Abrslam

There’s a lot more to the genre, and the isometric shooters you’re talking about are technically not shmups, rather they’re twin stick shooters. A true Shmup is the bullet hells you mentioned, but bler hell is actually a subgenre, there are many types of shmups that control the same way a bullet hell does, but minus the hell of bullets. Check out Shmup Junkie on YouTube and join his discord to learn more than you ever imagined about this amazing genre!

Synthetik isn’t actually a Shmup, if you’re looking for games like it you want to look into twinstick shooters. A Shmup is an automatically scrolling shooter with where you are traveling in a single primary direction. A true Shmup gives you freedom to move all around the screen but the screen scrolls through the level at a fixed rate. Famous shmups include Gradius, R-Type, Raiden. There are a few different subgenres but the main offshoot you’ll see is Bullet Hell.

A great place to start is the Touhou games, and fan games (My favourite is Blue Devil in the Belveder). My all time favourite Shmup is Teslapunk, but it’s pretty obscure and not exactly popular.

If you want to learn more look up Shmup Junkie on YouTube and join his discord. Lots of great guys and a curated list of beginner games/goals for someone who’s interested in the genre. Trust me there is a Shmup for every taste out there. Try lots to see what clicks for you!

Lara had a shotgun and assault rifle in the original games. What seemed wrong to me was the DIY bow and arrow and reliance on the ice climbing pick.

I remember how much everyone hated steam at first. The WON was fine why ruin it with this stupid steam thing?

Number of hours doesn’t really come into it these days compared with how fun the game is for me. I’m nearly 40, and whether or not a game is engaging is most important. I’ve got about 50hrs into Avernum: Escape from the Pit (a retro style isometric RPG), but I’ve got nearly 80hrs into Teslapunk, my favourite Shmup(completing the game takes about an hour).I Iove Dark Souls 1 and 3, Bloodborne, and Sekiro, but eventually got bored of Elden Ring and its open world.

Ultimately how fun a game is combined with how painless it is to get started is what I’m most interested in these days. I don’t have enough free time to be worrying if there are enough hours of gameplay.

Sometimes it’s better if your employer doesn’t know everything you can do. If you’re not careful you’ll end up Inventory Controller/shipper/IT services/reception/Safety officer, and you’ll only ever be paid for whatever your initial position was.

Easiest and fastest way for an amazing single cup of coffee is probably the clever dripper. It’s utterly fool proof, and combined with good beans and a good grinder makes top shelf coffee. Also it costs almost nothing.

If you are looking for a batch brewer that will last the rest of your life go for Technivorm Moccamaster. I’ve had mine for 10 years and wouldn’t want to live without it! Good grinder and beans needed of course!

It’s Patrick, he took out life insurance!

Lexx + Starwars Squadrons. That would be so cool.

I got a raspberry pi and some wd red drives when Google photos went for a pay model. We use it to back up our phones and pc, and to run jellyfin and torrents. It’s not wildly different from doing things on pc, except it’s set it and forget it. Having something always on, reliable, and “just works” makes it worthwhile.

Potato chips and a big glass of milk.

“GOD: An Anatomy” by Francesca Stavrakapoulou.

“An astonishing and revelatory history that re-presents God as he was originally envisioned by ancient worshippers—with a distinctly male body, and with superhuman powers, earthly passions, and a penchant for the fantastic and monstrous.”

I have one folder for movies, one for kids movies, shows etc. It takes some work, but for sorting similar titles I just click on the show and edit the meta data. There’s “Title”, and “sort title”, so in the case of Star wars and its sequels I leave “title” for Starwars, empire, and Jedi the same but change “sort title” to starwars1, starwars2, starwars3. Same goes for Harry Potter for the kids, or anything in a series with a subtitle rather than a number.

Don’t be so hung up on getting a job you hate. The secret they don’t tell you is that pretty well everyone hates their job. Get out and pursue things that seem interesting to you, and don’t be afraid that you won’t be good enough, that was my big downfall when I was younger. Since then I’ve held many wildly different jobs.

I started pursuing IT since I love computers, but ended up hating being an on-call computer janitor. I did fire surpression, then IT sales (hated that too), then randomly got a job on the railroad. After bouncing around the railroad I have now ended up as Jack of all trades master of none handyman that does maintenance for a nonprofit, and I love it.

I was more surprised than anyone to find out that I preferred working with my hands, and working outdoors. I had always dreamed of a cushy job with a nice office where I could wear fancy shoes. But now I’m a nerd for workboots who absolutely does not thrive in an office environment.

But essentially I’m saying try not to sweat it. It may take you a long time to settle into something you like. Don’t be afraid to go outside your comfort zone because you just might like it.

There’s three ways to do a job. The right way, the wrong way, and the rail way. Also it was the great white north!

OOOOOOOH CAAAAAANADAAAAAA!

We would “file it”. As in file it under “fuck it it’s fine”.

I worked for for the railroad. Nothing is fixed ever. I witnessed hundreds of code violations every day for years. Doesn’t matter if a rail car or locomotive meets code as long as it “can travel” its good to go.

When an employee inspector finds a defective rail car management determines if it will get fixed. If the supervisor “feels” like “it’s not that bad” then the rail car is “let go”.

Of course I know that. And I did die. Just mildly. WooooooOOOOOOOooooooo!

I have been pleasantly surprised the last several days. I was a little disappointed with the content at first (though I did enjoy how it felt like the “old” internet), but now that the apps have rapidly improved (connect is great!), and I’ve started subscribing to some interesting communities I really love it. It’s like a kinder gentler reddit.