code logs -> 2014 -> Mon, 26 May 2014< code.20140525.log - code.20140527.log >
--- Log opened Mon May 26 00:00:02 2014
00:02 Vornicus [Vorn@ServerAdministrator.Nightstar.Net] has joined #code
00:02 mode/#code [+qo Vornicus Vornicus] by ChanServ
00:19 * ToxicFrog hack hack hack on bltool
00:19
<&ToxicFrog>
Finally adding compilation support! It's just as horrible as I expected it to be.
00:20
<~Vornicus>
bltool?
00:20
<&ToxicFrog>
Command line interface to backloggery.
00:21
<&ToxicFrog>
Supports bulk add of games, in particular from Steam.
00:22
<@celticminstrel>
Huh?
00:23
<@celticminstrel>
What's backloggery?
00:23
<&ToxicFrog>
backloggery.com
00:23
<&ToxicFrog>
Website for keeping track of your game backlog
00:24
<@celticminstrel>
Oh huh. That sounds useful.
00:24
<@celticminstrel>
Pretty sure I have a huge backlog. >_>
00:24
<@celticminstrel>
Though probably less than half of that is on Steam.
00:26
<&ToxicFrog>
In my case, half of it was on steam and the other half was in a text file I maintained myself
00:26
<&ToxicFrog>
So I wrote this program to read either steam game lists or that text file
00:27
<@celticminstrel>
I don't have any record of which games I've beaten and which ones I haven't, except Steam.
00:27
<@celticminstrel>
Which as I said holds a fraction of my games.
00:29
<&ToxicFrog>
Aah.
00:30
<@celticminstrel>
?
00:30
<&ToxicFrog>
Well, if you do ever feel like setting a backlog, it's a lot easier to do it by populating a text file from steam, adding your non-steam stuff to that, and then uploading it with bltool than adding everything to the site by hand~
00:30
<@celticminstrel>
I dunno if I want to...
00:38
<&McMartin>
celticminstrel: I noticed you appeared to have started Psychonauts for the first time
00:38
<&McMartin>
And have advanced just far enough that I may make the Ritual Intonation
00:39
<@celticminstrel>
Yes, I have indeed.
00:39
<&McMartin>
GOGGALOR
00:39
<&McMartin>
(GOGGALOR!)
00:39
<@celticminstrel>
...
00:39
<@celticminstrel>
Heh.
00:39
<~Vornicus>
He's immune to bullets!
00:39
<&McMartin>
And love!
00:39
<@celticminstrel>
Is not!
00:40
<&ToxicFrog>
celticminstrel: that is perfectly ok. Just saying that, if you ever do want to, this tool exists.
00:40
<@celticminstrel>
How exactly did you know this though, McMartin? Obviously Steam somehow, but.
00:41
<&McMartin>
celticminstrel: If you click on your name in the Steam client and go to "Activity" it will show recent achievements earned by people on your friendslist.
00:41
<@celticminstrel>
Ah, okay.
00:41
<@celticminstrel>
ToxicFrog: It seems like a useful thing, but I'm not sure I like the publicness.
00:43
<&McMartin>
Speaking of videogames
00:43 * McMartin is linked to http://i.imgur.com/zhsjqyX.jpg
00:45
<@celticminstrel>
I don't get the "doom" one.
00:46
< [R]>
Doom centered the gun in the middle of the screen
00:46
<&McMartin>
This means the first one, back when it was doing its own rasterization
00:46
< [R]>
Didn't the other one do that as well?
00:49
<&ToxicFrog>
celticminstrel: in my case, half my games are already visible on Steam to anyone who looks. I don't really care.
00:49
<@celticminstrel>
True...
00:49
<&ToxicFrog>
And it can occasionally be handy to go "I have no idea what to play, here's my backloggery <link>, recommend me something"
00:49
<@celticminstrel>
Hm...
00:49
<&McMartin>
R: The first Wolfenstein? Yeah.
00:49
<&ToxicFrog>
(which unlike my Steam game list prevents people from accidentally recommending me stuff I've already beaten)
00:49
<&McMartin>
Descent had some weapons clearly wing-mounted, though.
