We're looking for someone to find a way of giving current PlayStation 5 users real ownership over their own hardware.

The bounty can be won by any eligible person who makes a hardware, software, or combined modification or method to any model of PlayStation 5, that meets the following criteria:

It must demonstrably allow for the modification or bypassing of the PS5 hypervisor to the extent that an alternate OS can be booted. The alternate OS is not required to be stable.

It must either be a one-off implementation, or an implementation that takes no more than 10 minutes to execute if it needs to be repeated.

It must work on firmware version 13.42 or newer.

The alternate OS must be able to access the PS5's primary computation, memory, and graphics hardware.

The PlayStation 5 must continue to be capable of being booted into its original operating system, with the capability to play PS5 games.

If the proposed solution involves a hardware modification, it must:

Not require hardware (aside from an external disc drive) that has cost equivalent to any substantial portion of the PlayStation 5's cost

Be able to be carried out by someone with only basic soldering skills and equipment

Just got the urge to play a bit of payday 2, what do I see? Diesel 3.0 open_beta. Yeah, maybe there'll be a good game to play again this summer.

Roguelikes are infamous for their ruthlessness: instant deaths that could only be prevented with spoilers, early game hell gating most of the game for those who aren't able to learn all the intricacies of the system, many ways to permanently cripple your character in one wrong move, unbalanced classes / builds with no clear indication on what's a good choice for a beginner...

Some games like DCSS and Brogue see this as a fundamental flaw of the genre. Others lean into it instead, turning pain and (perceived) unfairness into a new masterpiece. That's Infra Arcana.

Let me predict your first run in IA:

• You open a door and meet face-to-face with a pack of wolves. They kill you easily.
• As you explore a wall collapses and a group of zombies appear. You either try to kill them and die or you try to run away and reach a dead-end. And if you somehow manage to get rid of all the zombies you end up being infected crippling your character for the rest of the run. Yeah.
• You meet a cultist with a shotgun. You make one step forward to them and they one-shot you.
• You confront a blind zealot and they maul you to death.
• You open a sarcophagus and a ghost saps your spirit in a few turns.
• You drink an unidentified potion and die.
• You try to cast a spell that removes all your spirit in one casting.

Even if you are well familiar with the genre you will find plenty of (deadly) surprises as you try to keep a character alive for more than a few floors.

Here's an example from my recent run:

I started as a rogue (focused on stealth) and opened a door in a room I spawned in. Immediately a wolf pack went inside started attacking me. I make a step back and a cultist with a shotgun appears!

I saved myself by tossing a Molotov cocktail but even then I already was one hit away from death. One of the wolves wasn't affected by the cocktail (the only way to include it in the "explosion" was by exposing myself to it too) so I had to fight it with my weak starting dagger. If I got a little bit more unlucky, that one wolf would have finished me off.

As you can see, the early game difficulty is somewhat offset by the amount of tools you start with. Every character (except ghouls) start with a melee weapon, a gun with some ammo, some explosives and throwing weapons. War veteran (the local fighter) starts with the best equipment overall while occultist (the local magic user) has the worst equipment. Since magic is very dangerous in IA and every occultist starts with only 2 spells, veteran is actually the most versatile character at the beginning unlike so many RPGs I know of.

Now, you might have a question: why would you want to play such a brutal and unforgiving game? Regardless of whether the game is actually unfair or just feels like that to a novice, it will still invoke the same feeling of a cheap death. Well, I cannot make you enjoy experience that just aren't for you but hear me out!

The game provides a formidable challenge but it's never impossible. From the very beginning you have the tools to confront the horrors of the cult: even the weakest starting gun deals a lot of damage, explosives can get rid of hoards of undead and starving canines, stealth is a powerful tool that's not punished at all (enemies grant no experience), spellcasting while dangerous is open to all who amass some spirit points, throwing weapons are a cheap and quiet way to damage enemies from afar, statues and braziers can be kicked on your foes to get rid of them wasting no resources.

