monkeytennis

Not utterly disappointed, but certainly underwhelmed by Wingspan to begin with. Oceania + removing ravens fixed a lot - mostly around difficulty playing birds, overpowered birds, boring endgame egg-laying.

Had a similar thing with Viticulture, it just felt unfinished. Tuscany fixed that too. Turns out I'm a sucker for expansions.

I was kind of mystified by its appeal too, all that tiny text, the pointless tree...

I've been trying to contribute here more than I did on Reddit, and honestly I'm amazed how smooth it's been.

Lots of small UI frustrations, but I can already see the pull requests lining up, so I'm happy to wait.

Tacking "Reddit" onto search queries almost became a prerequisite. Never imagined I'd have to replace that with "-Reddit".

It's made researching a media centre setup very difficult this week...

• UX research (there is an empty 2yo uxdesign sub..)
• Artisan videos
• Is it bullshit
• UK personal finance
• /r/menslib, specifically because the mod had really thoughtful takes
• OCPD (a bit different from OCD subs)

I'm a UX product designer and a major issue I've encountered within FOSS is extremely opinionated developers, who regularly sacrifice usability for features and configurability, which is instantly off-putting to a general audience.

I'm painting a very broad picture there, and I'm not criticising - I'm a staunch advocate for Linux and FOSS in general, the technical execution and intent is usually brilliant.

Apple is extremely opinionated in their design by limiting options and complexity, that's one way they achieve a solid foundation, by offering few options (both in terms of software and hardware). They don't make their users think too hard.

There's plenty of low hanging fruit that could be addressed (use of plain language, clear actions, other tried and tested design principles) but that's not enough, and it often relies on strong UI dev skills, which the team doesn't necessarily have.

I've seen some appetite for making FOSS projects easier for a general audience, but things fall flat when it comes to making hard decisions (stripping out or hiding complexity, making decisions to promote simplicity, spending considerable effort on UI instead of features).

I'd love to be more involved in it, and maybe I'm being unfair, but it can be demoralising work for a designer.

I love the game, though the tiles could be easier to read - I find new players mistake some of the buildings. Also, numbers on the monasteries are comically small.. I don't know if the new edition fixes those bits, but I can't see myself paying to upgrade.

Solo is very satisfying, too. It dials up the puzzle aspect.

There's also one shield in the expansion which is wildly imbalanced, so that and monastery #6 get buried in my box

Got reacquainted with Raiders of Scythia, to teach next week - I needed a refresher. Trying to get better at Glass Road solo, the scores on BGG are some way above mine..

My smallest solos are probably Friday and a few Oniverse titles. I love Aerion and Nautilion the most, out of that series. I do enjoy Wingspan solo, been meaning to unbox the Oceania expansion, which I got because it apparently fixes the final round egg hoarding.

Coffee Roaster is fun and not big, also I'm a sucker for Cascadia - a couple of solo games back to back run to about 30-40 mins. Finally, been getting into Glass Road, which is pretty short.

I've been back into Mario Kart since finally getting the extra DLC tracks. Just started Dishonored 2 and Mass Effect 2, though I've been a bit anxious lately, so I'm finding TOTK to be good therapy ☺️

I love the idea of Lemmy and I haven't found it too hard to create an account and get the gist of things.

BUT, the novelty will wear off and I'm not interested in general channels. I used Reddit for UX design, menslib, indieheads, OCD support, and lots of niche stuff that doesn't seem to exist here.

I know the answer is for me to get involved, but I work long hours and am a single dad to 2 .. I could set something up, but I don't have time to find quality OC and nurture multiple communities. I'd honestly be a poor mod.

I half expect Reddit to announce major changes to their official app, which may be enough to win a proportion of people back.