Just my blogroll - BlogFlock

PlayerUnknown wants to listen to your Prologue: Go Wayback feedback, just not all of it - Rock Paper Shotgun Latest Articles Feed

2025-12-03T22:56:32.000Z

There are two Brendan Greene's (or PlayerUnknown's, however you prefer to refer to the game dev). There is the Brendan Greene who wants to listen to the feedback offered up by those partaking in the early access period of his current game, Prologue: Go Wayback. And there is the Brendan Greene who doesn't, for quite reasonable reasons. Both of these are still him, and both show up in a recent interview.

Chill cyberpunk city builder Dystopika's B-Sides DLC offers up polished experiments for you to play with - Rock Paper Shotgun Latest Articles Feed

2025-12-03T21:35:01.000Z

I think games are generally quite bad at acknowledging that they are things that are made by people. These people tend to have conversations about ideas, which turn into implementing those ideas, and sometimes these ideas are abandoned. We've all enjoyed a deleted scene in the extras of a DVD, yet the cutting room floor does not seem to be a thing for most games, at least not publicly. Which is why the new B-Sides DLC for Dystopika, a chill cyberpunk city builder quite liked by some former RPSers.

Home Assistant 2025.12 released - LWN.net

2025-12-03T19:44:36.000Z

Version 2025.12 of the Home Assistant home-automation system has been released.

This month, we're unveiling Home Assistant Labs, a brand-new space where you can preview features before they go mainstream. And what better way to kick it off than with Winter mode? ❄️ Enable it and watch snowflakes drift across your dashboard. It's completely unnecessary, utterly delightful, and exactly the kind of thing we love to build. ❄️
But that's just the beginning. We've been working on making automations more intuitive over the past releases, and this release finally delivers purpose-specific triggers and conditions. Instead of thinking in (numeric) states, you can now simply say "When a light turns on" or "If the climate is heating". It's automation building the way our mind works, as it should be.

The wonderfully titled Schattenjäger is a bite-sized take on Castlevania where you can see the whole level at once - Rock Paper Shotgun Latest Articles Feed

2025-12-03T19:08:52.000Z

Truth be told, I have never played a Castlevania game. Just haven't gotten round to one of 'em yet! Symphony of the Night is probably more my speed over the original games, but I do see their importance too of course. However, what I have played, at least a little bit of, is a game that is very derivative of OG platformer except for the fact you can see the entire, 8-bit level at once: Schattenjäger.

The RAM price and availability situation is going to worsen as Micron pull their Crucial consumer business - GamingOnLinux Latest Articles

2025-12-03T18:52:50.000Z

As RAM prices explode and availability becomes an issue thanks to AI companies, Micron announced their Crucial consumer business is no longer a thing.

Read the full article on GamingOnLinux.

My Order to Kill Everyone and Everything Was Taken Out of Context - McSweeney’s

2025-12-03T18:15:00.000Z

“[Secretary of War] Hegseth ordered a lethal attack but not the killing of survivors, officials say… Amid talk of war crimes, the details and precise sequence of a Sept. 2 attack on a boat in the Caribbean are facing intensifying scrutiny.” — New York Times

- - -

Can we all calm down for a minute? It appears my command to take no prisoners, exterminate all traces of life, and torch any semblance of international law has been misinterpreted. You shouldn’t rush to conclusions until you have all the facts.

Just because I said “Blow up the boat and everyone on it” doesn’t mean I literally wanted to do those things. Ever heard of a rhetorical device? The media can’t handle nuance or irony.

You have to understand, the Joint Chiefs of Staff are a lighthearted bunch. We joke around. We do bits. The Situation Room is DC’s Comedy Cellar. Everyone is cracking wise. So when you hear that I ordered an unprovoked attack based on dubious intelligence, you shouldn’t take anything out of context.

Intention is such a tricky concept. You say one thing to one person, then everyone else takes it and runs with it. When I bang my fist and shout “Kill the bastards” at the first Navy admiral I see, that could mean anything. You don’t know the kind of rapport we have.

Comedians use this language all the time. “I bombed last night.” “He got on stage and killed.” “Blow up a fishing boat to start a war so we can install a new regime and steal an entire nation’s oil reserves.” That’s how comedians speak.