Infra Arcana is a game that's very satisfying to conquer. And, no matter how harsh it looks at the beginning, it wants you to succeed.

The Game Narrative Reader is a collection of links built to resemble an anthology textbook. It's a survey of key topics in video game narrative design, composed from essays and articles published elsewhere by their respective authors. It's meant as a resource for students, educators, and practitioners.

Narrative design, as a discipline, has had a complicated and fraught history. It has been invented many times, independently, in different parts of the world and under different conditions. Those distinct traditions have not always talked to each other.

Criticism, theory, and craft discussion about interactive narrative have happened over decades across many venues, and often people engaging in one area have been totally unaware of work done elsewhere. The Reader is intended as a starting point for those new to the discipline, and as an anchoring canon for those with more experience.

The ordering of articles here is purposefully idiosyncratic; they're arranged in an arbitrary order meant so that ideas loosely flow into one another. In some cases, texts are arranged so that material with greater complexity appears later; in others—such as in the latter chapter on process—the order of entries is analogous to their place in an actual process.

This "zeroth edition" is meant as a trial balloon as much as anything; it is very much incomplete and tentative, published with the explicit goal of drawing criticism of the choices made in curating it. This initial compilation is, self-consciously, very heavy on things written by people I personally know, including some writing done specifically to fill gaps in the collection itself. It naturally reflects a bias towards my own web of influences and contacts. But it's my hope that by putting it out there at this stage, I can induce others to yell at me about things I should be aware of.

It also includes only links to relatively short articles that can be read on the web. Future editions are meant to include a selection of additional materials, such as an index of useful videos—a lot of useful knowledge has been transmitted through talks rather than in writing.

cross-posted from: https://lemmy.dbzer0.com/post/72341319

121 countries are unable to make PSN accounts, which means that they are unable to use the PlayStation Store. In a digital-exclusive future—which looks likely for the PS6 after Sony announced plans to cease production of game discs in 2028—that means everyone in those countries will be locked out from purchasing titles on the platform.

(DCSS = Dungeon Crawl Stone Soup)

It started as a goofy suicide performed by Edmund the dumbass who turned my ice beast into a fucking dragon.

And then suddenly the dragon is against ME and Blorkula appears out of nowhere with a wand of charming. Imagine a more epic appearance.

On an unrelated note, now I have two wands.

I just thought it'd be hilarious if a dev named their game, like, "Warhound 2" or something when there was never an original "Warhound" lol (and like, do so seriously, not just as a parody or joke, at least primarily so).

Beguiling: ability that forces a creature to become the caster's companion;
Siphon Vim: transfers health from a creature to the caster for several turns.

I got attacked by the puma and tried to fight back with Siphon Vim but quickly realized I'm not gonna win so I tried to beguile it and sure enough it worked.

But then it just kept losing health until it died :c

Back in the NES days games that were localized for American audience heavily censored any overt Judaeo-Christian imagery or reference to death. Churches no longer featured crosses, the Death spell was renamed to "RUB", and the Kill spell was renamed to "XXXX".

UFO 50 games notably don't really touch upon Christian stuff at all. Except one game - Grimstone. It's a very Final Fantasy-like JRPG set in Wild West except the continent somehow ended up in Hell itself. The local religion is very Christian-like with angels and holy water and and and BIGGAN!!

Interestingly, Grimstone shares its setting with two other UFO 50 cartridges - Devilition and Rail Heist but neither game feature that much religious references except for demons in the former.

Now, it can be just a coincidence but it's interesting to think about nonetheless.

Increasingly poor decisions are making it impossible to want or get a next-gen console.

SCS Software has announced the development of the Coaches DLC for "Euro Truck Simulator 2". With this DLC players will be able to drive buses alongside trucks.

