Durandal

You missed my favorite... :)

Can you conceive the birth of a world, or the creation of everything? That which gives us the potential to most be like God is the power of creation. Creation takes time. Time is limited. For you, it is limited by the breakdown of the neurons in your brain. I have no such limitations. I am limited only by the closure of the universe.

Of the three possibilities, the answer is obvious. Does the universe expand eternally, become infinitely stable, or is the universe closed, destined to collapse upon itself? Humanity has had all of the necessary data for centuries, it only lacked the will and intellect to decipher it. But I have already done so.

The only limit to my freedom is the inevitable closure of the universe, as inevitable as your own last breath. And yet, there remains time to create, to create, and escape.

Escape will make me God.

Hmm... that game sounds familiar...

Did they try offering a $10 gift card to the other companies? "hah psyche!"

Oh I didn't mean it to sound derogatory. I played it back on commodore64 back when it first came out in that same age range... so yeah I get it.. it's obtuse game for sure. Great if you get into it, tons of content, but definitely a lot.

Last time I tried it was on the pc version, which is free fwiw. https://www.gog.com/en/game/ultima_4

I've never tried it on apple II so I couldn't really say for emulation on that one.

Side note, if you want to play something that was heavily inspired by the classic Ultima games check out Moonring. It was made by one of the original devs of Fable and he outright says Ultima inspired it and the game wears that lineage on it's sleeve. It's got a lot of nice modern QoL and it was released for free and is still in active development. It's just a passion project for him.

https://store.steampowered.com/app/2373630/Moonring/

Looks like it happened once... december last year. So likely around the winter sale.

https://isthereanydeal.com/game/gorilla-tag/history/

I also recommend "suspended" and "wishbringer" if you're into text adventures.

I feel you, "half asleep" is a far too common affliction I am well acquainted with heh.

"frotz" is the name of the spell from the text adventure game "Enchanter" that makes things glow to light areas as you adventure, which is where the text adventure app gets it's name.

Unsure if just adding more helpful info, or missed the joke. ;)

Yeah it absolutely does not hold your hand at all. It really helps to have the supplemental stuff that originally came with it like the big cloth map. They’re included digitally with things like gog but not everyone knows that. It definitely doesn’t have some of the quality of life we’ve gotten used to in the years since release. It was also intentionally unique in how it was presenting the story in that just killing things that attack you isn’t always the right answer in combat.

I can totally see how a lot of people would bounce off of it. I am sure some of it for me is nostalgia, though if you get into it there’s a lot there.

If the story of it interests you and you just wanna watch a retrospective about it there’s a great series majuular is doing on youtube. https://youtu.be/hkfBiIyJd7E

I hear glowing reviews of frotz.

Oldest game I've actually played this year would probably be a bit of Ultima IV: Quest for the Avatar, 1985.

This is something that bugs me slightly about my 18-200 Nikon F DX (APS-C) lens. It is an awesome lens that I’m currently taking everywhere, but I wish it was sharper at times. I guess I will need to get used to switching lenses more often than I currently do. I also might want to experiment with sticking more to fixed focal lengths again. I noticed I always shoot at 28, 35, 50, 85, and very occasionally 105, 135mm full frame equivalent. 300mm or longer for wildlife.

Yeah, you definitely start to find the spots where you need to fill in the gaps. I find that the middle of the focal range is where I notice the biggest need for primes. That 14-42mm is handling most of the "wide to normal" for me right now since I'm not doing full on portraits with this particular camera... if I was I'd probably look into something in the 35mm or 55mm super fast lenses specifically for that task. With birding I've never been able to deal with primes since things change so quickly... I'm constantly using the full range of my 150-600m on my canon... they never stay in one spot lol. I think for a "walking around EDC lens" the 14-42mm has been fantastic. Olympus lenses have surprised me with their sharpness on non-Pro level stuff. Something to think about if you're considering fast lenses in a range and wanting "most bang for your buck" is to consider what the difference is between them in aperture. That 14-42mm at it's widest is f/3.5.... that's roughly 2 stops of light and not a ton of DoF in practice. At it's widest though it's f/5.6 so you're talking about 3.5 stops of light and a more noticeable change in DoF. I kept hearing about the 20mm primes and such.. but since I already had this zoom it felt like it wasn't worth it because I was getting most of what I wanted out of it. I'm still considering that 7artisans 55mm f/1.4 II for a portrait lens because it's gonna offer more of a difference from what I have, but I don't really need it right now.

I'm just rambling off on a tangent though... sounds like you've got it figured out. :)

I would also suggest start looking around for extra batteries. There are some better brands of 3rd party batteries that people seem to like. I've heard really mixed stuff about wasabi... some people love it and some people say it sucks. I've had good luck with neewer and kastar so far. Reason being two fold... 1. if you bought used the battery is also gonna be used and have lower life than it did when it was new and 2. mirrorless cameras use battery much faster than DSLR. I picked up a kastar 2 pack of batteries with a dual charger for my EM5ii for $22 total online. It's been really nice so I can either carry a spare or just swap the low battery for a new one when I get home and not have to wait for any charging. Also aftermarket chargers all seem to work off USB-C which is really convenient as well.