I've always liked to cook, but I've never really delved into baking. It always seemed so fussy. However, as they say, the first step in being kinda good at something is being really bad at it, so I decided I should try anyway. All said, pretty pleased with the result, especially the evidence of laminated layers.

cross-posted from: https://lemmy.world/post/40438210 upon request.

BLUF: Art bad, game good, demo available.

~~With the Winter Sale now live~~, I'm sure many folks are looking at their wishlists and browsing for new games to pick up. I was doing the same last night, when I came across the store page for the forthcoming HoMM title. I must admit, my first impressions were hugely negative. HoMM2 is in contention for my favorite game of all time, and fans of the series will know that the early games had a rather, distinct, art style. The character portraits in particular are of a piece with the painterly, roccoco stylings of fantasy book jackets, such as those that decorated the initial printings of the Wheel of Time series. The style of The Olden Era is, well, decidedly, not, that. Charitably speaking, the style seems to be aping the post-Ubisoft acquisition, 3D entries moreso than the early games (odd, for a title which is openly courting nostalgia in its name). Less charitably, it looks like a mobile game. I don't quite know how to articulate the qualities which give that impression, but I'm sure that anyone looking at those screenshots will understand my intent.

Despite my trepidation regarding the game's presentation, I noted that there is a demo available and figured it was worth checking out. That was at 7:30 PM. Around 1:30 AM, I finally tore myself away from the "just one more turn" loop in which I had been locked all evening. The gameplay proved completely compelling in all the ways that made me fall in love with HoMM2, while adding loads of wrinkles and minor variations that could result in lots of replay value.

To be clear, I'm not an expert on the series or other SRPGs. For example, I am aware that HoMM3 is typically viewed as the apex of the series, but I can't speak on that, as I've never played it. With that in mind, veterans of the genre may be less enthused about the offerings in the demo than I, as I'm sure some of the new-to-me stuff was pillaged from other entries (like the law system, or the varying upgrade paths for units). All I can say is, wherever the ingredients were sourced from, I found they made quite the tasty soup.

Admittedly, the generic artwork never stopped annoying me. Quality-wise, I think it's mostly fine, and there are elements that I quite like, such as the upgraded versions of troops being totally different models, not just pallette swaps. Additionally, I actually think the game map looks quite nice, if, again, a touch generic. Sort of like if you let a DM who is proficient with Inkarnate go hog wild while building a map. At least it hearkens to the colorful, dense maps of the early games.

At any rate, I can thoroughly recommend the demo. They've got, I think, 4 factions ready to go, with another to be introduced when the game officially hits Early Access. Additionally, there are 5 different map templates of various sizes and play styles. For those that aren't familiar with the series' schtick, there is also a tutorial, but I decided to just dive in, so I can't speak to its quality.

Link to Nexus Mods

From the description attached to that trailer: Update Summary:

• Added 6 new missions; The Fear of a Jedi, Trials of a Jedi, Duel with the Dark Lord, Live or Die, Snoke's Fall, and In the Heart of the Empire.
• Added Rend2 (beta) support which is a new rendering engine for improved graphics and performance - developed by Somaz.
• Updated Character, Duel Maps and Saber menus to make them more user-friendly.
• Added a force power wheel and weapon wheel to equip force powers and weapons.
• Updated character models for Anakin, Ahsoka, Luke, Revan, Yoda and more.
• Added new characters such as Baylan Skoll, Darth Malak, Darth Malgus, Dagan Gera, Shin Hati and more.
• Added 18 new duel maps, mostly from the Old Republic era.
• General improvements and bug fixes to gameplay, models, missions, maps etc.

I haven't played around in Movie Duels in years, but I'm very glad to see that there appears to be an active community still carrying the torch. I can't imagine what it took to incorporate what appears to be real time dynamic lighting into that engine, but it looks fantastic.

BLUF: Art bad, game good, demo available.

With the Winter Sale now live, I'm sure many folks are looking at their wishlists and browsing for new games to pick up. I was doing the same last night, when I came across the store page for the forthcoming HoMM title. I must admit, my first impressions were hugely negative. HoMM2 is in contention for my favorite game of all time, and fans of the series will know that the early games had a rather, distinct, art style. The character portraits in particular are of a piece with the painterly, roccoco stylings of fantasy book jackets, such as those that decorated the initial printings of the Wheel of Time series. The style of The Olden Era is, well, decidedly, not, that. Charitably speaking, the style seems to be aping the post-Ubisoft acquisition, 3D entries moreso than the early games (odd, for a title which is openly courting nostalgia in its name). Less charitably, it looks like a mobile game. I don't quite know how to articulate the qualities which give that impression, but I'm sure that anyone looking at those screenshots will understand my intent.