CoQ's main quest inevitably forces you to delve into Golgotha (ancient sewers or something like that) to retrieve a broken robot. Black slimes dwell there and they will likely afflict you with "stiff legs". And then after some time your movement speed will start decreasing while your armor will increase.

That kinda sucks. Ironshank maxes out at -80 movement speed penalty - 5 times lower than the default movement speed! Armor bonus is nice but not being able to run away from overwhelming threats is WAY too big of a penalty.

So, after my character contracted the disease, I tried talking to all sorts of NPCs in hope that some will provide a clue. None did. No one at all even mention it. It got on my nerves so I checked the wiki. Aaand there's a book named "Corpus Choliys" that one NPC sells that contains instructions for curing diseases.

....How on Earth should a first-time player know this?.. How do you figure this shit out without looking up a solution? Whatever! I know what to do now! I bought the book and read the page dedicated to Ironshank.

Once the disease is fully blown and the patient begins to lose mobility, gel (made from desalinated amoeba slime) is the only effective treatment I've discovered. The patient should be administered a draught composed of one dram of gel and one dram of wine[1] every day until the leg joints regain their full range of motion.

[1] The game randomly chooses what liquid you need to use. I got the rarest and most expensive one :)

"Gel made from desalinated amoeba slime." Wh- what? I know about amoeba slimes of course, I fought dozens of them at this point, but what does "desalinated" mean in this game? I've never seen a single mention of this in any dialogue or items' description. Not knowing what to do again I looked it up online.

When a desalination pellet is applied to a container of liquid, or thrown into a pool of liquid on the ground, it removes up to 200 drams of salt, leaving behind the remaining liquid.

Interesting. So the game has this item. And one of the NPCs I've met already have these at sale! So, it is my fault in the end? It was me who wasn't paying attention?

No. The mentioned NPC did NOT have desalination pellets on sale. Bottles, liquids and some unidentified artifacts - but nothing with 'pellet' in their name.

I went to Six Days Stilt to see another trader who should sell it. No luck again. Frustrated, I checked the subreddit. And, well...

Bottles, liquids and some unidentified artifacts - but nothing with 'pellet' in their name.

There were indeed these pellets on sale. It's just that the game hid them from me. To make sure I have no hint whatsoever on how to apply the instruction the game so fiendishly hidden away.

Maybe I should read on the ascension kit next while I'm at it hm?

Kinda vague title, but I was trying out some of the Atelier games recently and while I do find the crafting interesting, I can't stand the "slice of life"/CGDCT style they have. Yumia seems to be a bit more interesting but the gameplay is too simple and balancing seems to not take into account the crafting system, which makes it really unsatisfying to play.

Are there any alternatives? SMT/Persona too I feel has similar systems with fusions, but I think I've already played enough of the ones I'm interested in. They also lack the crafting of items, which is the main thing I find interesting in the older Atelier.

Finished the game the other day. Like my other post, this isn’t a review or a declaration. Just chatting about games I’m playing and posting some thoughts.

Overall I had a good time with it. Liked the music, the art choices, and the gameplay. I don’t think it does anything revolutionary but it does everything well. Almost gives off Deep Rock Galactic vibes with the digging and the gold.

The voice acting bugged me less when I swapped to Japanese which I can’t understand. English voice actors were fine and all, the game just has very Japanese feeling dialog.

Glad to have played it, had fun and got some 500-600 bananas. Heck, I think it’s my first ever completed DK game. I even listen to the sound track at work quite often (gangplank galleon is amazingly catchy). I definitely felt it was a bit overstimulating though, was just tired and sat and listened to the night sounds after beating the final boss. But worth a play imo.

Looking to play some games with a friend who has a really trash laptop. Browser games seem like the only way of doing that. If any of you all have suggestions let me know. Could be any genre (except maybe puzzle games?), as long as it is multiplayer in some way. I think they like cute games but it doesn't actually matter. ideally doesnt require making an account to play (but if it is good enough I might). If you have any ideas, post it in the comments.