00:50
<&ToxicFrog>
Descent had all weapons wing-mounted except the vulcan and megamissile, which were clearly in ventral mounts
00:50
<@celticminstrel>
There are some games for which I doubt I'd ever attain full completion.
00:50
<&McMartin>
I thought spreadgun was ventral too
00:50
<&ToxicFrog>
Oh yes
00:50
<&ToxicFrog>
Forgot about that one, possibly because I never used it~
00:50
<&ToxicFrog>
celticminstrel: if you look at my stats, you will note I have very few: http://backloggery.com/ToxicFrog
00:51
<@celticminstrel>
For example, I'll never get the "hardcore" achievement in Legend of Grimrock, because I have absolutely no interest in playing without a map.
00:54
<&ToxicFrog>
It's not meant to be a value judgement, just a tool.
00:54
<&ToxicFrog>
Personally, I'm not trying to get everything into Complete, just everything out of Unfinished.
00:54
<&ToxicFrog>
Which often means tossing things into Null.
00:54
<@celticminstrel>
Yeah, I'd be the same.
00:55
<&McMartin>
Once I got "Unfinished" to be my smallest category I stopped caring as much. It's more interesting to do the little writeups of the games I've played
00:57
<&ToxicFrog>
Yeah, I've been doing the writeups in the Steam Anonymous thread
00:57
<&ToxicFrog>
(I don't think they're as good as yours though~)
00:57
<&ToxicFrog>
That said, I do still keep my backloggery updated, just because it is a very convenient thing when I'm trying to figure out what to play next and it's not immediately obvious.
00:57
<&ToxicFrog>
Oh, speaking of the Steam Anonymous thread, someone in Recommend Me A Game was asking for IF recommendations.
00:58
<&ToxicFrog>
I already pointed them at ifcomp, the XYZZYs, and my three personal favourites
00:59
<&McMartin>
Coloratura this year is fucking amazing
00:59
<&McMartin>
Though that's covered by both~
00:59
<&McMartin>
Recent years have seen an uptick in both CYOA and *good* CYOA, so looking at awards is a little less straightforward for what they're probably really asking
01:00
<&McMartin>
If they like wordplay, Shuffling Around is probably best of breed
01:00
<&McMartin>
But this is reminding me, again, that I haven't played Counterfeit Monkey yet
01:01
<&McMartin>
... yeah, my top three overall from the Comp are Coloratura, Violet, and Lost Pig.
01:02
<&ToxicFrog>
Also, Cloudbuilt. Is this likely to completely destroy me, or is it worth grabbing now that it's on sale?
01:02
<&McMartin>
The first two of which were me saying "welp, best game since the next one on the list"
01:02
<&ToxicFrog>
On the one hand, I am good at KBM; on the other hand, I platform a lot less than you
01:03
<&McMartin>
I spent the whole game, even while cursing at it and/or my hardware, in pretty much permanent :swoon: mode
01:03
<@celticminstrel>
Backloggery seems to have a lot of "platforms" that are like Steam.
01:04
<&McMartin>
Yeah
01:04
<&McMartin>
Some of the people with more absurd backlogs probably can get value from it just as a list of "where do I go to play that game again"
01:04
<@celticminstrel>
...heh.
01:04
<@celticminstrel>
Huh, it even has GoG...
01:05
<&McMartin>
TF: Even if it destroys you, I'm pretty sure it won't have been the worst ten bucks you've spend on gaming
01:05
<@celticminstrel>
Wait, did you mention Violett?
01:06
<&McMartin>
No.
01:06
<&McMartin>
I mentioned "Violet", the IFComp winner from 2008 or so.
01:06
<@celticminstrel>
So a different game with basically the same name.
01:06
<&McMartin>
Also no relation to Tarvek's loyal Smoke Knight in Girl Genius.
01:07
<@celticminstrel>
...heh.
01:07
<&McMartin>
Anyway, yeah, Violet is a text adventure
01:08
<@celticminstrel>
Another reason to not immediately make an account on backloggery is that I'm sure it'd take forever to actually populate the games list. >_>
01:09
<&McMartin>
Heh.
01:09
<&McMartin>
TF: The only thing that triggers for me as a "may make TF quit forever" are the homing missiles of dubstep and regret
01:09
<&McMartin>
And there are often ways around them or ways to safely facetank them.
