Harold

Replayability because the core gameplay loop is fun, I whole heartedly support. I still (re)play (Open)TTD for this very reason and that’s been here for decades with no end in sight.

Endgame however, not always required.

@[email protected] have you heard of NixOS? If you’d become a contributor with these bitesized posts that you’re doing you’d be increasing the repeatability of your work immensely.

No pressure. Just doing some evangelization 🙂

‘The endgame’ really only started to become a thing with te launch of live service games. Or more specifically at that time, MMO games.

There was a time when it was perfectly okay to have a game you thoroughly enjoyed for say 10-, 20-, or 30 hours, and then ‘ended the game’.

With game backlogs also having become a thing, I’m fine with playing a game like this, enjoying it while I am working through it, and then moving on to the next thing.

Oh it certainly wasn’t the first I have ever used.

Debian, Ubuntu, Kali, and more.

This is just the first one that has made me ‘want to make the shift’, so to speak.

I specialize professionally in hyper automation of all sorts of things. Long time user of PowerShell, custom built C++/C#/Java backend services. More recently also utilizing Python and Rust.

The declarative nature of NixOS (incl. Flakes, idempotent ❤️) is what I love about it. Although I am well aware it can be quite daunting for those that prefer imperative scripting, or even ClickOps.

Nix (and more specifically, NixOS) made me switch to Linux as my daily driver.

I had been using Windows since 3.11 as my daily driver, MS DOS before that. This was for web browsing, gaming, and development. Linux was my sandbox on the side, and mostly server OS throughout the years.

Goes to show how powerful packagemanagers can be, it made me make the full switch after ~30 years. I love how my OS is now idempotent/declarative.

I’ve used PowerShell in Windows for the past 15 years. Following dozens of steps in a GUI is not required.

I also use Linux, with bash and Python for automation. I’ve also grown to love NixOS for its automation options.

Both operating systems feature rich automation options. Both have ClickOps oriented interfaces for those that want it or are unwilling to learn to automate / use a CLI.

Doing ClickOps is a choice and a mindset, not a requirement of Windows. Using a CLI in Linux is not a requirement depending on the distro or your use case.

My own father was harsh, complicated, difficult to deal with.

I always thought I’d do the opposite.

What I learned later on was to ask my own children what their day was like, what excited them, how I could help them when they needed it most… and then you need to listen. Even if they’re asking silly things, things they have yet to learn, that’s how you find that connect.

And to some extent I try to balance the discipline by thinking, if I drop dead tomorrow, will I have prepared them as best as I could to become their own person? Will I have done it in a way that they’ll remember me fondly?

So far my kids have always said I am a great dad, all the same I ask myself if I could do better every day.

I think the question you started with here is the most important one though, how can you do great/better.