I might be a Nazi-friendly talk-show host possessed by the ghost of John Barleycorn, but I still have a sense of humor. What’s not funny, though, is some pimply journalist trying to defame me by reporting my words verbatim.

This is classic cancel culture. A man can’t even cut loose with his friends anymore. All I did was comment on some nautical imagery after my sixth gin and tonic, and now they’re threatening to send me to the Hague.

Even if I did—allegedly—tell some admirals to rain death on a fishing boat, I’m sure they went through all the proper channels. That’s why we employ attorneys. They make sure that when we murder innocent people, we do it in a way that respects international law.

Besides, I went to Princeton. No one from Princeton could be evil.

Presentations With Org - Irreal

2025-12-03T17:36:25.000Z

Ankit Gadiya has a very nice post that explains and demonstrates how he uses Org for presentations. It’s a nice workflow that uses Org, Logos, Olivetti, and Pikchr to create and display his presentation.

Gadiya starts his presentations with an outline. That’s a natural thing to do in Org mode, of course, and he has things configured so that each header and subheader is the title of a slide. That makes it easy to move things around an restructure the presentation.

He uses Pikchr, a Pic-like language for line diagrams. I didn’t know about it and have never used it but I have used Pic a lot and really like it. I’ll definitely be checking out Pikchr since I don’t use the Troff suite much any longer.

A nice thing about Gadiya’s post is that he shows his complete configuration so it’s easy to replicate or adapt it. I like this approach much better than the fancier packages like Apple’s Keynote that I always find difficult to use because they offer so many features.

If you regularly—or even occasionally—find yourself giving presentations, take a look at Gadiya’s post. If you’re an Org user, you’ll find the workflow familiar and easy. He has a lot of good ideas and they’re all documented well in his post.

Weeks after an indefinite delay, Mina the Hollower's success is a "make-or-break" moment for Yacht Club Games - Rock Paper Shotgun Latest Articles Feed

2025-12-03T17:06:42.000Z

Back in October, three weeks out from its release date, Yacht Club Games' first completely new game since the original Shovel Knight, Mina the Hollower, was indefinitely delayed. It still doesn't have a release date, and now in a new report and interview with the studio, it's sounding like the success of Mina is a "make-or-break" moment for Yacht Club Games.

Total War: Warhammer 3's latest free update adds dancing Chaos armies, Norscan Spoils, High Elf patronage and just, too much, basically - Rock Paper Shotgun Latest Articles Feed

2025-12-03T17:05:54.000Z

What's that unholy rumbling? An avalanche? Ah, nothing so delicate. It's the next free update for Total War: Warhammer 3, which launches tomorrow alongside the Tides of Torment DLC. The strategy barons of Creative Assembly have just put up a blog post, and frankly, it's a mess. The Chaos demons of Salaanesh have mastered the foxtrot. The Norscans now give birth to squadrons of porters when they pillage stuff. The Trolls have discovered imperialism, the High Elves have devised a patronage system, and the Dark Elves have learned how to prioritise. It's a close-packed salvo of additions worthy of the cabin scene from A Night Of The Opera. I am trying to think of a Warhammer-appropriate Groucho joke and failing.

Skyblivion's release has been delayed to 2026, but you can check out an interactive version of its map - Rock Paper Shotgun Latest Articles Feed

2025-12-03T16:43:01.000Z

Skyblivion, the massive mod remake of Oblivion in Skyrim's engine, won't be making its previously announced 2025 release goal, the team behind it have confirmed. Instead, the mod'll be coming out at some point in 2026, giving the team behind it extra time to overcome the final few hurdles and get it polished up.

This news comes a few months after ex-Skyblivion level and world designer Dee Keyes called the 2025 release goal the mod's team set in 2023 "pointless and unachievable". Keyes also accused Skyblivion project lead Kyle 'Rebelzize' Rebel and implementation lead Heavy Burns of rushing the project out the door and mismanaging communication within the team, subsequently sharing more of his perspective on the project in a video interview with RPS sister site Eurogamer. In a response to Keyes' original claims, Heavy Burns asserted that "many of the statements in his post are either misrepresented or just untrue".

Django 6.0 released - LWN.net

2025-12-03T16:41:27.000Z

The Django Python web framework project has announced the release of Django 6.0 including many new features, as can be seen in the release notes. Some highlights include template partials for modularizing templates, a flexible task framework for running background tasks, a modernized email API, and a Content Security Policy (CSP) feature that provides the ability to "easily configure and enforce browser-level security policies to protect against content injection".

