Gaming

cross-posted from: https://lemm.ee/post/28549378

(MAJOR UPDATE: ONLY 10 HRS REMAIN BEFORE SHUT DOWN AT TIME OF WRITING THIS UPDATE)

Hello everyone. For everyone who owns a 3DS, 2DS, or even a Wii U, I'm sharing this out to as many places I can think of, where the awareness can make an impact. Please read if you own a 3DS or Wii U at all, or know anybody who does:

The SpotPass servers by Nintendo will be shutting down on April 8th, 2024 (4PM PDT). The SpotPass Archival Project has been created by the 3DS and Wii U Homebrew modding community, to make sure as much SpotPass data as humanly possible is preserved for the foreseeable future and not lost forever in the coming few days. A huge amount of SpotPass content is essentially free DLC for various games and apps, and they could have been installed without your knowledge. They are not required for most games to play, but without their archival, many games will lose DLC content permanently and some features may no longer work. This archival project can only be made possible by the donations of any individuals owning a 3DS or Wii U (not a donation of money, but rather a donation of SpotPass data stored on your system)

This data can only be collected before April 8th. Any and all dumps made or sent after the end-date will be useless due to the nature of how the archive process works. The dump does not require you to have a modded or Homebrewed console, and can be done completely unmodded. All you need extra as an unmodded user, is a PC or laptop. There is also zero risk of having your console banned; so rest assured. The guides can be found here: https://spotpassarchive.github.io/#guides.

Update: For those who can't recall the difference, what we're archiving here is SpotPass, not StreetPass. The difference between the two are: StreetPass: Is a 3DS exclusive offline wireless tech which connects your 3DS to other systems and shares various bits of data with random people you pass on the street (in the real world). For example, in the game StreetPass Mii Plaza, the data sent to random passers are your Mii, along with your most recently played game, and your Mii can be played with in the various minigames that StreetPass Mii Plaza offers, and vice versa. SpotPass: Is an online wireless tech available on both the 3DS and Wii U. Unlike StreetPass, it does not connect to other 3DS systems directly, but rather connects to Nintendo's SpotPass servers online. The data sent could be anything from notifications, to in-game content. This is what we're archiving; not StreetPass data. Streetpass is not an online service, and thus does not lose content after April 8th; but SpotPass data will be lost after the 8th if it's not archived. Wikipedia article.

Even if you make the dump before April 8, and send it to them afterwards, the dump will be useless regardless, this is why we are frantically trying to spread the word about the project as quickly as possible, as there is a lot of data that is still going to go away permanently regardless of the efforts of this project. The data is stored offline locally on your 3DS and Wii U, so you may be confused as to why you can't just make the dump after the date. For a better explanation, here is a Discord message from the official Discord server which explains things. I am not a developer of the project, I'm just someone who is passionate about gaming and technology preservation, and wants to get this out there, and the 3DS was a wonderful part of my late childhood.

The data is going to be used by the developers to put towards developing a replacement for the SpotPass network, similar to what was done by the Homebrew community who created the Nintendo Network replacement, dubbed "Pretendo Network".

Even if you don't think you have much data on your system, please help dump it towards the archive as soon as possible (within the next couple of days), because you likely have some things you don't know about. The process does not require a modded console at all, and the official site here, has instructions for both users of modded consoles, and users of unmodded consoles. You can ask for help in the official Discord server of the project here and people will be very willing to help.

There are also many many niche, lesser known games, which have absolutely no data archived for them still to this day, so any help archiving them is vital. Thanks for reading, and I ask you to also share this out to as many people as you possibly can. Even if you don't own a 3DS or Wii U, please share this out to anyone you know who owns one, or even those whom you suspect might have one.

Edit: added some extra information, removed some no longer relevant information, fixed some typos, improved some wording slightly.

I posted a giveaway on !Gaming@lemmy.ml, but would like to create some more awareness in case some other folks would be interested in any of the remaining games. Please click the link for the updated list. :)

Few predicted that the smash hit video game of 2023 would feature old-school game mechanics, hours of brooding cutscenes and a vexing learning curve.

Yet “Baldur’s Gate 3,” a 20-year-old title based on a 50-year-old role-playing game, has already become one of the highest-rated video games of all time.

