roblox brings you: thread

ever since i moved back into a house that has an actual internet connection i fell VERY HARD back into a roblox kick. the platform is super interesting to me from a game design and community standpoint, plus for the past few years i've been searching for roblox games (or "experiences" as apple's app store TOS kind of forced their hand to call them) that appeal to my demographic of players so.

some topics i could write about (putting this here as a reminder to myself)

•  the various cooking games i've been trying (also listed in the try-out list below)
  
• tower defense games (in general)
  
• thoughts on the games i find myself coming back to (super bomb survival, evade, tower heroes, minus elevation) and some games i used to go back to repeatedly (midnight horrors, doors, random rumble)
  
• games i have been trying in the past couple of weeks alone (mini megafactory, super scuffle, bribbleco-adjacent games, dingus, the trolley game, dare to cook, generic cooking game, running from the internet, the storage, balls.rng, plates of fate: remastered, burger game, recollection, become forklift certified obby)
  

additionally: i know a lot about roblox's general community culture and history, i have a bunch of dev friends, i have an age verified account that can access the voice chat and those weird ass 17+ rated games, feel free to ask me questions

Containment thread for this topic.

WEAR A MASK!

I really need somewhere to post about my ongoing renewed Pikmin fixation so here it goes.

Recently I went to Walmart and they had a Pikmin 4 demo and that obsession has pretty much immediately taken over my life again. I haven't played a Nintendo game since Omega Ruby and I want to play this game so fucking bad. I can't justify it to myself but I want it

Anyway, since I made a pact with myself to not buy Nintendo titles anymore (NEARLY TEN YEARS!!!), I have been replaying Pikmin 2. (This is because I tried to play Pikmin 1 and the time limit made me feel like I was going to have a panic attack, but maybe I will go back and play Pikmin 1 later, idk)

I'm about 12 in-game "days" into Pikmin 2 and just hit 70% of the debt, so who knows how long this thread will even last, but maybe there's enough postgame stuff to keep me entertained, and I also have to finally try Pikmin 3 too so we'll see how that goes.

I DID NOT like Pikmin 3 when it first came out because I thought it made Olimar and Louie too mean and dumb respectively, but I will make myself try it and I will probably like it.

I have a Pikmin bag from Club Nintendo and it is in horrible condition and I have had it forever and it is my main bag that I carry everything in. I took it to church back during the stage of my life where I was going to church (I do not go to church anymore and I am not religious so don't ask me about it). The pattern was subtle enough that no one has ever really commented on it. It's just my Pikmin bag.

You could ask me anything and I would have a lot of opinions on it

I covered Threads a bit already here but it looks like it's time for its own thread. I'm still working on my Twitter writeup but obviously that's been a bit delayed.

Threads has launched early! You can just go to the App Store and download it!

Quote:Threads has an algorithmic feed full of posts from everyone on the app and…that’s it. Unlike Twitter, Mastodon or Bluesky, it doesn’t seem possible to only view posts from people you follow. There’s just one feed full of people and brands I don’t follow. Very annoying.

(Very interesting: I found this through a Tumblr screenshot which preserved the original ending text of "It kind of sucks". Softening it for defenders? Or maybe clarifying it really sucks?)

No Instagram Threads app in the EU: Irish DPC says Meta's new Twitter rival won't be launched here

Quote:The new Threads platform is designed to import data from Instagram, including behavioural and advertising information.

In its US format, the platform tells users that it will collect a wide variety of data from users, including health, financial information, browsing histories, location, purchases, contacts, search history and sensitive information.

HEALTH?!?!? Why does Instagram have that information in the first place???

Reminds me of a related article about Google, which I actually didn't link because I thought it was too cynical, but here we go:

AI developments detect Parkinson’s from your mousepad and won’t tell you

Quote:Researchers at Stanford reported in March 2018 how digital tracks left by a computer mouse may reveal involuntary tremors or shakes, most commonly attributed to Parkinson’s disease. Eric Horvitz, one of the researchers, believes this information, along with other user web search data, could help diagnose Parkinson’s in people before they’re even aware of it. Or, Google could indirectly raise premiums by alerting that individual’s insurance company.

Finally, here's a sample of their quality content:

For those of us who are participating, welcome to Art Fight! Hooray! HOWEVER, many of us are not participating, whether it's because we're too burnt out, or AF doesn't accept the type of art we make, or AF just isn't for us.

The theme of this event is to make non-Art Fight gift art. Art that will win you absolutely zero points. It can be as shitty as you need it to be. Arrange an art trade, if you want! (I can't mediate this for you)

Gift art can be for someone who isn't in IHA; I would just prefer you tell them that you're doing it for an event, so they don't think you're doing it totally unprompted.

