right now!

Comment · 3 years ago

There's lots of reasons people 'cheat' in games. In this case it might be:

• You enjoy playing Pokemon but you don't want to or cannot find the time to grind out the few hours of leveling up you need to progress, or to find your specific favourite handful of Pokemon, so you use a device like this to save yourself some time.

• You want to succeed in the competitive space (yes, competitive Pokemon is a thing[0] and is ongoing right now in fact[1]) and you don't want to grind for Pokemon with specific Effort Values, which are the randomly generated numbers that effect how strong your Pokemon attacks are. So you use a device like this, though probably altering a save file would be just as easy and not detectable by Game Freak/The Pokemon Company.

• You don't really care about Pokemon, but you know you can sell Pokemon on eBay[2], so you automate it with a device like this.

[0] - https://www.pokemon.com/us/play-pokemon/pokemon-events/pokem...

[1] - https://worlds.pokemon.com/en-us/

[2] - https://www.ebay.ca/itm/225598189077

Comment · 3 years ago

I... guess, if you're only looking at the outcome (boxes of caught Pokemon) it is similar?

But the linked post describes a Raspberry Pi + Capture Card + OpenCV solution that is scanning the screen to detect when Shiny Pokemon are found, which is much more involved.

The $30 'Switch Up' device I linked to seems to operate only on emulating button inputs. Like, you can record and playback a macro.

Comment · 3 years ago

There is also a physical USB cheat/hack/mod[0] that you can plug into your Switch that lets you automatically farm eggs, move you about automatically to hatch eggs, and then release entire boxes of Pokemon you don't need[1]. It's like factory farming Pokemon! There's support for other games and even other game console controllers too, it's an interesting device.

For Pokemon I think it's more interesting than simply memory hacking your save file and altering the Effort Values of the Pokemon, which is the simple way to go about this, though a bit boring and as I understand it very widespread if you battle online.

[0] - https://collectiveminds-ca.myshopify.com/collections/nintend... [1] - https://www.switch-up.ca/pokemon-sword-and-shield-mode