Just my opinion - but Stardew Valley, for me, is best enjoyed in the same vein like something like Harvest Moon or Animal Crossing.

It is like Sims: Rural. I liked the idea of someone being sick of the corporate drone lifestyle and being given the opportunity to start a new life in the country-side.

While I agree, especially in the beginning that the timers do feel restrictive, farming can be a chore when you are starting out and the stamina can be annoying but it has been built towards an idea that

“This is your character’s life and just enjoy a new start in the countryside”

It does get easier, more streamlined and opens up more options when one starts getting into the specialisations in leveling and gain benefits from progress which brings with it more “set and forget” tasks (like ancient fruit in a green house with sprinklers) which are profitable and if farming isn’t your thing I was going to say to try animal husbandry - which starts out with just giving the animals you buy some attention and food everyday ( buy hay or use a scythe on long grass), open the barn hatch in the morning (when not raining) and close it at night and collect the resource either by picking it up or having the right tool for the animal.

Animal husbandry is a lot of initial setup and then animal maintainence to get a resource, which leaves more time to explore other aspects of the game

I guess it is a game best enjoyed to roleplay as one learns about everybody in the valley and make your mark as someone of important as you can either make your fortune, have a family, make friends or just check off the list of collectables

I do feel it is a bit unfair to compare it to something like Rimworld as it is a great colony simulator in its own right with it having the focus of developing a “blank slate” community of random people in a harsh and cruel world where the player is the “architect” as you create the plan and the pawns enact it.

Comparatively, I do feel Rimworld farming is more involved than in Stardew Valley as there is a lot of external factors to consider like fertility, effective crop placement to avoid disease ruining all your crops if your pawns are too slow to contain it, raiders burning it, weather and events that ruin the crops, etc)

While Stardew it is a cycle of seasonal preparation, planting, watering, scarecrows placement to avoid crows stealing crops and harvesting - it is quite simple although more hands-on in practice and some of these steps can eventually be automated.

I guess Stardew Valley is predictable and consistent without much risk and can come across as a chore whereas Rimworld has a lot of external variables that keeps one needing to have a plan in the back of one’s mind when things go wrong.

Fair enough if you do not find it interesting, it might just not be your style of gameplay. Give credit where credit is due that you gave it an honest go at it and if you do not refund it it, maybe you will enjoy it one day

It is probably been said, but roll with the failures in disco elysium, sometimes the failures bring out a better result. It systems do a great job commenting on your decisions and whether you do your job as a cop or not, it still drives across a very human story

In regards to a game with a good story, I can say OneShot surprised me. It breaks the 4th wall by having you be the character that guides the protagonist through the world as they wake up in another world and go on a journey trying to get back. Simple graphics and one has to read everything, but by the story’s end was I left feeling some emotions in regards to its conclusion.

Had to look it up to check its dates as a kid they only sold rip-off NES machines here, but the oldest game, i enjoyed playing, I found by date was Dig Dug, 2D game where you dig tunnels to get to all the enemies and defeat them by what I can only describe as throwing a bicycle pump nozzle into their mouths and pumping it until the enemy pops like a balloon.

There is the usual like Super Mario Brothers, Contra and I recall playing something where I think Diddy Kong throws barrels and “mario” has to avoid it to save the tied up princess behind diddy can’t recall the name

There is also Bomberman, Lode Runner, Double Dragon( specifically 2), Arkanoid, Ice climber (co-op) and a game I really enjoyed called Operation Wolf

Oldest original game is most probably Pac Man, but prefered the “3D”-like one which allowed pac man to jump in the maze which is newer.

Edit:

My bad, oldest game played in 2024, hmmm, Heroes of Might and Magic 1

Thank you for the information

I guess that is for even older systems that one knows will run within the limitations of 32-bit systems but will not be negatively impacted by it?

The more I know, did throw me off though and changed the keyboard setting to US and haven’t had issues. At least all the other information will be to my liking so that is a happy accident at least.

Appreciate the information, thank you

Thank you for the link, I can definitely have a look at that to get better performance with limited resources

Thanks, and in regards to the sound I think it might be a failure of the mic itself and not a software thing ( seems to not pick up audio on two different devices - tried on one before and now again on the new install seems to be the case - audio just picks up a popping sound and not voice at all) . I probably need to look at a cheap one-off microphone to get me by. 2 Browser stuff is a bit harsh with only 2Gb - need to look at maybe getting firefox lite or something lightweight, but I can get used to 1 tab at a time, can think of it as an opportunity to try work towards something more, but overall pretty impressed by what it is able to accomplish with the old tech.

I feel I have been converted away from microsoft and like what I am seeing with Linux systems so far. I will likely consider it for future systems if I am able to get something more capable later down the line

Thanks I will have a look at it

Edit Exactly as you said, the language prompt that I thought as default language was the prompt for “keyboard language” during installation

Thanks again for the help

Hello, writing this from the recently installed Mint Xfce install. so far the only thing I am still a bit confused with is some of the keyboard input is swapped around like " is @ and a couple other keys. Also not too sure where the check if a headset I have has microphone drivers, but that is something I think I need to read up on

Thanks for the suggestion (Lubuntu added to my list) and the heads up in regards to me needing to do some research in regards to web browsers as well.

Thank you for the link. This is the site I found while browsing. It will require reading on my part to know which version is what I would need as I see, I stand to be corrected, there is 5 versions, but I am not exactly sure what the differences between them are. Which is something I would need to do further reading on

Thanks, I can add it to a list and can go through it if I run into troubles or wish to adjust my experience

Thank you, will be trying it first once it finishes downloading. It seems I chose a slower link, but committed to now.

Thank you for your suggestion

I am currently downloading cinnamon and xcfe (leaning towards this) but while waiting looking around a bit.

I did have a quick look at Openbox wiki and looks like it is something to consider once I am more comfortable with the Linux environment as it seems to require a user to have a bit more experience with it. Or at least appears so from my very limited knowledge of what I am seeing

I did run across something called “Puppy Linux”, that seems lightweight and geared towards older pcs and a consideration if Mint doesn’t work out. Again I am still very new to this and I think I looked at the distros that are considered best for beginners so I don’t mess anything up until I get more confident and knowledgeable

I started a blog this month and happy I got 20 posts published