01:10
<&ToxicFrog>
celticminstrel: yeah, I just lump them all under "PC"
01:12
<@celticminstrel>
I could probably get the "confused" badge pretty easily. >_>
01:12
<&ToxicFrog>
celticminstrel: yeah, that's why I wrote this tool, but as noted I already had everything either in steam or in a text file I maintained locally
01:25
<~Vornicus>
dubstep homing missiles?
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01:29
<&McMartin>
When they detect you they begin homing in with a sound that gets louder, faster, and more insistent the closer it gets
01:29
<&McMartin>
wubwubwubwubwubwubwubwubwubwubwubwubWUBWUBWUBWUB *BOOM*
01:29
<&McMartin>
They do absurd damage, preposterous knockback which will *itself* cause *more* damage if you block your fall with a wall (and if you don't, you're flying off the stage, for serious)
01:30
<&McMartin>
... and when they detect you for the first time they pop a 360-degree shield that renders them entirely immune to damage
01:30
<&McMartin>
Someone on the Steam forums lost patience with them on the level entitled "My Regrets"
01:31
<&McMartin>
And his thread title was "Homing missile of Dubstep and 'Regrets'"
01:31
<&McMartin>
I have adopted this title, because that is The Best
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01:33
<&McMartin>
Also, it's been awhile since I've had a go at Redeployment.
01:33 * McMartin goes to die a few dozen times.
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01:43
<&McMartin>
Nope, but I'm getting more reliable.
01:44
<&McMartin>
Also, man
01:44
<&McMartin>
They added skins as rewards for completing various challenges
01:44
<&McMartin>
I would like to question the claim that I am in fact good at platformers~
01:46
<&McMartin>
It's a little less Disappointed Ethnic Dad re: rankings than, oh, Ikaruga, but if you're getting C-ranks you're actually doing Pretty OK.
01:46
<@celticminstrel>
Incidentally, in Psychonauts, do I get a second chance to wander the camp in daylight?
01:47
<&Derakon>
No.
01:47
<&McMartin>
!
01:47
<&McMartin>
"You start out with one deployable checkpoint, but you can find pickups that increase this amount up to three in some levels."
01:47
<&Derakon>
This locks you out of nothing except for camper dialog.
01:48
<@celticminstrel>
Ah well.
01:48
<&Derakon>
Exploring the camp at night is a bit of a drag though. If you want to do the collectathons, do them after you get Levitation, IIRC.
01:48
<&McMartin>
Granted, this does me no good whatsoever, because I tend to be stuck on marathon platforming sequences, not long stretches of exploration.
01:49
<@celticminstrel>
I was trying to get at the last card in the starting area, but I can't even see properly where I need to go, just that there's a tree and a rope way up high.
01:49
<@celticminstrel>
But I'm in the neighbourhood area now.
01:49
<&McMartin>
Keep a save at the start of that stage.
01:49
<&McMartin>
There are some infamous event-trigger bugs in it.
01:49
<@celticminstrel>
The game crashed on me a few times.
01:49
<&McMartin>
It is also many people's favorite stage ever, so it balances out~
01:49
<@celticminstrel>
At least one of those was in the starting area.
01:50
<&McMartin>
Yeah, this is more of the form "events don't work right, game blocks you from progression and you cannot backtrack to fix it, you're stuck in a room with no way out"
01:50
<@celticminstrel>
Or did you mean at the start of the neighbourhood stage?
01:50
<&McMartin>
Start of the neighborhood stage.
01:50
<&McMartin>
Granted, I played this like 12 years ago on the PS2. This may have been fixed in the PC rebalancing
01:50
<&McMartin>
But I would not bet my savegame on it
01:50
<@celticminstrel>
Ah, I think I have a save from before I had to get past the sewer crew by jumping across the void.
01:51
<@celticminstrel>
And I'm pretty sure I can get back to the start from there.
01:51
<&McMartin>
Yeah, the event bug involves when you get past the sewer crew "legitimately"
01:51
<@celticminstrel>
I'm assuming I'll eventually find the item needed to walk through the sewer crew?
01:51
<&McMartin>
Yeah. The bug is in fact that you can find it *too soon*
01:51
<@celticminstrel>
Ah?
01:51
<@celticminstrel>
I just got the flower from the garden...