Despite my trepidation regarding the game's presentation, I noted that there is a demo available and figured it was worth checking out. That was at 7:30 PM. Around 1:30 AM, I finally tore myself away from the "just one more turn" loop in which I had been locked all evening. The gameplay proved completely compelling in all the ways that made me fall in love with HoMM2, while adding loads of wrinkles and minor variations that could result in lots of replay value.

To be clear, I'm not an expert on the series or other SRPGs. For example, I am aware that HoMM3 is typically viewed as the apex of the series, but I can't speak on that, as I've never played it. With that in mind, veterans of the genre may be less enthused about the offerings in the demo than I, as I'm sure some of the new-to-me stuff was pillaged from other entries (like the law system, or the varying upgrade paths for units). All I can say is, wherever the ingredients were sourced from, I found they made quite the tasty soup.

Admittedly, the generic artwork never stopped annoying me. Quality-wise, I think it's mostly fine, and there are elements that I quite like, such as the upgraded versions of troops being totally different models, not just pallette swaps. Additionally, I actually think the game map looks quite nice, if, again, a touch generic. Sort of like if you let a DM who is proficient with Inkarnate go hog wild while building a map. At least it hearkens to the colorful, dense maps of the early games.

At any rate, I can thoroughly recommend the demo. They've got, I think, 4 factions ready to go, with another to be introduced when the game officially hits Early Access. Additionally, there are 5 different map templates of various sizes and play styles. For those that aren't familiar with the series' schtick, there is also a tutorial, but I decided to just dive in, so I can't speak to its quality.

I don't think I'll ever get tired of seeing grown men and women experience what appears to be one of their lives' highlights while talking to Elmo.

Man, what a time capsule. Makes me want to dig out my baggiest pair of cargo shorts.

The answer is: "The Dandelion Girl" by Robert F. Young, thanks to a now deleted post below.

I started reading this at work a couple weeks ago, but wasn't able to finish it at the time. Got a light morning, so I was trying to find it again, but to no avail.

I have a sneaking suspicion of the twist the story was building towards, but I wasn't sure how the author was going to pull it off, as it seemed to be a textbook time travel paradox.

I thought the title might have something to do with flowers, but including that in my searches did not yield results, even after filtering out all of the "Flowers for Algernon" results, so I might be wrong.

http://kexp.org/ presents Fishbone performing "Racist Piece Of Shit" live in the KEXP studio. Recorded August 5, 2025.Angelo Moore - Vocals, Sax, ThereminChri...

Specifically at grocery stores.

This weekend I was grocery shopping, and it occurred to me whilst attempting to find the one or two whole bean offerings amid the sea of pre-ground coffee and k-cups that I haven't seen coffee grinders in a grocery store in years. It feels like, growing up through the 90s and early aughts, most stores would have at least a few options to grind fresh, or at least the Bakers near my home did. However, at some point, they were seemingly removed everywhere.

Of course, my intuition tells me that it benefits stores to not have such specialized machinery in place so as to allow maximum flexibility with store layout, but I'm curious if anyone has an inside scoop.

I'm pretty sure I'm not an "online" enough person to share in the author's experience of what appears to be an existential crisis brought on by an old Tiny Desk Concert, but it's an interesting article nonetheless. Idk, maybe it's cringe, but I liked "Home" when I first heard it, and I still like it now. Womp womp.

Turn on YouTube captions for English subtitles.

Directed by John Woo, starring Chow Yun-Fat and Tony Leung. A must-watch action masterpiece. Thumbnail art by Tony Stella. Sourced from the Hong Kong Rescue ...

Hello c/Warframe!

First of all, I want to make a big shout out to @keegen@lemmy.zip , whose effort in writing the Weekly Warframe Revisited posts here are what got me back into the game recently.

I just crossed something like 120 hours played (across many different attempts to "get into" the game over the last 10 years), which I know is peanuts compared to many folks, but it's a significant personal milestone. It's very rare that any game holds my attention for that amount of time, though full disclosure compels me to state that, prior to this latest interaction with the game, I'd wager I didn't make it more than 10 hours in any of my previous attempts.

So, thanks to Keegen and their work here. I'll speak for all of my fellow lurkers (what are they gonna do, post something to correct me? I think it unlikely lol) by saying we appreciate the effort you've put into preventing this community from stagnating.

In an effort to contribute, do any of you have any moments you'd like to share where Warframe made you do your best ?

I'll go first. Important to note 100+ playtime hours. I JUST discovered this week that the handful of mods I have in my inventory which affect multiple damage stats are rewards for Nightmare Missions. I've felt like my main frame's power level had plateaued for some time, and routinely struggle to take on enemies in the 40-50 range on longer endless missions. Cue me learning that I'd been (intentionally) ignoring the mode which grants the exact sort of reward that breaks a build through to that tier of content, and cue my Picard impression.