The response to s&box from Facepunch going open source has been "overwhelmingly positive" - GamingOnLinux Latest Articles

2025-12-03T16:36:59.000Z

Open source rocks so it's pleasing to see it go well for Facepunch with s&box. They've now added native Linux binaries for the dedicated server and game client.

Read the full article on GamingOnLinux.

Survivor-like bullet heavens are going first-person POSTAL with POSTAL: Bullet Paradise - GamingOnLinux Latest Articles

2025-12-03T16:14:30.000Z

Ready to go POSTAL once more? This time it's in a survivor-like bullet-heaven styled setting, because obviously every developer needs to be in this genre now.

Read the full article on GamingOnLinux.

[$] Just: a command runner - LWN.net

2025-12-03T16:01:35.000Z

Over time, many Linux users wind up with a collection of aliases, shell scripts, and makefiles to run simple commands (or a series of commands) that are often used, but challenging to remember and annoying to type out at length. The just command runner is a Rust-based utility that just does one thing and does it well: it reads recipes from a text file (aptly called a "justfile"), and runs the commands from an invoked recipe. Rather than accumulating a library of one-off shell scripts over time, just provides a cross-platform tool with a framework and well-documented syntax for collecting and documenting tasks that makes it useful for solo users and collaborative projects.

No Players Online returns after an 'unfounded DMCA claim' halted sales for nearly three weeks - GamingOnLinux Latest Articles

2025-12-03T15:51:40.000Z

Showing yet again that the DMCA system is not fit for purpose, No Players Online launched on Steam on November 6 and then got taken down but it's back.

Read the full article on GamingOnLinux.

Vending machines rule, waiters suuuuuccckkk: so sayeth the "touchstone" of Bioshock creator Ken Levine's Judas - Rock Paper Shotgun Latest Articles Feed

2025-12-03T15:25:20.000Z

Bloody waiters. Asking you what you'd like to eat after you waltz into the restaurant at which they're employed. The absolute cheek of it. Why can't they just ingest my money and spit a vaguely edible chocolate bar out of their belly button? This is the central philosophy which serves as the "touchstone" of BioShock creator Ken Levine's Judas and its protagonist, Judas.

Yep, there's another dev blog out for the BioShocky FPS in which you'll run around a colony ship and gradually force someone to dislike you so much they go full villain.

Meet Willem Dafoe and other animals in 100 tiny free worlds created by brilliant game developers - Rock Paper Shotgun Latest Articles Feed

2025-12-03T14:56:02.000Z

The Soulslike is dead. The age of the Souplike has begun. Indie developer Kite Line has just published Soup Rooms - a sequel of sorts to dong yarhalla's videogame concept album from 2007, in which you visit small square rooms with feverdream aesthetics and a peculiar entity in the middle.

What was I doing back in 2007? Alas, I was not playing Soup. There's a high probability that I cooked soup in 2007, but it wouldn't have been very interesting soup. It would not have featured any spirit wolves, whiny fallen clouds, consumptive Casio men, "boinglers", or Willem Dafoes.

HELLDIVERS 2 file-size on Steam gets massively reduced - GamingOnLinux Latest Articles

2025-12-03T14:43:58.000Z

One problem with a lot of modern games is just how big they're getting, but HELLDIVERS 2 is about to massively shrink thanks to work behind the scenes.

Read the full article on GamingOnLinux.

There's now an AI warning notice browser plugin for itch.io as well as Steam - GamingOnLinux Latest Articles

2025-12-03T14:29:12.000Z

The developer behind the useful AI notice browser plugin for Steam has now done the same for itch.io, and they've made it easier to use the extensions.

Read the full article on GamingOnLinux.

Security updates for Wednesday - LWN.net

2025-12-03T14:11:40.000Z

Security updates have been issued by Debian (containerd, mako, and xen), Fedora (forgejo, nextcloud, openbao, rclone, restic, and tigervnc), Oracle (firefox, kernel, libtiff, libxml2, and postgresql), SUSE (libecpg6, lightdm-kde-greeter, python-cbor2, python-mistralclient-doc, python315, and python39), and Ubuntu (kdeconnect, linux, linux-aws, linux-realtime, python-django, and unbound).