01:52
<&McMartin>
And thus get past the sewer to the point where you need a disguise that you didn't get, and you can't backtrack.
01:52
<&McMartin>
(But which was supposed to be necessary to get the sewer crew item)
01:52
<@celticminstrel>
Okay...
01:52
<@celticminstrel>
Um, I'll keep this in mind.
01:53
<&McMartin>
I unfortunately don't remember which thing it was I skipped that did this~
01:53
<@celticminstrel>
I've been going into all the houses and gathering all the figments on the roofs and in the backyards, so I probably haven't skipped anything.
01:54 * McMartin nods
01:54
<&McMartin>
Hopefully they were smart and put figments near all critical items
01:54
<&McMartin>
I sadly don't Double Fine to have had their sense together that far that soon. -_-
01:55
<@celticminstrel>
I only got the sign, the hedge clippers, and the flower, so far.
01:55
<&McMartin>
Have you been using the Telepathy power or whatever it is?
01:55
<@celticminstrel>
Clairvoyance? Not much.
01:55
<@celticminstrel>
I did use it to get the flower.
01:56
<&McMartin>
You should also use it a lot too, IIRC.
01:56
<&McMartin>
Using it sometimes makes things happen.
01:56
<&McMartin>
But I don't remember if that was Flower.
02:00
<@celticminstrel>
I'm not really sure I understand that power yet...
02:02
<@celticminstrel>
...it would be nice if somehow games bought from Steam or GoG were automatically added to Backloggery...
02:04
<&ToxicFrog>
Unfortunately BL does not offer any sort of API.
02:04
<&ToxicFrog>
bltool works by pretending it's a browser.
02:05
<@celticminstrel>
Ah.
02:05
<~Vornicus>
Speaking of, I really really like curl
02:05
<~Vornicus>
it is best pony.
02:05
<@celticminstrel>
Still, in theory something could probably be made to link them together.
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02:32
<&ToxicFrog>
Vornicus: curl has been fantastic for debugging this
02:32
<&ToxicFrog>
Along with the :debug option to clj-http
02:33
<&ToxicFrog>
McMartin: deployable checkpoints?
02:38
<&McMartin>
Stand still at a point and you can make a checkpoint be there
02:38
<&McMartin>
I'm not sure how useful that is, as checkpoint starvation on flat sequences has Not Been My Problem
02:38
<&McMartin>
But maybe it's targeting one tier down, I dunno
02:41 * ToxicFrog submits bltool 0.1.3 to the OSPO
02:41
<&ToxicFrog>
McMartin: presumably it is useful to place it at the end of the flat sequence, just before it turns into the not-flat sequence
02:41
<&McMartin>
Yeah
02:41
<&McMartin>
The places I'm stuck are at checkpoints just before such things.
02:52 Turaiel is now known as Turaiel[Offline]
02:53 Turaiel[Offline] is now known as Turaiel
03:06
<&ToxicFrog>
And released!
03:06
<&ToxicFrog>
https://github.com/ToxicFrog/bltool/releases/latest
03:24
<&McMartin>
Woo
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04:23
<@Alek>
luke: I'm sure there's a few thousand, or so, of them.
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13:19 * Azash eyes bug
13:20
<@Azash>
So the developer of this gem defined a method with an underscored name
13:20
<@Azash>
But called it with camel case
13:25
< [R]>
Excellent.
13:25
< [R]>
whywehavecodingstandards.txt
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13:49
< luke>
Rule One: pick a standard
13:50
< luke>
Rule Zero: follow whatever standard is being used
13:51
<@Tarinaky>
Rule i: Unless it'd be detrimental
13:55
<~Vornicus>
rule a: 'detrimental' is defined very, very conservatively.
13:56
<@Namegduf>
I don't get people who want to deviate from conventions just because they kind of don't feel like it or have their own way.
13:56
< Syka>
rule 10: counting in binary is mandated
13:57
< luke>
Consistancy is often more important than being 'right'.
13:58
< Syka>
unless you are me
13:58
< Syka>
in which case being right is all you have
13:58 * Syka has switched to pep8-style python at work though :'(
14:01
< luke>
What style do you use for C?