“This is a very specific niche of game,” admitted Swen Vincke, the CEO of Larian, its developer. “We’ve never been about the money.”

Nonetheless, since Larian released the title in August 2023, the company has been raking in the money. And it has done this with a rare focus on elements like story and character, upending the industry’s conventional wisdom about what it takes to create a blockbuster game.

. . .

My current rig is:

6700xt

1600AF

32 giggle bits of DDR4

1TB NVME storage

I didn't think it was a bad rig but steam games take forever to load, it spins on the steam logo for what feels like an eternity. I use Arch btw.

Store description:

Spelldrifter combines the puzzle-like positional tactics of a turn-based RPG with the customizability and replayability of a collectible card game. The result: a hybrid, wherein players must juggle the resources at their disposal using both time and space.

Another free game on Epic. Store description:

Arguably the most well-known indie game of all time, Cave Story+ features an original story brimming with personality, mystery and fast-paced fun. Run, jump, shoot, fly and explore your way through a massive adventure reminiscent of classic 8 and 16-bit games!

If you haven't tried it yet, you really should. I made it to level 24 before throwing my hands up.

Hey everyone! I'm about to hop on a plane for 9 hours and need some recommendations for games to download on my phone (android). What are some of your favorite games that should keep me entertained for my flight?

They definitely each have their own strengths and weaknesses, if I had to pick a winner, I'm going with Steam Deck, you just can't compete with their controller API and the Deck's assortment of input options; that alone makes everything else obsolete.

Raw horsepower(Rog v Deck) is a meaningless metric; Using the Rog is like driving a 911 without tires, just rims; you literally can't control it.

This year's event saw everything from a new Fortnite season to Nick Cage in a horror game

The new Prince of Persia and 'Final Fantasy VII Remake: Rebirth' were featured at the event.

The game launches this fall on PC and consoles.

... [Dr. Kishonna Gray] connected with a group of Black teens who agreed to meet her in Grant Park to show her how the game works. However, the young men were rebuffed by security in the area, their numbers and their Blackness disruptive, Gray said, to the white sensibilities of that part of the city. So the teens began heading back home to the predominantly Black neighborhood of Englewood.

Dr. Gray instead headed out to Englewood to meet them. After all, couldn’t Pokémon Go be played anywhere? Wasn’t this one of its selling points, part of what made it so exciting? “I couldn’t have been more wrong,” Gray told the conference. “When I went out there to try to find a [Pokéstop], there were none around.” She shows a slide contrasting a cluster of interactable points in the game in and around Grant Park with the dearth of them in Englewood. Well, okay, she admits, there were not quite none. “There was one,” she says. “It was a statue in the park. And it was a Confederate statue.”

. . .

Hi there, folks. For the last ten years I have been part of a game design community called Protospiel. I'm seriously addicted, so I thought I'd reach out and spread some of the joy. I've linked to the next event I'm going to, near Ann Arbor, Michigan, but there are many more available.

Protospiel is a series of board game designer conventions which have appeared across North America. The original event took place in 2001. It was designed as a not-for-profit gathering of tabletop game designers who tried to elevate the art of game design. The idea spread, and the Protospiel "brand" has franchised out with permission of the originators under a set of rules. As a result, there are about twelve per year at different cities in the US and Canada, at my last count. Many of the conventions are clustered the Midwest US, but there are a few outside of that. There's even a Protospiel Online which has more of an international audience.

Basically, they are peer testing game design projects - rather than end-user playtesting. This will mostly be playtesting by a bunch of other talented game designers. Designers will give very specific feedback on game mechanisms, salability of games, rules advice, and so on. Unlike normal players, designers tend to find what buttons to push to try to see if your game is breakable. It isn’t done to be malicious, but instead as a tool to help clean up your rules.

There is a "Protospiel Golden Rule" ethos at these events. Basically, most of us try to put in as much time playing others' games as we play our own.

If you have any questions, feel free to AMA. If you're around Ann Arbor next month at Protospiel, drop by and say hi!

The devs wanted it to be unique, which is totally fine and understandable. Not every game needs to be open world.

DRM and Game Preservation