Expected end date is July 15. (I know this is not when AF ends but I expect this event to slow down pretty fast and I want to have a new one by then)

Reminder
Don't forget to post outgoing links to reblog or share your art, if you have any! I have also slacked on this because I get too excited to share with friends first, but this should be ideally the last place you post your image, so that people can boost it. If you only plan on posting here then keep doing that.

Optional Mini Challenges:

• Make something you couldn't post on AF, or wouldn't want to

• Make something for someone who is not participating in AF this year
  

I have a whole writeup I've been doing. But I have some ~Exciting~ news to post first that made me want to start this thread sooner, so consider this post...

RESERVED

I haven't been able to go to Goodwill in weeks and I am MISSING IT. I wanted to go this week so I could get some storage bins for the move but, um, gestures at wildfires

Show me stuff you've found! And maybe it'll motivate me to go through my photo collection too.

Here's a big one I've been wondering for a while!

Multiple users have either tried to make map art themselves, or talked about projects they've wanted to do, but it doesn't really go anywhere. To this day I'm the only one who's made a full map-sized piece of art, and it was so tedious it killed my enthusiasm for the game, and it now takes up a 128x128 chunk of the ocean. Saul.

1) Image-to-Map Plugin
Like ImageOnMap (though, I just realized this one hasn't been updated in a while, and I can't find anything equivalent for 1.20, so that might be a dead-end anyway)

PROS:

• People can upload whatever they want without telling me (I hate this, personally, but I understand it would be a pro for users)
• Nobody has to wait for me to get around to it

CONS:

• Instant gratification has its problems (I don't like that ImageOnMap gives free maps to the player)
• Feels un-Minecrafty
• Could clutter up the server (item frames aren't cheap to render)
• Gives me another thing to have to moderate, and you know I won't remember to

2) Requests Queue
They submit the picture, I map-itize it with something like MapartCraft and upload it

PROS:

• I can individually review pictures
• Keeps a sense of Minecraft-y-ness (I could ask for people to submit blank maps first)

CONS:

• I will do it at my own pace
• Can't surprise me on stream with weird shit

3) Keep making map art by hand
And continue letting things take forever.

PROS:

• Texture pack paintings stay special
• Bragging rights?

CONS:

• Waste of resources
• Waste of time

I know the forum has polls, but we don't have enough users here yet for that to be fair, I think. So just reply here or in the Discord and I'll try my best to tally everything up and pick what I think is the most fair.

IF 1 OR 2 ARE PICKED, the next major texture pack update will make the texture pack paintings high-resolution. I think that at least is a fair balance!

The area I live in has been at 220+ air quality for two days now; that's Purple for "Very Unhealthy".

• 0 to 50: Good - Air quality is satisfactory, and air pollution poses little or no risk.
  
• 51 to 100: Moderate - Air quality is acceptable. However, there may be a risk for some people, particularly those who are unusually sensitive to air pollution.
  
• 101 to 150: Unhealthy for Sensitive Groups - Members of sensitive groups may experience health effects. The general public is less likely to be affected.
  
• 151 to 200:  Unhealthy - Some members of the general public may experience health effects; members of sensitive groups may experience more serious health effects.
  
• 201 to 300: Very Unhealthy - The risk of health effects is increased for everyone.
  
• 301 and higher: Hazardous - Health warning of emergency conditions; everyone is more likely to be affected.
  

I stepped outside today (in retrospect, dumb, but I wanted my interlibrary loan and the Volcano Burrito. Dumb.) and instantly went back inside to grab the N95s. I haven't been exposed to much smoke in my life that wasn't cooking-related. It smelled like the entire parking lot was an ashtray.

Lucas claimed at one point to see ash particulates. I might have seen the same but I can't tell the difference between that or regular old pollen. BTW, I have to imagine this is like, the worst possible time for allergy sufferers.

I had to haul my wheelchair out of the trunk today because Paula was too sick. The physical exertion left me gasping and I thought I was gonna pass out.

Nightmarish situation. And people are saying this will probably become a new annual event.

This goes hand-in-hand with the Reddit issues, but I figured I'd make this its own thread, since it keeps coming up.

Actually, what prompted me to start this thread was THIS bold move from YouTube:

I don't think I've seen them pull something quite this evil before.

I've written about YouTube already here. I have been watching YouTube less and less - it's hard not to when you become painfully aware of the blood it's powered on - but I genuinely don't know if blocking it would be possible for me.

I don't have the anti-adblocker popup(?) yet. People are saying it's easy enough to bypass. I still think it bodes poorly.