14:20
<@Azash>
Allman for life
14:38
< Syka>
k&r yo
14:46
<@Tamber>
int foo (x, y) int x, y { /* Haha! Put *this* in your standard and smoke it! */ return -1; }
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14:46 * Tamber hammers a ; after that second y.
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17:31 * Julius plays Another World.
17:31
< Julius>
No kidding about the "very frustrating".
17:38
< Julius>
Running past the worms once is a little tricky. Running past the worms twice is very difficult. Running past the worms thrice I have not yet succeeded.
17:46 Kindamoody|afk is now known as Kindamoody
17:48
< Julius>
OK, found a solution. Just had to jump around all the time like a counterstrike player.
18:05 ErikMesoy is now known as Prelzelle
18:09
<@gnolam>
The Death Leeches? You can kick them to death.
18:10
< Julius>
How do I kick?
18:12
<@gnolam>
Your one action button. :)
18:12 Prelzelle is now known as ErikMesoy
18:14 * Julius wonders how to slay that guard at the bottom of the shaft without getting killed.
18:14
< Julius>
I managed once to achieve a mutual destruction, but I'm not interested in that.
18:16
< Julius>
Wow, my gun can create force fields.
18:16 Derakon[AFK] is now known as Derakon
18:16
<@ErikMesoy>
Your gun can also break force fields.
18:37
< Julius>
OK. It turns out you CAN shoot the guard, but there's no margin of error.
18:52
< Julius>
This game is so full of dick moves.
18:53
<@ErikMesoy>
How old is it?
18:54
< Julius>
1991.
19:09
< Julius>
Mumble, mumble, pencil-neck scientist can't swim.
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20:14
<@gnolam>
Well, you've ended up in the Everything Is Trying To Kill You Dimension after all.
20:18
<@gnolam>
It's the kind of place so evil that the planet itself should wear a goatee.
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22:47
<&McMartin>
... Australia?
22:47
<&McMartin>
Oh. Another World.
22:47
<&McMartin>
Fuck that game so hard.
22:47
<&Derakon>
It's basically a long series of QTEs, as I recall.
22:48
<&McMartin>
No, you're thinking of Dragon's Lair.
22:48
<&Derakon>
Maybe I was overly harsh.
22:48
<&McMartin>
Another World (Out of this World where we grew up) was an action adventure
22:48
<&Derakon>
Yeah.
22:48
<&Derakon>
I never played it myself.
22:48
<&Derakon>
But it seemed to be basically a puzzle game where every puzzle had a rather tight timing window.
22:48
<&McMartin>
Of the genre where 90% of the content is lovingly rendered death animations as unsettling as they could make them, repeated hundreds if not thousands of times.
22:49
< Julius>
AW reminds me a lot of the later Heart of Darkness, except HOD I liked.
22:49
<&McMartin>
AW is seminal
22:51
<&McMartin>
I'm not a fan of the "90% of content is customized failure" genre anyway - another reason LucasArts kicks the shit out of Sierra on the stage of history - but AW was pointlessly punishing in dozens of other little ways too.
22:51
<&McMartin>
Hm.
22:51
<&McMartin>
Thinking about it
22:51
<&McMartin>
It's actually closer to the early Prince of Persia games than anything else.
22:52
< Julius>
POP1 I liked better than AW.
22:52
<&McMartin>
Yes, POP1 is a much better game~
22:52
< Julius>
The puzzles were more logical.
22:52
<&McMartin>
POP2 I couldn't meaningfully get anywhere in
22:52
< Julius>
AW is a lot of "where am I going?" and "why am I doing this?".
22:52
< Julius>
McMartin: Same.
22:53
<&McMartin>
Another thing to hate about AW is that you can end up like five checkpoints ahead of where your real checkpoint is and not be earning any of the intermediate ones because you haven't met preconditions and the game is currently unwinnable as a result
22:54
< Julius>
Yeah. The city/caves section.
22:54
< Julius>
There's no real indication of what you should do first.
22:55
<&McMartin>
"Get messily devoured hundreds of times in the first person by bits of scenery"
22:57
<&McMartin>
But yeah, if you fight your way through a shitload of obstacles you will eventually find an impassable chasm
22:57
<&McMartin>
So then you know to jump into it (with custom neck-breaking animation!) and start back where your checkpoint was and go the other way
22:59
<&McMartin>
If you went the right way first, you find a *different sort of dead-end, with a hazard you can see but your player character cannot, and an obvious suicidal action.
22:59
<&McMartin>
But then a checkpoint is set *right there*, so you must be on the right track~
22:59
<&McMartin>
If you've gone to the wrong-way dead end, you also have a reason to take the suicidal action~
22:59
< Julius>
It is very hard to distinguish between "this is suicide" and "you didn't do it fast enough" in this game.
23:00
<&McMartin>
Yeah
23:01
<&McMartin>
La-Mulana is where I first found what I consider a perfect solution to that.
23:01
<&McMartin>
The Shell Horn covers that.
23:01
<&McMartin>
If it played the happy puzzle-solved tune, and then you died, that means you didn't do it fast enough.
23:01
<&McMartin>
If it plays the unhappy trap-triggered tune, it was suicide.
23:02
< Julius>
,
23:02
<&McMartin>
Or at the very least you gain nothing from setting it off so maybe don't do that.
23:02
< Julius>
I see. I don't recall taking a liking to La Mulana.
23:02
<&McMartin>
(A lot of the triggered traps have a fraction of a second where you might in fact be able to avoid it)
23:02
<&McMartin>
Yes
23:02
<&McMartin>
La-Mulana is a, hrm.
23:02
<&McMartin>
Specialized taste.
23:02
<&McMartin>
And a sometimes food.
23:02
< Julius>
Like fugu?
23:03
<&McMartin>
The running joke is curry, as it happens~
23:03
<&McMartin>
Anyway, yeah
23:03
<&McMartin>
When you find yourself saying "Man, you know where you need to take some quality of life features from? La-Mulana" you need to go in a corner and think about what you did
23:03
<&McMartin>
Likewise if the answer is "Dark Souls"
23:04
<&McMartin>
This turns out to be a surprisingly high bar; La-Mulana and Dark Souls are both mostly careful to do their jackassery in the game game instead of dicking you over in the meta
23:04
< Julius>
Never played Dark Souls. Wassat?
23:05
<&McMartin>
Dark Fantasy Action-Adventure for the modern consoles
23:05
<&McMartin>
Famous for being "punishingly difficult" but that's really more "has a pretty involved but still real-time and intuitive-once-you-work-it-out combat system"
23:06
<&McMartin>
Very atmospheric setting
23:06
<&McMartin>
Very few guideposts
23:06
<&McMartin>
And the kind of traps-everywhere system where you detect traps by studing the walls for arrow holes and the floors for pressure plates
23:07
<&McMartin>
*studying
23:08
<&McMartin>
But yeah, it's a game where you have to be careful and you have to be consistent
23:08
<&McMartin>
And it has a number of interesting other things
23:08
<&McMartin>
You can only save progress at campfires (checkpoints)
23:08
<&McMartin>
Resting a checkpoint also heals you and restores your stock of healing potions to full
23:09
<&McMartin>
It also makes all the non-boss enemies respawn.
23:09
<&McMartin>
So the game is about plotting a campaign from checkpoint to checkpoint as you navigate the (pretty large) world map.
23:09
<&McMartin>
But major things you accomplish stay accomplished no matter how much you die.
23:10
<&McMartin>
That latter not being true in DuckTales Remastered grated enough that I found myself saying "This needs to be more like Dark Souls"
23:10
<&McMartin>
And then I snickered a little because that is not the kind of thing you're normally supposed to say~
23:11
<&McMartin>
The two main reasons Dark Souls (and La-Mulana, really) got the fanatic followings they did is because they're both good at atmosphere and they both reward exploiting the Hell out of various subsystems, and it's balanced around the notion that you would be.
23:11
<&McMartin>
Meeting everything in Honorable Single Combat in Dark Souls will get you smeared across the landscape
23:23
< Julius>
Sort of like Nethack.
23:44
<&jeroud>
Ooh, wall of McMartin.
23:47
<&jeroud>
Oh, it's about games.
23:49
<&jeroud>
I was hoping for a couple of pages of retrocoding or a screed about win32 internals or something.
--- Log closed Tue May 27 00:00:18 2014
code logs -> 2014 -> Mon, 26 May 2014< code.20140525.log - code.20140527.log >

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